Supporting Girls with Their Mental Health

It’s no secret that youth mental health is in a state of crisis. The U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory in 2021, writing “the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented” and “our obligation is to act.”

But the effects of the pandemic — and the isolation that came with it — as well as the rise in social media use have impacted young girls in particular.

Last year, the CDC released findings from a 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to 17,000 high school students across the U.S., which discovered that nearly three in five teenage girls felt persistent sadness — double the rate of boys.

In addition, one in five girls said they had been targets of cyberbullying, again double the rate of boys, and one in three girls had seriously considered attempting suicide.

The school-based team members at Communities In Schools (CIS) of Chicago are acutely aware of the challenges that young people face. They provide direct supports to students, both one-on-one and in groups. These supports give the CIS team insight into the strategies and resources that bolster students’ mental health and ultimately help them stay in school.

Each school-based team member supports young people at a specific Chicago public school, and they tailor their supports based on the school’s needs. This year, CIS’ team has supported female-identifying students in a variety of ways, responding to some of the challenges that the CDC’s report found and helping them achieve in school and beyond.

Facilitating Girls Groups

Diamond Howard is a CIS Student Supports Manager on the West Side. In addition to supporting students through individual meetings, she also leads a girls group for high schoolers. In the space, Diamond helps her students develop social-emotional learning skills like recognizing their strengths, managing their emotions, making good decisions, and forming positive relationships.

More than skill development, though, the girls group has created a supportive and engaging space for the girls to lean on each other. “Recently, we discussed healthy and negative coping skills,” Diamond said. “It was insightful to watch them listen, support, and learn from one another. I am truly grateful for the space they created.”

Creating Leadership Opportunities

Liz Keo is a CIS Student Supports Manager on the Southwest Side. Like Diamond, Liz facilitates a girls group where the topic of discussion is often on building and sustaining relationships — with their friends, with their love interests, with their teachers, and with their families.

One girl in the group was often dominating the conversation and having a hard time listening when others shared. Liz asked the student to serve as a facilitator at one of their meetings instead of a participant. The leadership role allowed the student to build her self-awareness skills and form stronger relationships with her classmates.

This year, Liz also invited CIS community partner Girls Who Code to start a club at her school for sixth and seventh graders. The club not only taught the middle schoolers computer science skills. It helped them learn about careers in technology and see themselves as their generation’s future leaders.

Fostering Open Communication

Katie Kerrigan is a CIS Student Supports Manager on the Southwest Side. This year, a dance teacher at Katie’s school noticed that the female-identifying students needed more support. In response, she launched a Women’s Empowerment Summit and asked Katie to host a panel.

At the event, Katie asked the 35 student attendees to write down a question they were struggling with, and she led the discussion. “Over the hour, they validated their experiences,” Katie said, “and students reported feeling heard and supported.”

One student asked a question about how to not compare herself to others, and this prompted a discussion about ways the girls can feel confident and be their best selves. Another asked a question about feeling pressured on social media, and another asked how she can feel safe. The event allowed the students to see they had more in common than they initially thought.

These strategies are just some of the ways that CIS’ school-based team have supported young girls, empowering them to listen to their own needs, ask for help when needed, and lean on each other to propel forward in their academic journeys.