Trainings and Consultation

Hardy Girls offers trainings for educators, guidance counselors, parents, and others who work with girls. Informed by the latest research on strengths-based approaches and g*rls’ healthy development, our trainings provide adults with the knowledge, tools, and resources to empower girls and gender expansive youth to change their world.

Want to bring Hardy Girls’ proven approach to supporting and empowering girls to your school or community? Interested in learning more about how to teach media literacy skills? Want to start a girls’ group, or learn a new way to approach mentoring? Hardy Girls can help. Our trainings are facilitated by Hardy Girls’ staff and college-age muses with input from the girls.

To book a training, or a one-on-one consultation, please submit a training request form. Training fees are based on the length of the training, the number of participants, and any travel required. For more information, email or call our office at 207.387.0553.

Training Descriptions

Our strengths-based training program is informed by the expertise and research of Hardy G*rls’ co-founder, Lyn Mikel Brown, EdD.

Moving Beyond Mean Girls

Are you ready to take a new approach in your work with girls? Want to address girl fighting, teach media literacy skills, and empower girls to change their world for the better? Hardy Girls Healthy Women and its acclaimed girls’ group curriculum From Adversaries to Allies: A Curriculum For Change has been turning adversaries into allies in middle schools for more than a decade. Our research-based guide and supplement Becoming a Muse brings girls together as allies to tackle a culture that tells them meanness is the norm. This training includes a copy of our incredible curriculum (an $80 value) to get the ball rolling.

10 Ways to Empower the Girls in Your Life

Girls today face many challenges. How do we give them the support they need to thrive? In this workshop, participants will learn how to cultivate “hardiness zones” – safe spaces where girls learn what it means to work in coalition and become allies to one another. Participants will explore the possibility and impact of intergenerational partnerships with girls and consider ways to work together to imagine and create a better world.

Packaging Early Childhood: The World According to Marketers

What are marketers’ schemes for young children? What harmful stereotypes are common in media for children 5 years old and younger? In this workshop, we will share how marketers target children from birth, explore common media stereotypes, and the impact that these issues have on healthy development. We will also discuss ways to promote healthy development and support media literacy skills in early childhood. An excellent continuing education opportunity for early childhood educators! Workshop may be tailored as a Mother-Daughter workshop.

The Sexualization of Girls in Media

A 2007 American Psychological Association Task Force Report on the Sexualization of Girls documents the relentless barrage of sexualized media messages girls face and the ways they compromise girls’ healthy development and well-being. In this workshop, we look at popular ad campaigns and marketing strategies to examine the impact sexualized images have on girls. We discuss concrete ways you can join with girls to fight against sexualized media messages and support healthy messages about sexuality.

Selling Us Something or Selling Us Out?

Did you know that the average person encounters approximately 5,000 media images a day and 40,000 ads each year? Discover how to use media literacy to think critically about the images advertisers use to sell narrow versions of gender, race, and class. In this workshop, we explore images in popular magazines through hands on small group discussions and presentation. Workshop may be tailored to work with girls to look at specific issues such as girlfighting and sexualization.

As a camp director and more importantly as the mother of a teenage girl, I really appreciated the tone set in this training. I have found that the messages out there for girls in the media are so toxic right now and I find it refreshing to hear a message about changing the message rather than changing the girls who are just trying to figure out how to have a voice and power in a difficult society.

Shannon, training client

Chimney Corners Camp for Girls

Training Clients Include:

Parent University through Portland Public Schools
SMCC Residential Staff
York Middle School faculty and staff
South Portland School District, Maine
Gender Matters of Sullivan County, New Hampshire
Camp Nicolet, Wisconsin
Girls Soar Conference, Nova Scotia
Maine Idea Camp for Girls, Maine
Tabor Academy, Massachusetts
YNPN/USM MSW students, Maine
Greely PTA, Maine
and more!