The Girls Only program began as a collaboration between the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office and the City of San Diego Commission on Gang Prevention and Intervention. Initial research meant to identify San Diego’s need for violence reduction programming revealed a lack of early prevention education for girls. San Diego is home to many organizations devoted to creating alternatives to violence and promoting self-esteem in teenage girls as intervention practices, but “Girls Only” has developed as a response to the community’s outstanding need for an early, preventative model.

The mission of “Girls Only” is to provide young girls with alternatives to the kinds of abusive relationships that often lead to violence, substance abuse, and eventually the criminal justice system, by teaching positive relationships, self-love, and empowerment. Each time the program has been implemented, program staff, community members, and family have seen significant impact in the behaviors and attitudes of Girls Only girls. In her evaluation after the most recent session, six-year-old Angela explained, “I am a stronger girl because Girls Only makes me happy.”

Based on lessons learned from a pilot program at the Boys & Girls Club of Encanto, an AmeriCorps VISTA member of the San Diego District Attorney’s Office worked diligently to build an adaptable, distributable curriculum that would be both clear and comprehensive enough to serve as capacity building material for any agency who wished to start their own Girls Only program. The final product of that work is the Girls Only Toolkit, available free to the community at www.girlsonlytoolkit.com. The Girls Only Toolkit employs evidence-based approaches to prevention, including fostering consistent mentorship, featuring positive role models, engaging supportive peer groups, practicing interactive teaching methods and experiential education, and implementing place-based approaches to community programming. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s National Girls Institute website has recently added Girls Only to their list of approved evidence-based, gender-responsive curricula.

AmeriCorps VISTA members have been integral at every stage of the Girls Only program: in the initial research and implementation, the production of the curriculum, and the current push for sustainability. This year, AmeriCorps VISTA members have been working to find efficient ways to help community organizations build capacity for girl-specific prevention education and the Girls Only curriculum. We are continuing to learn from the program at the Encanto Boys & Girls Club, where staff work closely with female officers of the San Diego Police Department and community organizations, and are partnering with the San Diego Unified School District to bring appropriate and targeted programming to San Diego youth. Girls Only will be an important part of this programming, and AmeriCorps VISTA members will help to facilitate staff trainings in the unique multidisciplinary model of Girls Only in order to ensure program efficiency and fidelity. By cultivating Girls Only’s comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to violence prevention, these trainings will strengthen participants’ understandings of the complex risks/needs facing young girls and ultimately affect the number and quality of girl-specific prevention education programs in San Diego County.