Before It’s Too Late

At-risk behaviors of teenage girls don’t usually start in adolescence, but often have their roots in the stresses and anxieties of elementary school, making early intervention fundamental to changing the trajectory of this disturbing trend.

It’s an early Sunday morning and Torah Umesorah’s Brooklyn office is packed with women carrying notebooks and pens. These hand-picked teachers chosen by their Bais Yaakov elementary schools are forgoing the weekend pleasures of making pancakes and reading the paper over a mug of coffee in order to participate in a training program that will help them identify potential problems within their student body — before those problems spin out of control.

Following in the path of Torah Umesorah’s highly successful Mashgiach program, introduced into US and Canadian yeshivos in September 2014 to help stem the tide of at-risk kids, this new Mechanechet program is designed to provide every girl — not the ones who wear their problems on their sleeves but all young girls, even those who are well-adjusted and flourishing — with a safe place in which to discuss anything that might come up.

“Our goal is for every school to have a trained individual whose job is to reach out and develop a special kesher with students. We are giving these educators a paraprofessional background in psychology, empathy training, and communication in order to enable them to connect more effectively with their students,” says Rabbi Dovid Morgenstern, director of the Mashgiach and Mechanechet training programs, who’s currently working with 18 elementary schools in the Bais Yaakov system. “The women are out there as the first line of defense, making healthy connections with these young girls who know their confidences will be respected.”

This is just one of several initiatives aimed at helping “regular” girls successfully navigate the challenges of growing up, as many face demoralizing academic pressures and today’s changing family dynamics which often strip kids of necessary nurturing time.