While Cheyenne Turner worked with a teenage girl from MacArthur Blvd area who was in Washtenaw County Jail for stealing a debit card and taking money out of the person's account, she introduced the girl to several programs that could help get her life back on track.

Among them was Dress for Success Going Places Network which offered an eight-week job readiness program aimed at preparing disadvantaged young women for careers.

Turner, who is a part of the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department’s Street Outreach Team, spoke with the girl’s probation officer so the girl could spend more time out on a tether to attend the program.

The girl has remained out of the judicial system since then, is preparing for a career, receiving minimum supervision from the probation department and is one of the cases Turner considers a success.

In a daylong Women’s Summit entitled “A Day of Empowerment,” Turner, who organized the event through the Street Outreach Team, is hoping to reach more young women from Ypsilanti Township neighborhoods and provide them with new options for empowerment.

The Oct. 8 event, which is in its second year, will include a variety of speakers, a panel discussion, workshops, entertainment, health screenings and more.

“It’s very important for women to have positive role models, and I think this is going to be a powerful event,” Turner said. “Everyone who is presenting has some type of story — an empowering story — and words to let the girls know that there’s hope and you can pass any obstacle. The theme of this event is transformation — how to be making transformations, overcoming obstacles and how to empower oneself.”

Turner said many young women in the area face challenges with drugs, unemployment and domestic violence.

“Those are the biggest ones,” she said. “Those or just being oppressed from being a single parent, not knowing how to cope with daily stress, substance abuse, recreational drug use, which leads to neglect of self, finances, family.”

Turner works with dozens of girls in several neighborhoods through the Street Outreach Team and has helped get some of the girls involved with regular fighting in West Willow into the programs that will be represented at the Women’s Summit.

Among the speakers and panelists are several women who are a part of the Sheriff’s Department command staff; author Edith Eddins, who is a survivor of incest; Tamika Gaines, who is the highest ranking employee with the maintenance department at the City of Detroit Wastewater Treatment Center and a politician who has run for several offices; Valerie Boyce, a successful business women who is also a published author and lupus survivor; Angelesia Brown, a University of Detroit Mercy professor and Ypsilanti High School and Eastern Michigan University graduate and Hazelette Robinson, director of community relations for the Washtenaw Community Health Organization.

The day also will provide mediation workshops by the Ann Arbor Dispute Resolution Center, one on safety in social networking and another on using mineral-based makeup and one on entrepreneurship. Saint Joseph’s Mercy Hospital will be doing a presentation on Breast Cancer Awareness month and their "Breast Friends Forever" program, which is a free mammogram program they sponsor. Dress for Success will hold a style profile "piece" demonstrating business attire, which is a component of their eight week job-readiness program.

Other groups include the Parkridge Community Center, Washtenaw Community College admissions team, HARC, Community Support Treatment Services, Dawn Farms, SafeHouse Center, Burning Bush Church and Washtenaw County Health Coalition for Infant Mortality and EMU Upward Bound, among others.

Turner said the event is in its second year and is much larger than last year. She is hopeful the wide range of groups and organization can help motivate some of the young women to get out of whatever negative situation they might be in.

“We’re trying to pull them to this huge event to show them that there is a whole world beyond the challenges of the world they see in their neighborhood every day,” Turner said. “We want to show them something that is good, positive and enriching."

The Women’s Summit is Oct. 8 from 3 to 7 p.m. at Willow Run Middle School at 235 Spencer Lane. For more information, call 734-973-4974.