Empowering Tween Girls at a Rural Middle School

This DNP project consisted of implementing the empowerment program "Owning Up" to a group of 10 to14 year-old tween girls in a rural middle school in 1 hour sessions given weekly for 8 weeks. "Owning Up" aims at helping participants gain the necessary social, emotional and behavioral skills they need to be successful in their early adolescent life and subsequent adulthood. Empowerment programs are a positive approach to helping tweens learn skills that enable them to make positive choices. Most rural middle schools do not implement training of this type, and tweens could greatly benefit from the skills taught within the "Owning Up" program. The middle school years are a particularly risky transitional period during which tween girls face many difficult challenges. Tween girls often lack the necessary decision-making skills to make good choices for positive outcomes in their lives. The components of poor peer relationships, sexual experimentation, and poor self- image may lead to problems that could have long term negative consequences in adult life. The objectives for this project included; a) identifying a rural middle school and participants for the project, b) identifying relevant curriculum to match the time constraints of the project, c) implementing the curriculum by teaching the tween in a school setting, and d) evaluating the results of the program. The empowerment program "Owning Up" was taught to a selected group of 9 tween girls who were in the 6th to 8th grades. These students were identified by the middle school's principal to be at risk for behavioral and social problems. Eight lessons were given over an 8 week period. Each lesson was conducted for approximately 60 minutes during a specified school period. The program's effectiveness was evaluated through a pre-test given prior to program implementation and a post-test that was given at the conclusion of the program. After implementation of the program, a meeting with the teaching staff was held to obtain feedback on ways to improve the implementation process, and address questions or concerns about further use of the "Owning Up" program. The curriculum for the classes was given to the teaching staff for future use. Empowerment training is an effective tool that can assist tween girls in making better choices that will impact their lives as tweens and further into adulthood. It teaches tweens how to use power in a positive way to build and maintain healthy relationships and increase their sense of self-worth and self-esteem.