Boys Council
A Strengths-Based Group Approach to Developing Healthy Masculinity and Relationships
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2007
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Project URL (include http://)
http://www.boyscouncil.com
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Low self-value and stability leads to risky choices
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Create stability and safety without condescension or judgment
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Barrier: Masculinity Ideology: Traditional ideologies promoted in mainstream culture portray gender stereoytpes that create false notions of manhood. These notions, when unquestioned, have dangerous impacts on youth risk behaviors, including higher rates of substance abuse, accidentaly injury, high school drop out, interpersonal violence. Challenging limited notions of masculinity, providing opportunities for critical thinking and creating safe bonds with peers and adults in community offers boys and young men new pathways toward adulthood. On the matrix, a "masculinity ideology" barrier could lead to an additional principle, such as "challenge and broaden gender role ideologies to reflect authentic aspects, strengths, and capacities of male youth, within strong positive social communities".
Name Your Project
Describe Your Idea
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
Boys Council is a strengths-based group approach to promote boys' and young men's healthy, safe development, masculinities, and collective capacities within positive relationships.
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
Boys Council is a replicable, adaptable, cost-effective group model, potentially for all boys across demographics, that is easily implemented in all settings, organizations, schools, foster system, juvenile justice programs, sports teams and clubs, neighborhoods and communities, after school programs, mentoring, youth development programs, faith communities, and homes- virtually all types of environments that serve youth. The approach provides a specific format that engages youth and promotes ownership and leadership in an inclusive, nonjudgmental, respectful manner. Facilitator training for adults and young adults working with youth, and fully developed activity guides, increase confidence of facilitators to provide effective groups and engage boys and young men in meaningful connection, challenge, and purpose. The model fits in diverse settings, structures, and communities. Boys Council recognizes and counters adverse societal conditions and narrow notions about masculinity that strain boys' lives as they grow. The gender-specific, male-responsive approach acknowledges the strengths in boys and young men, and honors young malehood within a community
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
Boys Council/A Division of GCA/Tides, provides training, and curricula to facilitators to hold effective groups for boys ages 9 - 18 years. Facilitators in prevention and intervention settings (from parents or coaches to mentors to juvenile justice or mental health providers) hold 1 - 2 hour groups on a weekly basis for 10 or more weeks. Groups offer gender and age-relevant topics, experiential activities and discussions, within a council format to build positive relationships, breakdown sterotypes, and celebrate boys' lives.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
Through established networks within communites serving youth across the United States and Canada, we will promote the Boys Council model through Boys Council Facilitator trainings, Boys Council Facilitator Activity Guides, Collaborative Pilot Study Evaluations, articles, and outreach to youth serving and boys and young men's focused organizations. Due to Girls Circle Association's eleven years of service to organizations nationwide and in Canada, our database will serve as our primary vehicle of communication. Word of mouth and research reports have served to further our reach to service providers, educators, and parents serving girls. Most of these communities also serve boys and young men and are eager to offer a parallel, equally engaging and strengths-based opportunity for them. We expect our Boys Council growth plan to follow the strategies our organization has implemented with the Girls Circle programs, especially emphasizing our relationships. Whether working with facilitators, project directors, superintendents, judges, teachers, or youth, quality relationships build success. Additionally, we're open to new approaches.
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
Rather than wait for youth to get into trouble, school and juvenile justice policies that prioritize the core needs for belonging and safety as central features of boys’ healthy development, balancing strengths with risks, will shift the “problem” from individual boys to social-environmental conditions for growth reaching much larger numbers of youth and ending the unwanted "bad" stigmatization or negative characterization of marginalized boys. The project ‘s resource needs include funding, increased staff and time allotments to fulfill our goals to launch the Boys Council Facilitator Training this fall, 2008, and to pursue a solid long term evaluation process beyond our initial pilot study that begins Spring, 2008. Other resources that wil strengthen the impact of this project will include publicity, policy papers, and knowledgeable and experienced men of diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise to contribute to the project as trainers, group facilitators, and/or advocates for boys and young men. Ongoing research is essential to provide the evidence supporting Boys Council programming.
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
Boys and young men gain belonging and value in their communities, voicing needs, questions, and experiences, and accessing individual and collective resources to safely navigate their transition into a responsible, connected, and confident young adulthood, with a sense of purpose and place in society, culture, history, and meaningful relationships.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
In its’ first year of release, it has begun being implemented in violence prevention and youth programs in Tampa, Florida, San Diego and Los Angeles, The Dalles, OR, Seattle, WA, Hartford, CT, Springfield, MO, and a growing list of locations. Six organizations have requested to participate in our pilot study. Dozens of organizations are on our waiting list to participate in our Boys Council Facilitator Training beginning later this year. Hundreds of Boys Council Facilitator Activity Guides, for boys ages 9 - 18 years, have been purchased. Leaders of public and nonprofit youth programs are expressing strong interest. Girls Circle Associations has an excellent reputation , providing an effective, research-based, highly valued gender-responsive model, curricula, and training for over a decade. The success has influenced institutions and decision makers on policy, approach, and programs affecting girls. These organizations want and anticipate Boys Council programs to similarly effect boys and young men with equally positive outcomes.
Number of individuals served
Facilitators Trained: Since 1997, approximately 10,000 facilitators, serving approximately 50,000 or more girls and possibly up to 2500 boys.
Community impact
Boys Council community impact is just beginning. Our organizations's impact on girls' development has resulted in outstanding promising outcomes including: reduced rates of alcohol use and self-harm behaviors, increased social connection and school bonding, increased self-efficacy and positive body image. Studies show that the model is effective for all girls, across all socio-economic, ethnic, geographical areas and across prevention and intervention groups. . Residential treatment homes and secure facilities and other institutions have recorded dramatic reductions of incidents of fighting between girls and reduced incidents of girl-staff conflicts, while seeing gains in girl-staff and girl-to-girl relationship skills development. . In Sonoma and Santa Cruz Counties of California, Title II grants were awarded to county probation departments to implement and evaluate Girls Circle programs for adolescent girls. These counties and others are identifying the value of these service-oriented empowerment model groups for the young women in their care, and seeking to expand and sustain these programs beyond their 3 year Title II funding cycle. These programs additionally are influencing community relationships. As service providers within different sectors of communities (schools, after school programs, agencies, legal system, faith communities, youth development organizations) train together and cross refer for Girls Circles, they are building a continuity across settings, a commonality in skill sets and approaches, and opportunity to network and support one another’s services to youth. A “Continuum of Care” Model for Girls Circles and Boys Councils has been developed to address the needs for youth to have consistent opportunities for safe spaces and safe relationships. For example, in Sonoma County, CA, an 8 week Girls Circle program is available for every girl, whether she is in a diversion program, detention, on probation, in a secure facility, and/or, in an aftercare period. This model is now being replicated and adopted in multiple county legal systems in recognition that girls grow and develop within safe and healthy relationships and relational structures.
Society at large
Boys Council and Girls Circle models challenge and reject societal attitudes that diminish youth abilities, or characterize youth as bad, mean, or worthless and in need of being “changed”. We recognize that the vast majority of youth that enter the legal system are victims of crime, especially crimes of abuse, neglect, and domestic violence. We question and reject punitive, isolating, or shaming “interventions” for youth at risk. Our models recognize the power and capacity of connected youth for safe and healthy decision making, when respect, listening, kind and fair expectations are demonstrated to all youth.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
A Boys Council Survey that includes validated, strengths-based measurement scales and questions specific to the Boys Council goals, for use in the Spring 2008 Pilot study through Portland State University in Oregon. The survey is quantitative and qualitative, addressing: cooperative and caring behaviors emotional tolerance ethnic pride educational goals harm reduction Longer term, focus groups, administrative data, and community stories will also measure impact. While we strive toward gaining evidence and seek to gather comparison data, our research policy is to never deny services to any youth seeking to participate.
Issue Selector
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
Our revenue stream in GCA/Tides stems from two primary sources: Facilitator Trainings of Girls Circles or Boys Councils, and Facilitator Activity Guides (curricula) sales. We are developing a Boys Council Facilitator Training to launch later in 2008, and coordinating pilot outcome studies through collaborations with at least six organizations and Portland State University, OR, this Spring. Current sales of Boys Council Facilitator Activity Guides is increasing. Our Girls Circle Facilitator Activity Guides and Girls Circle Facilitator Trainings and Advanced Trainings provide limited financing toward the Boys Council development. Our expectation is that positive outcomes in our Boys Council Pilot Study will assist us in seeking funding for additional research as we work toward gaining evidenced-based status. In addition, once our Boys Council Facilitator Training launches, we anticipate that growth in this model will be rapid, since we have a large, returning client base. With many of the organizations serving more boys than girls, especially in the justice system, we do expect to see similar jump in sales to parallel the current revenue percentages.
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
Annual budget: $650,000. Revenues: from trainings, approximately 55% Revenues from sales of the curricula guides, approximately 45% Three full time staff, three part time staff As we are not direct service providers, we have not received significant foundation support, although we have been collaborative partners with other entities seeking grants for their districts, counties, or agencies. We have been supported in local efforts to enhance S.F. Bay Area groups by Marin Charitable Association, and received funding from the Wells Fargo Foundation to adapt curricula for Spanish-speakers. Additionally, we have nine licensed trainers to provide regional or organizational trainings of the GC Model, and anticipate gaining two to four lead trainers for the Boys Council Facilitator Trainings.
Who are your potential partners and allies?
Current partners: Portland State University, Oregon, Applied Social and Community Psychology for initial evaluation, and Youth organizations including: Metro YMCA Seattle Foundation for Second Chances, Los Angeles, Boys Initiative of Tampa, FL, St. Francis Homes in CT, The Dalles Middle School, OR, “R” House, Santa Rosa, CA and more. We expect potential partners to include juvenile justice and educational entities, and foundations and government entities seeking to change the trajectories, perceptions of, and opportunities for boys and young men.
Who are your potential investors?
Public school districts, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Education, Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Safe and Drug Free Schools Initiative Entities, as well as potential partnering organizations including Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCA, and individual agencies and individual donors.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
Boys Council emerged from several directions : 1. As we listened to girls in Girls Circle groups , we heard stories of girls’ and boys’ interactions, many confusing or hurtful, and we witnessed the layers of gender and culturally based role identity expectations and stereotypes thrust upon them as they become adolescents, and how these influence their actions , beliefs, and relationships. We wanted to provide boys with the opportunity for safe places to talk about these expectations and realities, too. 2. We’re at a place where everyone who cares has got to do everything they can. Boys’ marginalization and racial disparities that have generated disproportionate minority rates of incarceration, gang violence, random shootings, violence against girls and women, depression and risk of suicide - risks and failures of our social system to meet needs for education, health care, and opportunities…all of these aspects of the environment are trashing young men’s lives. We listen to girls describe the loss of a cousin over the weekend in a random shooting. We see boys develop masks and retreat from their full and real expressions of themselves. We know it’s time to name the problems and to provide a safe environments for boys to come together, look at the bigger picture, and find their place and purpose. 3. Many brilliant, dedicated colleagues across the country have adapted the format of the Girls Circle model to a group approach for boys and young men. They have shared their stories: how gang members who wouldn’t go near each other in the community would sit in Council together and become respectful toward each other; how young men with very tough outside images would open up and share profound losses, fears, angers, anxieties, and need for connection; how they’d develop a “family” of peers. 4. From the time my son was five years old, he would see his sisters go off to Girls Circles, and he’d ask “When will there be a Boys Circle?”. When he became 12 years old, another parent and I met with seven boys in a Boys Council. We played percussions, told jokes, and used a question box for boys to ask about situations on their minds. In between the energetic moments, there were stories of frustration because they weren’t getting along with a parent, friend, or teacher. There were dilemmas shared, when boys felt threatened on the school ground by older kids and were looking for help. Sometimes anger showed up, or hurt. The boys exchanged wise suggestions, support, and messages of having been there. They told each other when to quit, or how to hang in there, or just let each other be. As parents and relatives of boys and young men, we know the power and inspiration that lies inside boys and young men. We know without a doubt that in the right conditions – caring, connected, safe, and gender-relevant - they can grow and develop full and rich lives–safely, wisely, with humor, respect, justice, opportunity, creativity, inspiration, and purpose.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Beth Hossfeld, M.S. MFT, earned a Masters of Science in Counseling in 1986 San Francisco State University, CA. She is Co-Founder and Associate Director of Girls Circle Association, and is a licensed marriage, family and child therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an emphasis on children, teens and their families. With Executive Director and Co-Founder Giovanna Taormina, she created and developed the Girls Circle Model, training, curricula, and organization that has become a national leader in youth serving program approaches. Beth is Project Director of the Boys Council Division of the organization, a lead trainer and consultant on the Girls Circle and Boys Council models, co-author of the Girls Circle Facilitator Training Manual as well as many of the Girls Circle curricula, and Research Coordinator for both Girls Circle and Boys Council efforts. She is a contributing author to the Handbook on Prevention and Intervention Programs for Adolescent Girls, 2008, C. LeCroy, Ed. She facilitates a Girls Circle program at a continuation high school and maintains a therapy practice. Beth previously served as Clinical Director of a broad school-based mental health and substance abuse prevention project, as well as an outpatient adolescent treatment program. Beth continues to provide clinical supervision and consultation to mental health practitioners.. She and her husband, Steve, are parents of two grown daughters and a teen son. E-mail: Beth.Hossfeld@gmail.com. Phone: (415) 388-0644 or (707)794-9477
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