Pace Palm Beach girls and staff members traveled to Tallahassee for a 2-day trip at the Florida Capitol

Pace Center for Girls Palm Beach visited the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee for the annual Pace Day at the Capitol, where Pace girls enjoyed two days focused on leadership, advocacy, and civic engagement. Four Pace girls and three staff members participated in this year’s event. The goal of this field trip was for Pace girls to learn more about the importance of advocacy and share the many ways Pace Palm Beach is creating a lasting impact on our future by empowering girls to reach their full potential.

Pace Palm Beach provides academic and behavioral support to middle and high school girls ages 11-17 across Palm Beach County. Pace offers a safe and supportive environment for more than 150 girls served annually in Palm Beach County. The girls and young women supported by Pace Palm Beach receive academic instruction and work closely with counselors and therapists trained in trauma-informed practices. They also receive life coaching to learn essential life skills, such as personal hygiene, grocery shopping, and preparing for employment. These resources are made available to girls at no cost. 

Throughout the two-day event, Pace girls engaged in policy discussions, advocacy training, and hands-on legislative experiences. Pace girls from the Palm Beach County campus in Palm Springs met with members of the Florida House and Senate, sharing their lived experiences and highlighting the impact of Pace in their lives and communities. For many, it was their first time speaking directly with policymakers and provided them with a meaningful opportunity to see how their voices can inform decisions that shape their futures.

The highlight of the trip was exposing Pace girls to the political work that gets done in Tallahassee, the Women in Politics panel discussion, and hearing from Matt Walsh, Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. These experiences provided valuable insight into public service, leadership pathways, and the importance of civic engagement.

On the second day, Pace Palm Beach met with legislators, including:

• Lori Berman
• Kelly Skidmore
• Debra Tendrich
• Rob Long
• Anne Gerwig
• Tae Edmonds

During each meeting, Pace girls shared why they came to Pace Center for Girls and discussed the positive impact the program has had on their academic progress, confidence, and future goals. Pace Palm Beach leadership thanked each legislator for their time and ongoing support of programs that strengthen opportunities for girls and young women. 

“Pace Day at the Capitol provides our girls with a powerful opportunity to build confidence and practice leadership in a real-world setting,” said Mindy Hanken, Executive Director of Pace Palm Beach. “We are incredibly proud of how our girls represented Palm Beach County and shared their stories with courage and maturity. I also want to thank each legislator for warmly welcoming us.”

Through its comprehensive services, Pace helps improve academic outcomes, strengthen healthy relationships, and foster long-term success for girls and their families. By creating a ripple effect of positive change, Pace strengthens the community by cultivating confident, educated, and engaged young women who are prepared to contribute meaningfully to society.

Since its founding in 1996, Pace Palm Beach has successfully grown its program and impact on girls and the local community. More than 3,048 girls in Palm Beach County have been served, with 9 out of 10 girls having experienced overall academic improvement and 8 out of 10 girls reporting improved healthy social relationships with peers and family members. 

Enrollment is now open at Pace Palm Beach. To learn more about how Pace is finding the great in every girl, visit www.pacecenter.org.  

###  

About Pace Center for Girls  

Pace provides free year-round middle and high school academics, case management, counseling, and life skills development in a safe and supportive environment that recognizes and deals with past trauma and builds upon girls’ individual strengths. Dedicated to meeting the social, emotional, and education needs of girls, Pace has a successful and proven program model that has changed the life trajectory of more than 40,000 girls and is recognized as one of the nation’s leading advocates for girls in need. For more information on Pace Center for Girls, visit www.pacecenter.org.  

We love the word “resilience.” It’s stamped on tote bags, printed on coffee mugs, baked into every strategic plan. It sounds strong. It sounds hopeful. It sounds like something we all want our kids to have, ESPECIALLY if they’ve been through something hard. 

We praise kids for “being so resilient” when what we really mean is, “Thank you for not making me uncomfortable with your pain.” We hand out gold stars for adaptability while ignoring the trauma it took to build those coping mechanisms. We expect teenagers in foster care to recover from things that would have leveled most adults.

Instead of calling it what it is, we wrap it in compliments:
“You’re so strong.”
“You’re so mature for your age.”

“You’re so lucky to be here. Look how far you’ve come.”

Let me be clear: they are not lucky; they are exhausted.  And they are still carrying the weight of what it took to survive.

For nearly three decades, I’ve worked with kids in foster care who’ve been abused, abandoned, and overlooked by systems that were supposed to protect them.   I’ve held their stories, met them in crisis, advocated in courtrooms, and helped them rebuild from what others call “impossible.”

We don’t get to expect resilience from kids.  We have to earn the right to help build it.  We do that with consistency, connection, and the kind of presence that doesn’t flinch when the pain spills out.  

In South Florida, Children’s Harbor is a nationally accredited nonprofit dedicated to serving teenagers in and aging out of foster care. We don’t just offer housing, we create the closest thing to home many of them have ever had. We meet them in the ashes that used to be their life and we build trust, brick by brick. And we KEEP showing up, no matter how hard they push back.  Until they start to believe what no one’s ever proven to them before: we might actually stay.

THAT is when resilience starts to grow.

Most days, resilience isn’t inspiring. It’s uncomfortable.  It’s slow. And it doesn’t photograph well.  But if we’re serious about what changes lives, this is what it actually looks like:

1. Resilience isn’t always loud.

We love the big wins: the graduation, the scholarship, the “against-all-odds” comeback. But for trauma-impacted youth, resilience is quieter. It’s getting out of bed.  It’s making eye contact. Asking for help. Choosing not to run when something feels too hard. 

2. Resilience requires permission to be angry.

We rush to reframe. To say, “At least you’re safe now…everything happens for a reason”, but resilience doesn’t grow in bypassed pain; it grows in felt pain. They need space to feel. That means letting them be angry. Letting them process their pain without being labeled “difficult.” When we pressure kids to move on without making space for their anger or shut-down moments, we’re not helping them heal; we’re teaching them to suppress.  And feelings that don’t get processed don’t just disappear. They leak out later; in behavior, in relationships and in silence that gets louder over time.  

3. Connection isn’t a reward. 

Connection isn’t the prize they earn for good behavior.  It’s the foundation that makes healing possible.  When the nervous system is in survival mode, it’s not “defiance”.  The body is doing what the body has learned to do to stay safe. You don’t power through that with rules and compliance charts. You break through it with relationship.   A teenager who trusts no one won’t build skills until they trust you because no tool matters if the person holding it can’t be trusted.  

If we really want to raise resilient kids then we need to stop treating resilience like an inherent personality trait and start calling it what it is: the outcome of consistent, connected care.

It doesn’t come from grit. It doesn’t come from gratitude.
It comes from believing that you’re safe.
It’s knowing that you can fall apart and still be loved. That you can fail and still be worth fighting for.

If you work with kids, don’t underestimate what your consistency means. You don’t have to fix them. You just have to STAY.  

THAT’S what changes everything.

And it’s the only thing that ever really has.

Tiffani Dhooge, President & CEO of Children’s Harbor, a nationally recognized child welfare organization, dedicated to serving teenagers in and aging out of foster care.  With over 27 years of experience and a track record of building programs that challenge broken systems, Tiffani leads with one core belief: connection is the foundation of resilience. She’s also the creator and host of This is NOW: Parenting Teens Today, a podcast that offers honest conversations, expert insights, and just enough humor to help parents navigate the chaos of raising teenagers without losing their minds.