GIRLS NEED HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS, ADVOCATES, AND OTHER HELPING PROFESSIONALS WHO:

• Demonstrate sensitivity to gender and cultural issues that affect a wide range of girls' behaviors and mental health, including depression, eating disorders, and sexual health practices.
• Challenge economic barriers and social conditions that threaten girls' (and boys') health and safety in their homes, schools, and communities.
• Implement a holistic approach to health by moving beyond the treatment of disease to promote girls' positive feelings about themselves. Encourage girls to reject behaviors that threaten their psychological and physical well-being.
• Provide constructive health education that empowers girls to make choices that are healthy and appropriate for their own lives.
• Encourage girls to critique cultural messages (e.g., images equating extreme slenderness with female attractiveness) and practices (e.g., smoking, unprotected intercourse, drug and alcohol misuse) that may hurt them.
• Provide confidential information and access to reliable contraception, pregnancy and STD testing, and abortion services.
• Help discourage the spread of HIV/AIDS among adolescents by supporting condom distribution and needle exchanges, and providing information about their proper use for HIV/AIDS prevention.
• Listen respectfully to girls' questions and concerns about sexuality, peer relationships, school experiences, family concerns, and other developmental issues. Provide them with the space and guidance to work through their own solutions.
• Help girls to cope with the effects of victimization, discourage their involvement in criminal activities, and work to eliminate differential treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system.
• Work collaboratively with girls and their families, understanding and respecting their cultural and religious values.

This site was last updated on 11/24/2004.

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