Our impact - Girls Friendly Society

There is strong evidence that girls thrive in a single-gender space. Access to this space can build girls’ confidence and let them test their limits in a safe environment.

There is also compelling evidence in support of access to a wide range of women role models.

Research from Southern Methodist University found that there was “strong evidence of the impact of women role models on women students moving into fields of study in which men are traditionally over-represented, and that the encounters served as an inspiration.”

Because each girl is different, we measure change for our girls in a few ways. One way is alongside our GFS Girl statements. There are no defined points where these statements are ‘achieved’. Instead, we aim for girls to feel more able to relate to them as a result of attending GFS.

Another way we measure girls’ change is alongside our core Programme.

The power of GFS programme

Each term our Programme and Impact Team create core sessions based on things girls say they most need support with. We identify these areas of need through Girls Surveys and Focus Groups.

In our 2023 Girls In Focus Groups, girls told us that changing relationships and friendship ‘dramas’ were some of their main concerns. So, for our 2023 core programme, we developed special activities to help girls navigate friendships.

By revisiting these skills over time, our programme follows the ‘shallow, deep, profound’ approach based on the first three stages of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning.

What ‘shallow, deep, profound’ looks like for GFS:

Shallow Impact: Raise girls’ knowledge and awareness of a skill or issue.
Deep Impact: Support them to feel more positive and empowered about that issue.
Profound Impact: Through longer-term engagement, influence their behaviour and experiences beyond their group.

The changes we see in girls

We ask girls questions about the GFS statements at different times throughout the year, but our biggest review is our annual Girls Survey. Here’s what girls told us in 2022 and in 2023. We’ve seen growth in nearly all areas, except the belief in their ability to achieve their hopes and dreams.

But it’s not just GFS girls feeling hopeless about their futures – it’s their whole generation. In fact, Barnardo’s ‘Changing Childhoods, Changing Lives’ report found that 55% of teenagers believe their lives will be worse than the previous generation. This shared sense of hopelessness only makes services like GFS all the more vital.

GFS Girl outcomes	Percentage of GFS girls who felt they had gotten better in 2023	Compared to percentage of GFS girls who felt they had gotten better in 2022
I can speak up about things that matter to me	59%	46%
I am proud of who I am	74%	60%
I try again if I have a setback	72%	50%
I can try new or unfamiliar things	87%	76%
I believe I can achieve my hopes and dreams	65%	67%
I can enjoy friendship with different kinds of people	75%	73%

While all girls reported improvements in the areas listed in the table above, in certain areas girls reported additional improvements after the six-month mark. For speaking up on things that matter to them, girls who reported improvements rose to 63% for girls who have been with GFS for over six months.

Increasingly girl-led

In 2022/23, we made our programme increasingly girl-shaped – using girls’ feedback to directly influence our core programme.

Doing this has allowed us to provide targeted support to girls in areas where they need it most.

As evidence that our programme is working, three in four GFS girls are happy with their lives overall, compared to two in three nationally.

But while GFS girls are happier overall, they’re also more unhappy with their lives at school – with their unhappiness rising as high as 32% for girls aged 12-15, compared to 19% for girls nationally.

This data has encouraged us to develop a new service for schools, delivering in Manchester, Liverpool and Swansea, for 2023-24, which we look forward to evaluating in our next Annual Impact Report.

Outside of GFS

While our volunteers are able to observe changes in girls within the safety of their GFS group, we are also interested in the impact on girls’ day to day lives.

52% of parents and carers say GFS has helped their child deal with personal challenges.
70% of parents and carers say GFS has had a positive impact on their child’s behaviour outside of group.
69% of girls say their group helps them get along with people, rising to 81% for the youngest girls (aged 5-8).
76% of girls said that their group makes them feel like they can be themselves, within their first six months of GFS.