Step Up Women's Network

Through Step Up's career exploration programs, teens and young adults ages 14-29 gain a solid foundation rooted in equitable access to explore careers, identify personal and professional goals, gain mentorship, and connect with their community in a safe way - highlighting a myriad of 21st-century skills.? With structured support and access to a strong community Step Up provides career exposure to a variety of mentors and companies throughout the creative industry.

The goal of Step Up’s Teen Empowerment Programs is for girls to graduate high-school confident, college-bound and career-ready. Our partner schools focus on the IQ: the reading, writing and arithmetic. We focus on the EQ: the emotional and social skills they need to be successful and break the cycle of poverty. Built into our after-school and Saturday programming are elements that address barriers to success such as a lack of parental involvement and support at home, the disconnect between the relevance of schoolwork to ‘the real world’, negative peer pressure, lack of positive role models and lack of confidence. By taking a more holistic approach to the needs of our teen girls we are succeeding in partnership with schools where schools alone are failing. Step Up’s proven programs directly impact high school completion and dropout rates, college going rates and after-school enrichment program participation. Our model is unique. Girls are introduced to many different mentors and role models, not just one. If a 9th grade girl is interested in becoming a doctor we can introduce her to one. By 10th grade she may be thinking she wants to be a writer, a psychologist or a talk show host (or all three!). Step Up has that covered. Not only are we able to introduce our girls to the women who have the careers they are interested in, we introduce them to the companies as well. They get to experience what it is like to be on the inside. Providing a tangible, attainable vision for the future is a powerful tool keeping our girls in school and motivated to go to college. The professional women in our network are there all four years of high-school as classroom volunteers, hosts for field trips to their offices, providing internships and as mentors. Our group mentoring model enables busy professional women who cannot commit to long-term mentoring relationships to leverage their personal and professional resources on behalf of the girls in our community in an accessible way. This keeps the women, and their companies, engaged. 9th and 10th Grade Confidence Building Program 9th and 10th grade classes are taught after school, one-day per week. This curriculum offers 30 weeks of after-school programming per grade and is designed to offer girls a solid foundation in life skills that will build their confidence. Created by internationally renowned confidence expert, Jess Weiner, the curriculum is jam packed with confidence boosting activities that also ground the students in career and college prep. Rooted in a multi disciplinary approach of team work, creative self-expression, group exercises, and open dialogue - students use their real life experiences to explore issues of identity, action, vision, voice, and expression. The 9th grade class focuses on Identity, Relationships and Voice. The 10th grade class focuses on Vision, Action and Expression. 11th Grade Career and College Exploration: Pathways to Professions Pathways to Professions is Step Up’s program aimed at jumpstarting high school girls’ career-exploration by providing invaluable first-hand exposure to a variety of industries and strong professional female role models. Step Up takes girls on field trips to companies and collaborates with each host to create dynamic, meaningful activities for students such as tours, role-playing and panel discussions. The program aims to instill greater professional confidence in Step Up teens. We leverage the reach of our professional women members to secure field trips to companies in a variety of industries from tech to publishing to banking to entertainment. After the field trips, the girls are led through critical thinking exercises about what they’ve experienced with the help of our member-mentors. Students attend at least five field trips throughout the year and meet one Saturday per month. Saturday workshops cover multiple college preparation topics utilizing our professional women mentors. 12th Grade College and Career Preparation: Young Luminaries This program is aimed at supporting Step Up seniors as they apply to and make their transition to college. Utilizing a group mentoring model, mentees and mentors attend a workshop one Saturday per month. In the fall semester the program focuses on support through the college application process. In the spring semester the program focuses on preparing students for summer internships at Step Up member companies. Topics include resume writing, cover letters, professional etiquette, dressing for success, mock interviews and more. All students meeting Step Up’s internship criteria are matched with a company for a six week paid summer internship. These internships help girls from socio-economically disadvantaged communities level the playing field by building their resume and exposing them to powerful networks of professionals that can provide recommendations to college and references for job opportunities.