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Leadership Development Among High School Students with Disabilities -

Exploring New Horizons

By Barbara J. Ettner, Ph.D.

Coming of Age: Leadership Development For Youth With Disabilities

It is a laudable goal: to empower people with disabilities to achieve their fullest potential in all aspects of their lives—in education, employment, and community living. Not long ago society would have scoffed at such a goal, but now it is commonplace to promote the full inclusion of people with disabilities into all aspects of life in the public square. Of particular interest is the emerging trend for people with disabilities, especially young people, to seek--not just any roles--but to seek leadership roles in their schools and communities

It is difficult, however, for people with disabilities to be accepted and “successful” in a society biased toward physical beauty and overt intellectual prowess. Nevertheless, adolescents and young adults with disabilities, representing a broad range of cognitive talents and physical aptitudes, are claiming their rightful places as leaders among their non-disabled peers in school and community settings. It is not unusual to see high school students with cerebral palsy, autism, dyslexia, or learning disabilities working in the science lab, writing for the school newspaper, singing in the Glee Club, competing on the debating team, creatively expressing themselves in the performing arts, volunteering for community service. Advances in assistive technology, medical science, and teacher education, along with enforcement of civil rights protections (primarily the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1997) now make authentic leadership development and related programs a real possibility for high school students with disabilities.

New Leadership Training Audiences Require Diverse and Creative Approaches.

Three years ago the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities (the Board) established the Youth Leadership Forum to provide intensive leadership training to high school juniors and seniors with disabilities. Under the program’s banner, “Developing New Leaders for the Twenty-First Century,” the Board sought to fill a void in opportunities available for meaningful leadership development among the specific population of young adults who, despite cognitive and/ or physical disabilities, aspired to become adult leaders. Not much had been developed in practice or theory concerning leadership training for youth with disabilities. Although our program is new—we have conducted two intensive training sessions thus far--this article describes some programmatic aspects of the Youth Leadership Forum that appear to be important considerations in training young leaders with disabilities: focus on leadership, connect to communities, and foster adult and peer counseling.

Focus on Leadership as a Stand-Alone Attribute, Sustain the Message : Many “leadership training” programs developed for adolescents focus on esteem-building, group dynamics, career exploration and vocational skills enhancement as mechanisms for delivering the leadership message. The focus on leadership as a job skill or as an esteem-builder tends to be more pronounced in special education counseling and transition activities for students with disabilities because they are among the students for whom “vocational” careers are emphasized. In contrast to other approaches, the Youth Leadership Forum promotes knowledge of leadership for leadership’s sake; activities are geared toward developing leadership skills that are positive for the individual and not necessarily linked to a job task or an occupation. Rather than job exploration (although some is included in the curriculum), the Youth Leadership Forum focuses directly on leadership exploration in self, in situations, and in others in a more narrow context than work or school; the focus is on leadership as a stand-along attribute irrespective of physical or cognitive limitations. Thus far, students with disabilities seeking enhanced leadership development seem to respond well to this more focused approach.

Program staff find that they must constantly emphasize the leadership training aspect of the forum—in the planning stages, in curriculum development, and in implementation. The tendency is for program developers to create programs for young people that are “fun” rather than challenging — especially if the participants are perceived at the outset as having physical or cognitive deficits. Even the best-intentioned staff person must learn to resist the temptation to dilute the leadership message.

Our challenge in focusing on leadership content in our training program is probably not unique. But in our participant population it is especially tempting to slide into a therapeutic mindset when young people, some with serious medical conditions, come together for a week—many of them for the first time without parents or caregivers hovering over them. A further element that tends to weaken the rigor of adolescent leadership training is the tendency for staff and participants alike to become preoccupied with “socializing.”

Community Connections: By design, the our program relies heavily on community volunteer leaders from all walks of life to participate in the Forum as speakers, mentors, panelists, presenters, and demonstrators. Additionally, we strive to recruit community volunteers who are people with disabilities from across Virginia who are also demonstrated leaders in their chosen professions, as homemakers, in politics, medicine, law, business, or in higher education. Our community volunteers model successful leadership capabilities of people with disabilities, thus educating Forum participants by example—a powerful teacher. The 2001 Forum featured an interactive session with Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, John Hagar, who is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair. Other participants from the community operate businesses or manage organizations that provide services to people with disabilities and thus have an intimate understanding of the barriers, frustrations, and special obstacles these young people may experience as emerging leaders. Because we believe these individuals are vital to the success of leadership training for young people with disabilities, program staff exert considerable effort in identifying and recruiting successful community leaders with disabilities to participate in the Youth Leadership Forum. We know of no other leadership-training program that so intensively immerses its participants in dialogue with successful leaders who are themselves disabled. Assessment of the long-term impact of these adult role models and teachers on future leadership activity by program graduates is planned.

Peer Counseling: A third unique program strategy, peer counseling during the Forum, provides both a leadership opportunity and a personal leadership development experience for young aspiring leaders with disabilities. Peer counselors are Youth Leadership Forum alumni who return—within one or two years of “graduation” from the program-- to work with the new participants. Peer counselors perform various duties, including contributing to group discussions about topical material, assisting participants with writing, reading, communicating, and/or moving from place to place throughout the Forum, and providing diverse personal experiences or observations about leadership that enhance facilitator-led or participant discussions and activities. Because the peer counselors have already been through the program, current “rookies” look to them first as counselors for affirmation and encouragement, and second as peers for comaraderie and empathy. Peer counselors help build self-confidence among the new participants and maximize time spent completing work assignments or developing group activities. They are proving integral to the productivity of the Forum and serve as a role model closer in age to the participants than staff or other adults. As an interesting sidelight, peer counselors provide program staff the opportunity to observe first-hand, one or two years later, how former program participants have matured in their social interaction skills and enhanced their capacity for leadership. Again since the program is so new, we have not had a chance to assess the outcomes, either on the participants or on the peer counselors, in terms of leadership capacity-building.

Conclusion

The Youth Leadership Forum, a program in its infancy, has many other significant and unique aspects, and many new ideas are emerging each day in the field of leadership studies that could be incorporated into the program. Three programmatic features--focus on leadership, community connections, and peer counseling--were selected in this discussion to illustrate unique challenges and successful approaches incorporated into leadership training for high school students with disabilities that we believe will contribute to the overall success of our program in Virginia. Our approach is by no means exhaustive and our program is evolving with each new session, so we, like our aspiring young leaders, have much to learn. Moreover, we look forward to the opportunity to conduct longitudinal studies of the impact of our program over time. We do believe however, from limited outcome evaluations and the positive feedback we have received from parents, participants, community sponsors, faculty, volunteers and others that we are well on the way to achieving our goal, “Developing New Leaders for the Twenty-First Century.” Time will tell.

I wish to especially acknowledge Teri Barker, presently the Project Director for the Youth Leadership Forum, Heather McCoy who has provided valuable administrative support for two forums, and April Holmes who conducted the first Youth Leadership Form in Virginia in the summer, 2000.

Comments to: ettnerbj@vbpd.state.va.us

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About the author:

Barbara J. Ettner is Assistant Director of Policy and Programs at the Virginia Board for People with Disabilities (www.vaboard.org) in Richmond, Virginia. She is also adjunct faculty in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She oversees grants management activities by staff in education, employment and community inclusion as well as special projects including the Youth Leadership Forum, the Partners in Policymaking Program, and the agency newsletter, the Information Bulletin. She holds a B.S. in Medical Technology (Medical College of Virginia), and an M.Ed. in Science Education and a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Work (Virginia Commonwealth University). Barbara is a member of the American Society of Public Administration, Virginia Government Communicators and the Virginia Association of Scholars. She has authored/co-authored articles in scientific and social policy journals.