Recommendations for organizations & foundations

Policy Recommendations — By on January 30, 2011 11:19 pm

The Taskforce has developed the following recommendations for organizations and foundations.

1.     SUPPORT PREVENTION PROGRAMS

Foundations should increase support to community organizations already providing or looking to provide prevention education. Organizations that effectively engage young people as peer educators should be prioritized, because young people report that these services are most effective for them.

2.     SUPPORT PROGRAMS FOR YOUNG MEN

There is a significant lack of prevention and intervention work with young men. Organizations should develop programs to engage men, and in particular young men, and foundations should support this work.  Such support should be in addition to, and not replace, funding for work with young women.

3.     ADOPT A BROADER HEALTH FRAME FOR ADDRESSING REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

Focusing solely on abortion rights will not succeed in galvanizing young women of color to the reproductive justice movement. Organizations need to broaden, and amplify the health facet of, the issue in order to be more relevant to the concerns of young women of color.

4.     APPROACH TO TEACHING ABOUT SEXUALITY

We believe that it is important to teach young people about their bodies and help them to better understand the full complexity of human sexuality (both its pleasures and concrete information about remaining safe).

5.     CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Foundations need to fund, and organizations need to create and implement, a comprehensive curriculum that can be offered by both sex educators and teen dating violence prevention educators. We need to make explicit that good sex education can also prevent sexual assault and abuse.

6.     SUPPORT PROGRAMS THAT AVOID INCARCERATION AS A RESPONSE TO ADDRESSING GIRLS’ DELINQUENCY

Research suggests that detention only makes young people worse. As such, we recommend a reliance on community-based intervention and treatment as alternatives to incarceration for girls. We also recommend funding to explore when Restorative Justice practices should be used, and funding for Restorative Justice interventions where and when deemed appropriate.

7.     DEVELOP PROGRAMS THAT ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF GIRLS IN CUSTODY

Currently these types of programs are almost non-existent. Ravoira & Lydia (2008) maintain that there is a need for gender-responsive programs and services designed to target the individual needs of girls. Funding is needed to support community-based gender-responsive services.

8.     PROVIDE ADEQUATE FUNDING FOR ANTI-VIOLENCE PROGRAMS

We must interrupt the Girl Prison Pipeline by addressing the trauma that girls face before they come into contact with the system. Keep them out of the system since we know the incarceration does not work. It is a pathway to future involvement in the adult criminal legal system. This means providing adequate resources for anti-violence programs in schools and community settings.

9.     SUPPORT THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE YOUNG WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT PROJECT

The Young Women’s Empowerment Project has developed a series of recommendations based on their 2009 participatory action research project called “Girls Do What They Have To Do To Survive: Illuminating Methods used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal.” These include 1. “Be aware that young women who identify as lesbian or queer may be involved in the sex trade and have sexual contact with men. LGBT programs need comprehensive pregnancy prevention programs, too.”  and 2. “Transgirls need information about taking care of their bodies when they can’t get to a doctor or clinic. (YWEP is working to develop a tool that we can share with girls in our outreach and also with other service providers so that we can all do self exams on our own terms).”