Impact
The Center’s work has catalyzed transformational narrative shifts and greater awareness of the issues that touch the lives of girls and gender-expansive youth each day. Our research is the starting point, but we measure our success with real changes that impact real lives.
We know we’ve been successful when we see:
Increased awareness and shifts in narrative
Local initiatives and engagement
Policy and legal solutions enacted
All of this work is about systemic change. We will not rest until the public systems that rule our lives—from schools to hospitals to the justice system—are not just safe spaces but treat girls, women, and gender-expansive youth equitably.
To accomplish the goal of eliminating gender and race inequities for girls, we work to make a meaningful impact on Georgetown’s campuses and beyond–by educating and inspiring students, policymakers, government actors, and the public to engage in transformational reform that makes the world a better place for all girls and gender-expansive youth. We consult with our youth advisors, alumni-attorney advisors, and academic advisors to demonstrate the urgency of the need for change, conduct research, shift public narratives about girls, provide solutions to systemic challenges, and raise awareness about issues that touch the lives of women, girls, and gender-expansive youth every day.
Highlights of Action Taken in Response to our National Research
The US Plan to End Gender-Based Violence
The US Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, a groundbreaking document released by the Biden Administration, included the importance of addressing the sexual abuse to prison pipeline–referring to the Center’s report co-authored with Rights4Girls, The Sexual Abuse To Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story, and further discussed in later reports, such as Criminalized Survivors: Today’s Abuse to Prison Pipeline for Girls. According to the US Plan, one of its key objectives is to “[S]upport local programs and services for girls and LGBTQI+ youth to reduce the “school-to-prison” and “sexual abuse-to-prison” pipelines caused by the detention and incarceration of adolescents for status offenses and resulting technical violations when abuse affects their ability to function in school and may cause or contribute to the underlying behaviors.”
The Innocence Initiative
A community-based coalition called The Innocence Initiative was launched in Austin, Texas to engage in a public awareness, research, and training campaign to identify how this form of bias shows up in northern Texas and how to overcome it. We’re proud that the Center was attributed as the motivating factor for this coalition, which has translated our national research into local action.
News & Updates
The Center’s robust and innovative analyses and solutions to support girls and women have also been cited in publications and media outlets nationwide, including NPR Weekend Edition, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Our Impact in Action
The greatest measure of our contributions lies in our relationships with partners, staff, and student workers, and seeing the impact of our work. The White House has integrated our work into strategic plans; courts and prosecutors have relied on our report to recognize inequities in sentencing Black girls; and researchers have developed studies based on our areas of focus. Local action inspired by our work has taken root, as well, in the form of community initiatives and educational series. Explore community-based solutions to adultification bias.
Closer to home, students at Georgetown Law and across the School of Medicine, McCourt School of Public Policy, and undergraduates have continually engage with our work.