Friendship Matters: Navigating the Joys and Challenges of Connection

Join GFS and the Girls Rights Collective as we shine a light on the life-changing power of connection for girls and women.

We're hosting a panel discussion on empowering girls and young women to build strong, supportive friendships through every stage of life. During this event, our panel of friendship experts from The Lonely Girls Club, Girls on Board, Unstoppable Girls, The Great Friendship Project and GFS will:

• Explore friendship challenges and opportunities for girls and young women today
  
• Discuss the impact of positive and negative friendship experiences on girls and women
  
• Share advice on supporting girls and young women to build healthy and happy friendships
  
• Promote, celebrate and advocate for the importance of friendship for girls and women

We'll explore the highs and lows of friendship and connection, and consider how we can better support girls and women to form happy and healthy relationships.

Everyone is welcome. We particularly recommend this event for anyone working with girls and young women, plus those interested in the gender, youth, education, wellbeing, family support and women's rights spaces.

Register now to join the conversation.

Meet our panellists:

Holly Cooke, CEO and Founder of The Lonely Girls Club. Now one of the UK's largest communities for women, Holly leads the Lonely Girls Club; the the community helping women around the UK connect, make friends, make life less lonely and beat the loneliness epidemic.

Sarah Gaunt, CEO and Founder of Unstoppable Girls. Sarah has been working with teenagers for 28 years and 18 years of those as a professionally qualified youth worker. She leads Unstoppable Girls, an organisation supporting girls with ADHD that provides a safe space to be seen & heard, explore neurodiversity and no longer feel weird or alone.

David Gradon, CEO and Founder of The Great Friendship Project. After experiencing loneliness firsthand during COVID, David started The Great Friendship Project to help young adults build meaningful friendships by providing the tools and opportunities they need to form genuine connections and rise out of loneliness.

Andrew Hampton, CEO and Founder of Girls On Board. Andrew was a Headteacher for 18 years and stepped away from headship in 2021. He founded of the Girls on Board approach in 2017 and the Working with Boys programme in 2023. He is the author of When Girls Fall Out (2021), Working with Boys (2023), and How to Run a School (2025). Andrew has two daughters and a son and lives in Essex.

Molly Wedderburn, Young Trustee at GFS (Girls Friendly Society)

The event will be hosted by GFS (Girls Friendly Society), drawing on research from our Girls Speak report where over 100 girls told us about their experiences of friendship and girlhood in 2025.