Youth Leadership Forum

We participate in the process of nominating and selecting delegates to the annual Youth Leadership Forum, a statewide program of the California Governors’ Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities that builds leadership qualities in high school students with disabilities. At the Forum, selected junior and senior high school students with disabilities enjoy an all-expense paid 5 day concentrated educational and motivational career preparation training in Sacramento. Highly successful, California's Youth Leadership Forum model has been reproduced successfully in 33 other states.

Initially, we assist by distributing nomination packets to Sonoma County high schools, requesting teachers and other personnel to make nominations. After students have been nominated, we conduct interviews of the candidates either in-person or by telephone. We then make our recommendations to the Governors' Committee.

At the end of the Forum week, the Governor's Committee hosts a Mentors Luncheon in Sacramento. The Luncheon allows the YLF delegates to informally meet with adults active in the disability community to share ideas and experiences. In 2006, on the morning of the Luncheon, mentors joined delegates in small groups to meet with legislators at the Capitol.

Steve Shaw, our committee president, attended both the legislative visits and the luncheon. "These kids are sharp", he later recounted. "The first question I asked at our lunch table was whether the students thought that they received straight or evasive answers from the legislators they met with. They knew when they were being given the run-around."