Miss. Behaving or Miss. Understood?

It is time to wake up to the increase in girl violence and school exclusions.

First of all, I’m not even going to attempt to “mansplain” the above title but what I do know is that more and more teachers are concerned about the rise in female exclusions from school, with some schools reporting up to two-thirds of overall exclusions being girls.

Having worked in female prisons myself, the above stats don’t come as a surprise to me, but what is concerning are the levels of violence in and out of school that are also being played out.

Recently I was speaking to Selina Brown, CEO of a great organisation called Little Miss Creative. They specialise in targeted work with girls using creative learning to support them towards their personal, social and academic growth.

One of the things that stood out from our conversation was the challenges facing young girls around identity, self-love and belonging.

I’ve made mention on numerous occasions in my previous blogs about social media and its’ effects on young people. One thing you cannot deny are the subsequent effects as a result of the rise in celebrity Instagram #MUA ( make up artist for you lesser instagrammers ) and how it has shaped the definition of beauty to some young women.

And what of those three keywords: personal, social and academic? Well, all should be delivered in a nuanced and culturally competent manner if we are to respond to the problem effectively.

Countless things are being said and done around the experiences of young men specifically in year’s 9,10 & 11 but are we failing by not offering more tailored and targeted services to young women as well?

We need to start responding to this rising problem if we have any hope of helping to reduce violence.