Girl Scouts are forever creating programming to help girls navigate and build strong relationships. Over the past ten years, the “Be a Friend First” (BFF) program has been in the forefront of teaching middle school girls the ins and outs of dealing with bullies. While there have always been bullies, today’s girls are faced with even more challenges because of social media and cyberbullying. It’s shocking that when a girl is bullied, 85 percent of the time nobody speaks up in her defense.
The BFF program touches on how to build healthy relationships, recognize and intervene in bullying situations, and to step up and be champions for positive change. We talk about tricky issues like peer pressure, stereotyping, gossiping, and cliques through role-playing, games, journal prompts and fun discussion exercises.
We often have school counselors participate in the eight-week sessions to learn alongside the girls. These trusted adults share in the role-play, listen to honest “judge-free” concerns of the girls and walk away from the sessions feeling better about the girls’ abilities to diffuse ugly situations. Everyone who participates recognizes the skills they learn being applied within the hallways of the schools.
At Chadron Middle School, girls said that Be a Friend First gave them the confidence to be themselves and take a stand. They worked on expressing their feelings to help others understand why they were hurt or frustrated. They felt it helped every situation not escalate into something worse. While in-person sessions are most effective in getting girls to open-up and talk freely, we are also working on developing take-home BFF kits for girls to navigate these topics on their own time.