The young women at Houston Can Academy North campus are taught more than reading, writing and math at their high school.  A program called Cupcakes and Conversation was launched this school year to foster relationships between the female students and female school counselors and staff and provide resources on handling life as a young woman.

Janiqua Jiles, a counselor at Houston Can Academy, started the program with the support of the principal, Roslyn Phillpott, after observing her students in their daily interactions at school.  Jiles saw an opportunity to provide guidance beyond the classroom for young ladies on her campus and started asking community organizations to help with seminars. Organizations like Mary Kay stepped up and provided sessions on make-up application and other organizations have expressed an interest for future seminars. The seminars are conducted weekly after school or on the weekends and cover topics such as social skills, etiquette, how to maintain friendships, health and fitness, depression and sexual awareness.  The topics were chosen based on surveys and requests that the young women have expressed to their counselors.

“We are continually looking for local organizations to partner with and help bring timely topics to our young women,” said Jiles.  “The group of students has grown from our first meeting because the girls tell their friends about what they learned and encourage them to participate.”

Cupcakes provided by the high school’s staff are served at every meeting. Cupcakes create a gathering point and an icebreaker to begin every meeting on a “sweet” note.  The group recently held an all day Saturday workshop that included breakout sessions on different topics and student speakers that had benefitted from the Cupcakes and Conversation seminars.  Jiles explains that the group is very respectful of each other and things shared are kept in confidence and not talked about outside the meetings.  Many of the young women also help put the agendas together and manage the meetings to give them experience in organizing meetings and ownership in the program.

“We have really seen the girls blossom and mature from the conversations this year and believe in educating the whole child at our campus.  Our program is also open to young women in our surrounding community as well,” said Roslyn Philpott, principal at Houston Can Academy North.

The program has become such a success that the male staff at Houston Can Academy North has started a male mentoring group and a coed group was also launched this school year.