Program inspired by troubling data on teenage girls’ mental health referrals and hospitalizations
At Carlynton Junior-Senior High School in Carnegie, a community just outside of Pittsburgh, PA, an innovative program called Girls Supporting Girls is making the high school’s challenges easier for girls to navigate together.
As the program grows, girls are building skills, forging friendships, and even charting new paths toward future careers.
It all began when school psychologist Patricia Serdy was looking at troubling data on teenage girls’ mental health referrals and hospitalizations.
“I found some pretty consistent trends: girls who were at an age in their life where they were really just struggling, but they were struggling alone,” Serdy says. “But as I worked with them, I found that if one student comes in with an issue and I’ve been addressing that issue with another student, I could get both girls’ permission to bring them together and we would start problem-solving together.”
In Carlynton’s program, girls are confidentially paired with a peer who has struggled with similar problems — such as a death in the family, the stress of being bullied, or medical conditions — and gotten through it. These conversations give girls hope, says Serdy.
“Now I’ve noticed if some of the girls are getting bullied, the older girls not only give them advice, but they look out for them in the cafeteria and other places,” says Serdy. “They step up and show up.”
Carlynton is part of the Western Pennsylvania Learning 2025 Alliance, a regional cohort of school districts working together with support from The Grable Foundation and led by local superintendents and AASA, The School Superintendents Association. The Alliance convenes to help districts like California Area do what they do best: give every child the best possible learning experience while collaborating to create student-centered, equity- focused, future-driven schools.
When it comes to the future, the Girls Supporting Girls program is also helping girls in the senior class — many of whom struggle with poverty — find hope beyond high school.
“I was really just blown away by what some of the girls were going through, and also feeling kind of helpless myself — like, what part can I play in all this?” says Carlynton elementary teacher Don Alexander. He proposed a Women’s Empowerment Summit where Carlynton’s girls could meet with inspiring women from the community, such as a local salon owner or nonprofit executive and coworking space co-founder Giselle Fetterman. This year marks the second year of the summit.
“These women had very untraditional routes and shared their stories about how they got to where they are,” Serdy says. “That was a really big inspiration for these girls, and opened their minds to so many different careers that they didn’t think were possible for them.”
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
