ABOUT VIVA LA GIRL
Experience
has taught us that in order to prevent social-emotional maladjustment and
academic difficulties in girls as they make their way to middle school, it is
important to provide a strong foundation they can relay on to cope with the
pressures of early adulthood. In an effort to build a strong foundation it was
important to provide girls with the social skills and character education while
in elementary school. Viva La Girl is
a girls’ club designed and created by School Psychologist at the San Ysidro
School District, under the umbrella of Special Education Services.
MISSION
The
mission of Viva La Girl is to improve
academic achievement, attendance, and social-emotional well-being, by fostering
positive female role models.
WHO ARE VIVA LA GIRLS?
Viva La Girls is housed at Sunset
Elementary School within the San Ysidro School District. To begin the program,
the previous years teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire, which
identified three “at risk” students and one “model” student. When Identifying
girls who had been in their class and who they considered to be “at risk”,
teachers were asked to consider the following factors: negative/disruptive
behavior at school, high truancy rates and/or absenteeism, low academic
success, poor self-esteem, and difficulty managing pressure and anxiety. In
addition, they were asked to look at character traits such as being overly shy,
passive, submissive, overly quiet, and girls who could be compensating for
their lack of self-esteem by showing a superior attitude. When looking for a
“model” student, teachers were asked to refer a girl who displayed
characteristics and traits such as a girl who was confident, caring, helped
others, and had a positive attitude towards her self and others. The
ideological approach is to provide “at-risk” girls the opportunity to learn by
interacting with “model” peers in a social setting, which may not otherwise
have had the opportunity to be successful.
VIVA LA GIRL AND
RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)
Viva La Girl has also become a
valuable resource as part of Response to Intervention (RtI). Since the focus of
RtI is to provide early interventions within the general education setting to
foster academic and behavioral success within a three-tiered model, It seemed
appropriate to add Viva La Girl to
the behavior component of Response to intervention. Viva La Girls include general education and special education
students.
GROUP THEMES
During
the session, the girls work on evidence-based curriculum, which covers the
monthly theme and life skills. The lesson plans are preventative and proactive.
When creating Viva La Girl, six life skills, which were identified as essential
were organized by monthly themes. Art is intertwined within each monthly theme.
This gives girls the opportunity to be creative and show expression through
art. The themes covered were:
- Self Discovery
(Who am I?)
- Making Choices
(This or That?)
- Positive Self
Image(My Sassy Self)
- Healthy
Friendships (Viva La Gal Pals)
- Leadership Skills
(Personal Power)
- Planning for the
future
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Viva La
Girl is a girls club that
provides mentoring and support to school-aged girls through small group. The
group focuses on improving behavior and academic success while building
relationships, promoting self-esteem, creating a positive self-image, becoming
a positive role model, promoting health and fitness and building resiliency.
Girls involved in the group have one or more of the following risk-factors:
n Negative/disruptive
behavior in school settings
n High truancy rate and
or absenteeism
n Low academic success
n Appear to have low
self-esteem
n Unable to handle
pressure and anxiety
The
goals of Viva La Girl is to outreach
and build positive mentoring relationships with girls, to utilize girls’ “real
life” experiences teaching them alternatives for positive results, to affect
personal change, and to positively connect with school and recognize academic
achievement as a key to success and happiness.
We
are very excited to lead by example and start this all girls club at your
school!
Thank you,
Lizcett
Porras
School
Psychologist
Sunset
Elementary School
(619)
428-1148 Ext. 3657
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