Boston Public Schools, Girls' LEAP and Big Sister Boston are joining forces this April Vacation to help make schools safer for young people by providing young girls and gender expansive youth with the skills, knowledge, and support to keep themselves safe both in and outside of school.

The program will take place Tuesday April 19th to Friday April 22nd. 10am-2pm. Programming will take at the Dearborn STEM Academy, 36 Winthrop Street Roxbury, MA 02119. Parents are expected to provide transportation to and from programming for middle schools students each day and high school students will arrive and dismiss themselves each day.

What is Girls’ LEAP?

Girls’ LEAP is a physical self-defense and social-emotional skill building program that helps youth learn how to respond to a variety of unsafe situations – from peer pressure, arguments and saying no to friends, to how to escape from a situation where someone wants to hurt you. Every class is led by a Girls’ LEAP-certified adult female/non-binary teacher. Students from nearby colleges and high schools are assistant teachers. Girls’ LEAP takes your child's safety very seriously. Before learning skills that could hurt an attacker, all participants must agree to the “Girls’ LEAP’s Promise”: she will only use her self-defense skills in serious situations, and if she does have to use them, she will talk about it with an adult she trusts.

During April Vacation week, our LEAP team will lead a series of classes for your child alongside Big Sister Boston's Mentoring Program.


What is Big Sister Boston?

Our mission is to ignite girls’ passion and power to succeed through positive mentoring relationships with women and enrichment programs that support girls’ healthy development.

Ultimately, our vision is to create a mentor-rich community in which every girl has access to the individual nurturing, guidance, and support she needs to become a confident, competent and caring adult. We are a national model for gender-intentional mentoring for girls which can be replicated in other mentoring programs.

During April Vacation week, with this collaboration, we will host students to engage in short term mentoring relationships, along with Girls' LEAP curriculum. We will match up High School participants with Middle School participants  in 1-1 pairs for the week's activities to build a peer mentoring connection.


Evaluation

At the beginning and end of the program, we will give each participant a survey with questions about their experience in the program. The results are used to improve our program. All information will be kept confidential and her full name will not be used in any publications of Boston Public Schools, LEAP Self-Defense, Inc. or Big Sister Boston.