2.5 Texas Statewide Youth Leadership Forum

2007

Research in the past decade has consistently shown that acquired self-determination and leadership skills promote successful completion of high school and transition from school to adult life for youth (e.g., Algozzine, et al., 2001; Zhang, et al., in press). Research also has found that it takes sustained effort and intensive training for individuals with disabilities to develop self-determination and leadership skills, especially skills for state-level advocacy (Field et al., 1998). Successful stories from other states that have conducted Youth Leadership Forums (YLFs) since 1996 have proven that YLF is a necessary and successful model for preparing youth with disabilities to become state advocacy leaders. In order to enhance the well-known YLF training model and to gain the added ability to train larger numbers of youth, The Council for Developmental Disabilities implemented and funded a new model to conduct YLFs in the state of Texas. Under this new model, three regional YLF projects and one statewide YLF project have been funded to provide progressive advocacy and leadership training to youth with disabilities in Texas. The overall goals and objectives of the Texas Statewide Youth Leadership forum includes a collaboration with the regional YLF projects to establish an training network to train youth with disabilities on leadership and advocacy skills. The Texas YLF training network has been established in this first year of the project. The intent is that our statewide YLF will serve as the higher level mechanism to train selected local/regional YLF participants to become state and national leaders and advocates. The regional YLF projects and the statewide YLF project have worked together in 2006-2007 to collaboratively train youth with disabilities to become leaders and advocates in their communities and at the state level. The YLF training network has worked together to field-test this model. The statewide YLF project diversity was insured by an application and selection process that was sensitive to diversity issues. To ensure that the delegates culturally represented the state, the recruitment process emphasized the importance of diversity and strived to choose delegates from cultural backgrounds in similar proportions as in the state. The application process took into consideration the student?s disability category, racial/cultural background, socio-economic status, and region in which the student lived. The Texas Statewide Youth Leadership Forum will train 90 Youth will disabilities over a three year period with 30 being trained in the first year. The Texas Statewide Youth Leadership forum has established a training program that is exclusively for youth with disabilities with a core curriculum that includes career development, the history of the disability rights movement, assistive technology, financial resources, and community and civic involvement. By targeting these students during their last two years of secondary education, the training is delivered during a critical period when students are typically making major decisions regarding postsecondary education, training, or careers. Successful adults with disabilities will be mentors and speakers for the training, providing youth with disabilities the opportunity to gain extended knowledge about postsecondary opportunities and possibilities. Delegates will create a personal plan that will consist of an overall goal and objectives that will help them obtain their goal. The personal plan will be completed at the end of the training and advisors will be assigned to the trained delegates to track and assist them through the year on the implementation of their personal plan.

youth with disabilities, self-determination, post secondary

Performing Technical Assistance and/or Training, Performing Research or Evaluation

Education & Early Intervention

Children/Adolescents with Disabilities/SHCN

Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Urban

State

N/A