Join the Florida Youth Council

Thank you for your interest in The Florida Youth Council!

The Florida Youth Council is a group of youth and emerging leaders (age 15-30) with disabilities or special health care needs that live in Florida. We are a program of The Family Café.

The Florida Youth Council is all about getting youth and emerging leaders involved in self-advocacy, peer mentoring and other activities that will improve the quality of life for youth and emerging leaders with disabilities in Florida. The program provides a mean for youth and emerging leaders to decide what issues are important to their generation, to express those issues in their state and local communities, and to develop strategies to solve them.

We are seeking a group of enthusiastic, motivated youth and emerging leaders to participate. If you would like to take a leadership role in advocating for youth and emerging leaders in Florida, please join us!
Before you start our application, you might want to gather some information. During the Application, you will be asked for the following:

Your Basic Contact Information, like your name, email, phone number, and address.
Some Questions to Answer about yourself and how you can make an impact on the FYC. You might want to think about your answers before and write or type them out. Those questions will be:
- Tell us about the activities you are currently involved in or have been involved in at your school or in your community.
- Tell us about some leadership skills that you possess and/or leadership experience you have?
- Tell us how you are hoping to benefit from being a part of the Florida Youth Council. Also, please tell us about how your participation will benefit the Florida Youth Council.
Two Letters of Recommendation. You can either get them ahead of time or we can email them a form to fill out. If you want to email them the form, make sure you have their email addresses ready and let them know to watch for the email.

Commitment and Responsibilities

Being a Florida Youth Council member is a rewarding experience, though it does come with a few commitments. Members are expected to assist with events such as the Annual Family Café and the Annual Florida Youth Summit, including participating in planning leading up to each event.

Some of those commitments are:

Participate in monthly Florida Youth Council conference calls of about one hour in length
Provide monthly articles for our newsletter, The Noodle
Provide videos twice a month for the Florida Youth Council Social Media Accounts
Participate in face-to-face meetings up to 3 times a year
Participate at the Annual Youth Summit
Participate at The Annual Family Café
Provide advice and input on the Youth Council’s various activities
Participate in Disability History and Awareness activities
Participate in, or present at, local community events
Participate in the mentoring of new council members
Participate in leadership trainings
Respect other members’ viewpoints, opinions, and values

Basically, we are asking you to give us all of your energy, ideas and enthusiasm as we move the Florida Youth Council forward. If you want to take a lead role in making a difference for youth and emerging leaders in Florida, and have fun doing it, this is the program for you!