Grantee Spotlight: Girls Advocacy Project
 

Seven years ago, no programs existed for girls in Florida’s juvenile justice system. Other than meals, classes and occasional recreation, the girls sat in their cells with nothing to do. That was how Destiny Coleman spent most of her teenage years, until 1999 when she got involved with a new program for girls in detention called Girls Advocacy Project, a Women’s Fund grantee partner. 

“At one point, I had twelve battery charges against me,” Coleman explained. “I used fighting to express myself, and I was in detention every other week. Then I got into the GAP program and they helped me stay out of trouble.” 

Today, Destiny is a working mother of two and a GAP Community Advisory Board member. She is an active volunteer and visits girls in detention regularly to help them exit the juvenile justice system.  

“The way it was before the Project we’d sit in our cells most of the day. We didn’t have anything to do and that’s what started fights. Without GAP, I’d be in jail right now or dead,” Coleman said. 

In the early 1990s, girls’ arrests rose at an alarming rate, yet few juvenile justice systems adjusted their treatment programs to meet the unique needs of girls. Judge Cindy Lederman, who recognized that the girls’ time in detention was a “time out” from negative influences, founded GAP in 1999. It is the only comprehensive intervention/education project in Florida specifically serving girls while they are in detention.  

Currently on staff are a Project Director, two Assistant Coordinators, a Support Coordinator, and a Researcher. Judge Lederman provides judicial overview. Four days a week, two Assistant Coordinators meet with the girls for individual and group sessions that last approximately two hours. The girls voluntarily participate in the program and newcomers are often encouraged by their peers to join GAP. 

“GAP helps me talk about what I’m going through. I always tell new girls to join GAP,” said “Monique,” a GAP participant. “They might not come right away, but then they hear us talk about the last speaker or that day’s discussion and they’ll be like, ‘What is GAP again?’” 

Since one of GAP’s primary goals is to help the girls express themselves in healthy ways, Group Talks are a central component of the program. Group Talks cover a wide variety of issues that range from learning conflict resolution to gender awareness and sexuality. The GAP curriculum also includes a Teen Dating Violence Program, a Library Project, a MMOM’s (Minor Mothers of Minors) Project, and assistance with the judicial process as it affects their individual situations. According to GAP research, when girls in detention are given a safe environment to speak freely, they are more receptive to rehabilitative treatment and therapy after they leave detention.  

“These talks are the cornerstone of the Project,” said Jill Ecklund Co-Chair of GAP’s Community Advisory Board. “Many of the girls express that the GAP group facilitators are the first people in their lives who listen to them, who care about them, who take the time and patience to give them the messages that we would all want for our daughters.”

The girls also write poems and material for the GAP Journal, which they can access in their free time. Some of the material from the GAP Journal is online at http://www.gapgirls.org. The Journal not only allows the girls to express themselves artistically, but it also helps to create a stronger sense of community and peer support. The Journal remains available for new detainees to read and to submit their own writing. 

Another important component of the Girls Advocacy Project is to collect comprehensive background information on delinquent girls and evaluate gaps in community service areas. GAP’s effort to create this body of knowledge is helping to place Miami-Dade County in the forefront of providing services specifically for girls. 

Ecklund said, “The juvenile justice system has been caught off-guard with the influx of young girls. Most of the girls have histories of abuse, which means they are both victims and offenders. Too often the juvenile justice system only knows about or sees the offender on the arrest form.” She added, “GAP helps the system see them as young women with healthy and productive futures.”