With determination to help young women be their best, PACE Center for Girls is working to stop the cycle of recidivism and bring awareness to how mental health affects their student life.
PACE focuses on starting rehabilitation early. According to its website, it enrolls young women ages 11 to 17 who have three or more risk factors out of the following:
“Foster home placement, substance abuse (by girl or family member), domestic violence, incarceration of a family member, neglect, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, grief, emotional health concerns, low income.”
This list is composed of what PACE describes as “underlying issues leading to academic underachievement.”
These risk factors have been found to be related with actions from adolescents, which could often lead to expulsion. According to a Civil Rights Data Collection analysis, there is also a disproportionate number of black children being penalized compared to white students.
The school-to-prison-pipeline is defined as the cycle of minority students being punished in school at a disproportionate rate compared to their white peers. This can lead to ultimately pushing them out of school and into a system of incarceration.
PACE teacher Monique Henry explained that she believes a teacher’s outlook on their students could have a great impact on avoiding this phenomenon.
“I don’t believe in labeling students as ‘bad’ or ‘good,'” Henry said. “When we begin to place labels and fall into that trap, that’s how you end up seeing the racial divide.”
Henry said she appreciates the small classroom approach at PACE. It allows her to truly get to know the students beyond a level of business and more on a level of therapeutic comfort. She said some methods she uses in her approach, including journaling and drawing time, allow the girls to express their feelings however they can.
She said that some teachers see it as a job. She doesn’t.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, but at the same time, I think my shift is more purposeful,” Henry said. “It doesn’t feel good seeing a problem and seeing how it affects certain students.”
PACE has found an effective way to tackle the lack of mental health support in schools. Their two-part system of teaching focuses on not only personalized academics, but also on how trauma plays a role in their learning.
Davia Lerebours, assistant executive director at PACE Hillsborough, explained that the program requires every girl to receive counseling services. Not to be mistaken as forced therapy, she calls it a “natural process woven into the program” rather than outsourced in meetings.
Each girl is assigned to a counselor, and they proceed to meet every two weeks unless more frequent meetings are requested.
“We’re looking to really unpack that backpack to help give them skills and build up resilience to help them work through [trauma],” she said.
Lerebours explains this process is key for PACE to maintain an efficient process of helping girls stay away from the juvenile justice system and work towards a successful life.
When looking at the trends of their program, this outlook looks favorable. As listed on their website, 22% of the girls in the program come in with previous juvenile system history, and 95% come out without any involvement within a year, according to their most recent report.
Because of the program’s personal approach to recovery, they produce results that show PACE Center is moving quickly toward female justice.
