The voice of the current researchers and practitioners (Gilligan, Chesney-Lind, Walker, Pipher, etc) give impetus and direction for change; change in identification and change in programs for “at-risk” females.Today we know that females come into themselves, if you will, through relationships, whereas males “grow” up in relationship to the world around them.Models for intervention are now being developed in several states..

Societies value such things as independence over interdependence, justice for one over personal empowerment and personal moral voice; winning in competition over participating, and isolation over intimacy.Mass media and popular culture including but not limited to music, advice columns, TC shows, etc., carry explicit and implicit suggestions for appropriate female and male roles.Many magazines feature anorexic, drugged-looking, immature bodies in skin-tight jeans with heavy makeup in submissive stances in their advertisements.No wonder many adolescent females define themselves as overweight, having low self-esteem, having eating disorders, depressed and often feeling ill.

Under the direction of the Minnesota Center for Community Legal Education at the University of Minnesota, girls from four residential programs in Minnesota ranked 23 factors determined by a review of the literature to be the most important factors in adolescent female lives.The 10 highest rated factors in descending order were: family, relationships, cultural issues, adult support, being provided with options and choices, pregnancy, “isms”, self-esteem, education, and voice.The design team, comprised of representatives from the four residential programs, organized these factors into themes: personal relationships, legal issues around relationship, parenting, legal issues in general, and community reintegration issues.These themes became the inspiration for the organization and design of the curriculum.

Protective factors are those which counteract the risk factors and promote the characteristics of resiliency.They are more than the opposite of risk factors.According to the research, law-related education has been an effective protective factor for males.By incorporating topics and strategies related to females within the framework of law-related education, the design team believes that LegalWays will be an effective protective strategy for females. LegalWays represents the design team’s vision of how to address the issues ofat-risk females through law-related education.

Thecla Helmbrecht-Trost, Ed.S.