WEST COAST EMPOWERMENT TRAINING INC. …..Girl Power Education Groups and 2 BBoys…is devoted to assisting youth, and those working with youth, in achieving a healthy and wholesome approach to living their life.  The prevention groups increase social and emotional literacy, educate on issues that affect boys and girls, and assist them in developing healthy and meaningful relationships with others and in their communities.  The groups are designed to prevent, or lessen the impact, of the challenges of adolescence by helping them develop strategies and thriving mechanisms BEFORE problems develop.  Once youth hit the teen years we often lose them to peers, to resistance and to other fracturing behaviors.

Girl Power Education Groups began in 1997 to provide the engaging groups for girls in Kamloops.  In 2003, the Facilitator Training program began with a training at Tk’emlups te Secwepemc (Kamloops Indian Band).  This evolved into Facilitator Trainings for youth workers, educators, CHR’s, community nurses, social workers, elders, counsellors, wellness-workers, all over the province, and eventually across Canada.  Girl Power has a coast to coast presence!

GIRL POWER…..Girl Power is an educational, skill-building and creative group designed to introduce girls ages 9-12 to concepts and skills that promote a positive self-image. Girl Power assists girls to challenge social rules and media messages that diminish a girl’s sense of self as they move toward adolescence. The group activities raise self-esteem, self-worth and increase abilities to cope with the upcoming teen challenges. Through a connection to inner resources girls will explore ways to claim a healthy connection to themselves, peers, and the community.

2 BBOYS…..After many years of requests for a similar group for boys, the 2 BBoys program was developed and a pilot was run at Simpcw First Nation, on the North Thompson River,  near Kamloops. The program has been created in consultation with a male colleague, Jeffrey More, with extensive experience in working with First Nation youth.

Since the early 1990′s when many academic papers and books were written about girls, there has been a loud response to examine the socialization of boys in western culture.  Many researchers have investigated the “boy code” and the cost of early and harsh pressure for boys to disconnect from their mothers and families that occurs when boys are toddlers, and then again in adolescence. In this disconnection, the boys then rely on peers to provide them with guidance – one has only to look at gang activities to see how devastating this has been in many communities.

Debate has been raised that girls are getting more attention and it is really boys that are failing in our culture, particularly in academics in school. Ultimately, there is a need for a focus on both boys and girls, not one to the exclusion of the other.