Reflections Foundation

The Reflections Foundation focuses on creating communication competencies among young women to help prepare them for employability in the future workplace. The organization fulfills this mission via a school- and college-based learning program, Polished Pebbles Girls Mentoring, which seeks to replace the “school to prison pipeline” with a “school to career pipeline.” Polished Pebbles serves girls of color (65 percent of whom are African American, and 30 percent of whom are Latina) ages eight to 18 in 20 schools across Chicago. It provides these young women with transferable work-readiness skills that offer non-violent means to (1) respond positively to threats of violence; (2) successfully resolve interpersonal conflict; and (3) overcome childhood trauma. With this general operating support award, the Reflections Foundation expands a part-time assistant director position into a full-time position to support the expansion of the Polished Pebbles model and build sustainability for its programs.