Feature
3rd Annual SKCCH Homeless Youth & Young Adult Summit
September 23 & 24, 2008, approximately 35 youth gathered together for 2 days to develop teams to bring the most important issues of homeless youth to Seattle City Councilors, and Interim Director of Seattle Human Services. Seven trained peer leaders and a youth peer lead coordinator led the entire event with minimal service provider intervention.
Planning for the summit began in August at the SKCCH (Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness)Youth and Young Adult Committee. On Friday September 19, we held a pre-summit training. The purpose of the training was to competitively select peer leaders, train peer leaders in leadership skills for the summit, and train service providers in their responsibilities for the summit.
The training was a huge success. Role playing was a good time and became very applicable during the summit. Peer leads were overheard during the summit saying something to the extent of, “and I had a shy one, and a dominating one, just like that role-play in training.”
On Tuesday September 23, the summit began with its first day at a conference room donated by REI at their flagship store. Peer leads met in the morning at Orion to go over the agenda they were running. Participants ate breakfast served graciously by Orion staff, and we all met at REI at 10. Peer leads practiced speaking to a group of 30-40 people with a microphone, leading several small groups in discussion on brainstorming issues, developing talking points for issues, and role-playing.
At the Summit service providers stayed silent in the background, not even sitting at the same table as youth and officials. It was stressed throughout the summit that everything about the summit was youth-centered. Even if service providers knew an important issue city councilors should hear about, the decisions and issues of youth were the center of this event, not those of service providers. At the end of the day peer leads reported back on their meetings. Teams of 4-8 youth met with 7 Seattle City Councilors, and the Interim Director of City of Seattle Human Services.
The event concluded with each peer lead reporting back about their meeting, and lastly, youth being called up to the front to publicly receive a certificate and completion stipend.
By George R. Lee
Youth Leadership & Education Coordinator
