Today’s girls experience a 26% drop in confidence between fifth and ninth grade. That confidence is never recovered. The Ruling Our Experiences (ROX) program was designed to combat this, and help girls with social, academic, and personal issues. ROX uses research and evidence-based programming to impact girls and the adults that influence them.
The ROX program has been around for over a decade. Last school year, Jefferson Morgan started offering the ROX program to their eighth-grade girls. Their goal is to build confident girls “who control their own relationships, experiences, decisions and futures,” says Catherine F. Herold, guidance counselor and ROX program administrator at Jefferson Morgan.
ROX began at Jefferson Morgan after Catherine spoke with guidance counselors in the area to get their thoughts on the program. She says, “I received the FISA grant last year to be trained and pay [$95] for each girl. I then implemented the program at Jefferson Morgan during the 2020-2021 school year. I had 10 girls last year and I was very happy with how it helped girls at Jefferson Morgan.”
Catherine facilitates the program during its 20-week length and each session lasts is about 30 minutes per week. The goal is to teach the girls to become confident, productive and empowered women. According to rulingourexperiences.com girls can learn how to “communicate effectively, develop healthy relationships, support other girls, form a healthy body image, navigate social media, manage stress and pressure, stay safe and defend themselves, and plan for college and their careers.”
The curriculum covers a variety of topics changing weekly. Some topics covered are friendships, aggression and drama. The girls are taught how to build their self-esteem, how to stand up for themselves, and that they are capable. They “learn to feel better about themselves, their relationships, and their abilities. They learn how to be real in their relationships and how to communicate effectively. They learn they are strong and worth defending. They feel safer and more confident in their ability to protect themselves. They learn how to problem solve and girls report that they feel more connected to other girls and less alone,” Catherine says.
Catherine mentions how the best part of the ROX program is seeing the girls grow and learn. Her favorite ROX lesson is when the girls learn self-defense and how they can defend themselves.
Catherine was able to provide the program at no cost to the school district or to the girls in the program. She received the grant Cindy’s Wind Fund for Women and Girls grant through the Community Foundation of Greene County for $500. The remainder of the funding came from a FISA grand directly through the ROX Program.
In the ROX program the girls learn valuable in a fun way and build closer bonds with the other girls in their class. The ROX program is a priceless addition to the curriculum.