A July 2023 New York Times article noted that "The proportion of teen girls visiting emergency rooms in mental health crisis rose 22 percent in the pandemic’s second year, while the proportion of teen boys visiting declined." The stats grow increasingly stark for young Black and Brown girls.
When we all come together, as a society, to wrap our arms around the schools, families, and communities that these girls are in, our young girls have a better chance of living with a better state of well-being.
Join us on October 5, 2023, 5pmEST at Ella P. Stewart Academy for Girls, 707 Avondale, Toledo Ohio for our Head Full of Dreams (HFOD) Kick-Off to Learn and Support our Efforts to Help Young Girls Dream and Build their Confidence.
Can't make the meeting, DONATE to our cause. Read more below!
My name is Diana Patton, and I am the CEO and Founder of Rise with Diana, the Rise Advocates® Academy and we are excited to share that our Head Full of Dreams Initiative (HFOD) (currently awaiting 501(C)(3) Ohio Secretary of State approval), is the a part of the solutions for young girls who may be suffering in silence.
The HFOD Initiative's purpose is to provide community support to young middle school aged girls that encourages and inspires them to believe and activate their dreams, to love themselves, establish a sense of self-worth, actively participate in school, and enjoy the learning process through mentorship, sponsorship and allyship.
Click HERE to learn of the origin of the HFOD Initiative.
We are entering our third year at the Ella P. Stewart Academy for Girls. Our first year of the HFOD program at Ella was 2021-2022 with Mrs. Kelly Szurko’s 6th-grade students, and the second year with was with Mrs. Lauren Hixon's 5th class.
As a result of these two years, we discovered that the girls still need our support, and we want to provide more incentives for the parents. If you'd like to take a deeper dive into our results thus far, please click HERE. The following are a list of topics that we intend to focus on this year:
- Friendships (what it looks like to be a friend, can you have more than one best friend? can your best friend have other friends?)
- How do you navigate all of this?
- Social media - do's and don'ts/ safety
- Integrity
- Kindness & respect (whether you like someone or not)
- What does being a good student look like
- Sisterhood
- Body image
- Self esteem
- Healthy communication
- Conflict mediation
- Etiquette: dining, how to sit when wearing skirts, how to bend over to pick up dropped items Responsibility
- Leadership/ role models
- Confidence - what is/what does confidence look like, social medial influences, body shaming etc.
- Mental Health- all of its importance - who to reach out to and identifying/validate specific emotions as they get older etc.
This year, like last year, we are asking for contributions from our community for programming dollars in the amount of $4,000, this will help to pay for the incentives to the students and the parents, and cover all other costs related to programming.
Considering we are currently waiting for our 501(C)(3) approval, we are not able to provide a charitable tax deduction as of yet.
However, we still ask that you please join us to help us as we work to encourage and inspire the Ella 5th-grade girls to believe and live out their dreams.
Should you have any questions, please contact Diana Patton.