Girls today are facing a challenging, intense, and risky environment.

For example;

• Girls are more likely than boys to experience abuse and victimization, struggle with depression and suicide, participate in unsafe sex, be dissatisfied with their bodies, and suffer from poor self-esteem and low self-confidence.



• Girls making the transition to middle school and high school are especially vulnerable and likely to experience a significant decrease in self-confidence, self-esteem, and academic performance.



• Rates of delinquent behavior are growing faster among girls than any other group in almost every category of juvenile crime.



• Girls' reasons for acting out or choosing delinquent behavior are typically different than boys. Often girls use delinquency and acting out to cope with painful and traumatic experiences. These experiences include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, victimization, family fragmentation, school and academic failure, untreated mental and physical health problems, or especially difficult times during early adolescence.

Despite these and other challenges, few resources are available to girls and their families - especially those developed specifically to meet girls' needs using strategies designed to help girls most.

As a result, girls wait longer for assistance and services than boys do and rarely enter programs designed especially for them.