This toolkit is based on first-of-their-kind focus groups and interviews conducted by the Center on Poverty and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute with school resource officers (SROs) and girls of color. It offers strategies and guidance to improve interactions between school-based police and girls of color and decrease the disproportionate use of exclusionary school discipline against girls of color. The research was focused on the South, an area often overlooked in related research.

Girls’ education and promoting gender equality is part of a broader, holistic effort by the World Bank Group. It includes ensuring that girls do not suffer disproportionately in poor and vulnerable households, and advancing skills and job opportunities for adolescent girls and young women.