Austin Nonprofit Receives Texas Bar Foundation Grant to Develop Self-Improvement Programming for Incarcerated Girls

Girls Connect School Program Prioritizes Low-Income Campuses

The Girls Empowerment Network (GEN) has received funding from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Texas Bar Foundation (TBF) to expand its Girl Connect school program to include Texas girls who are involved with the Texas juvenile justice system.

Currently, Girl Connect serves girls across 84 program sites throughout Texas, including Austin. Using research-based, trauma-informed techniques, the program teaches girls risky behavior avoidance, goal setting, healthy relationship skills, growth mindset, and positive communication.

Using funding from the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and a $5,000 grant from TBF, a Girl Connect program has been developed and is being piloted for the adolescent girls in the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart, Texas.

The Girls Connect school program prioritizes low-income campuses.

“Girls of color are most impacted by the juvenile justice system,” said Angela Montijo, GEN’s juvenile justice program facilitator and licensed social worker. “Often, there is a history of trauma, substance use, intersectionality, oppression, and systemic barriers involved in their experience.”

In the 2020-21 school year, 95 percent of GEN’s programs were at schools participating in the Title 1 program of the U.S. Department of Education, according to a GEN press release. These schools have high populations of children from low-income families.

GEN’s programs have a proven track record of benefiting at-risk girls in schools, the press release said.

Across four years of programming, girls ages 8-18 show significant increases in overall self-efficacy, and an increase in self-efficacy in seven specific domains: collaboration, communication, confidence, coping skills, creativity, critical thinking, and bonding, the press release said.

“Extending this program to girls involved in the juvenile justice system in ways that are culturally relevant will give all girls essential tools for their long-term well-being and resilience,” said tional facilities in spring 2024,” said Montijo.

GEN partnered with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) and the Excellence & Advancement Foundation (EAF) to develop and implement its pilot program for the girls in the McLennan jail.

“GEN invited EAF to contribute their expertise in racial equity programming and managing wraparound services for Texas youth of color entangled in the school-to-prison pipeline, so all programming is culturally relevant,” the press release said.

GEN also has a fan in Shandra Carter, executive director of TJJD, who first attended a GEN event several years ago. She said she was thrilled when GEN started looking around for partners for its pilot program.

“This program will serve as an important adjunct to our programming, helping our young women build the resilience and emotional agency they need for a safer, healthier, and happier future, ”Carter said.

The program is expected to begin this summer.

“Our goal is to offer these groups in-person or virtually to additional Texas juvenile correctinal facilities in spring 2024," said Montijo.

Plans to expand Girl Connect to juvenile jails date back to before the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the pandemic derailed the initial plans, it also gave GEN time to refine their idea and expand its scope. With the proliferation of virtual meeting technology such as Zoom during the pandemic, suddenly virtual Girl Connect programs became feasible.

“This gift of time prepared us to apply for and win our first federal grant to implement programming with the potential to change the trajectory of each girl’s life,” said Julia Cuba Lewis, CEO of GEN.

The Girl Connect program is associated with lower disciplinary issues, higher self-efficacy, bonding, prosocial behaviors, academic achievement, and school attendance, the GEN press release said.

In addition to programs in Austin and Travis County, GEN and Girl Connect programs currently also operate in schools in Williamson, Hays, Caldwell, Harris, Bexar, and Dallas counties.

GEN, originally called The Ophelia Project, is a 501(c)(3) created in 1996 by concerned mothers raising adolescent girls in Austin. Inspired by the book Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, these mothers met to address an increasing trend among middleschool-aged girls—a systematic decline and sometimes permanent loss of self-esteem, the outcome of which can be devastating: epidemic levels of anorexia/bulimia, self-mutilation, depression, low academic achievement, teen pregnancy, and drug abuse.