| Company Name: |
Pace Center For Girls |
| Headquarters: |
Jacksonville FL |
| Industry: |
Education/Training |
| Sector: |
Services |
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 Our Mission:
PACE provides girls and young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training and advocacy.
Our Philosophy:
PACE values all girls and young women, believing each one deserves an opportunity to find her voice, achieve her potential and celebrate a life defined by responsibility, dignity, serenity and grace. |
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PACE Center for Girls, Inc. is a community-based, gender-responsive prevention, diversion and early intervention program serving girls, ages 12-17, in 17 locations across the state. The program fulfills the Department of Juvenile Justice’s statutory requirement to provide prevention and gender-specific programming for girls.
PACE’s successful model has been nationally recognized for helping girls find success in school, with their families and in their communities by integrating education, counseling, training and advocacy. PACE was recognized by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Girls Study Group as the most effective program in the nation for keeping adolescent girls out of the juvenile justice system and by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Report, in a state by state analysis, as a national model for reducing recidivism and improving school success, employment and self sufficiency amongst girls.
These accolades are welcomed recognition of our success, but what matters more is that PACE provides help for girls who come from difficult life situations with a safe, nurturing place to find a path back to hope. More than half of girls who come to PACE are the young victims of physical or sexual abuse and many are failing or have dropped out of school. PACE understands the relationship between victimization and delinquency in girls and helps girls turn their lives around by providing quality, gender responsive education, counseling and career planning. The results are that girls stay in school, substantially reduce their chances of being involved in crime or entering the costly juvenile justice system and have hope for their futures. As a result, PACE reduces the significant long term costs associated with teen pregnancy, substance abuse and unemployment and long term economic dependency.
PACE Provides:
- Initial and Ongoing Assessment: Risk factors and needed support are assessed for each girl.
- Academic Education: Each center has a cooperative agreement with the local school board to provide daily academic instruction with remedial services, individual instruction and specialized education plans.
- Gender Specific Life Management Skills Enhancement: This PACE designed curriculum, known as SPIRITED GIRLS! Is a gender-specific program designed specifically for the needs of each girl.
- Parental Involvement: Staff maintains regular contact with parents through home visits, office sessions and telephone contacts. Parent groups are provided to help parents assist in their daughters’ growth.
- Community Volunteer Service: Girls Participate in monthly volunteer service projects.
- Career Readiness: PACE provides job skills assessment and curriculum to build school-to-work readiness skills and assistance with finding, applying and interviewing for job placements.
- Transitional Services: PACE conducts three years of comprehensive follow-up to ensure girls continue with their education, employment or appropriate referral services.
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PACE Center for Girls, Inc. is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 corporation that provides a non-residential delinquency prevention program in locations statewide, targeting the unique needs of females 12 to 18 who are identified as dependent, truant, runaway, delinquent, or in need of academic skills. PACE (Practical Academic Cultural Education) accepts referrals from the juvenile justice system, the Department of Children and Families, school personnel, community services agencies, parents, family members, friends and self-referrals. Its purpose is to intervene and prevent school withdrawal, juvenile delinquency, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and welfare dependency in a safe and nurturing environment. PACE programs provide the following services: academic education, individualized attention, a gender-specific life management curriculum (SPIRITED GIRLS®), therapeutic support services, parental involvement, student volunteer service projects and transition follow-up services. Every girl at PACE sets individual educational and social goals that are focused on earning a high school diploma or GED, re-entering public school, attending college, getting vocational training, joining the military or the entering the private workforce. After program completion, PACE continues to monitor each girl's educational and personal development with three years of follow-up case management. PACE operates 16 centers throughout Florida a reach program, and pre-teen centers (girls ages 8-11) in Broward and Manatee Counties. Since it's creation in 1983 PACE has served over 17,000 girls.
