Project Description:
Objective 2.5: 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 was established in the first year of the project and maintained through-out the second year. The intent of this training partnership 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 throughout the years of 2006-2008 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 is 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 emphasizes 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 lives.
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. The Texas Statewide Youth Leadership Forum will train 90 Youth with disabilities over a three year period with 30 being trained in the first year, 30 in the second year and 30 in the third year. In the event that a full 30 youth are not trained in a given year, the project will extend the representative training slot to the subsequent training year.
Youth participants selected for the training will create a personal plan that will consist of an overall leadership 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.
The overall goals and objectives of the Texas Statewide Youth Leadership Forum (TXYLF) includes a collaboration with the regional Youth Leadership Forum projects to establish and maintain a training network to train youth with disabilities on leadership and advocacy skills. This new YLF model has effectively been implemented and maintained from September 2006-June of 2008. The regional YLF projects and the statewide YLF project have worked together thru 2006-2008 to collaboratively train numerous youth with disabilities to become leaders and advocates in their communities and at the state level. The intent of this new model is that our Texas 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 Texas YLF trained it first cohort of 29 youth with disabilities on advanced leadership and advocacy skills. The regional YLF projects and the statewide YLF project have worked together in 2006-2008 to collaboratively train numerous youth with disabilities to become leaders and advocates in their communities and at the state level.
Major milestones completed toward the recruitment, selection and 2007-2008 training of first and second selected cohorts of youth participants with disabilities include: provided leadership and advocacy training for 29 selected youth at the St. Edward?s University site July 23rd thru July 27th, 2007, 29 youth participants completed leadership plans to implement in their communities through out the following 9 months during the last day of the above mentioned training, project staff selected and secured the services of experienced adults to advise and assist 29 youth participants from August, 2007 thru April, 2008 to assist and encourage youth participants to complete their leadership goals, project staff developed a curriculum based evaluation form and shared this document with local/regional YLF programs, project staff selected and reserved an accessible campsite to host the spring celebration event for the first cohort of youth participants, established dates, April 27 and 28th, 2008 ,project staff selected and secured speakers, secured travel arrangements established training activities, 23 of the original 29 youth participants completed their leadership plans and were invited to attend celebration event, hosted spring celebration event, 18 of the 23 youth participants attended the spring celebration event and provided the group with 3-5 minute presentations highlighting their leadership goal and the activities that they engaged in through-out the year to complete that goal, project staff established training dates, July 21-25, 2008, for training second cohort of youth participants, reserved dorms, food services, and meeting rooms with St. Edward?s University in Austin, reserved a room in State Capitol and made appointments with selected state lawmakers for meeting with the youth participants, selected the mentors, facilitators, speakers, and volunteers who will assist with the YLF activities, Project Advisory Committee selected 31 youth as the final participants to the 2nd annual statewide YLF leadership and advocacy training event, selected 5 alternates, selected mentors, speakers, and volunteers for the training, secured transportation, medical, interpreting, and other services that delegates/mentor/facilitator requested, updated curriculum training activities to reflect project evaluation concerns and established a detailed plan for the four-day training.
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Urban
