Be a Youth Summit Policy Advisor

Do you live in the Washington DC area, and have experience in the policymaking process at school, city, county, and/or state government levels?

Want to help strengthen the future of American democracy by advising diverse DC area 8th-12th graders as part of the Youth Summit on Youth Policymaking (YSYP)?

Then volunteer to be a Policy Advisor!  Learning Life, a Washington DC-based nonprofit working to widen participation in democracy and diplomacy, seeks experienced policy professionals to advise 8th-12th graders from diverse DMV private, public and charter schools as they go through the Summit policymaking process.

The first YSYP took place on Saturdays, September 27 and October 4, 2025 via Zoom then in person at the DMV Democracy Festival (DemFest), with community connection and information sharing via the DMV Democracy Learning Community on Linkedin before and after those dates.  Details about the Summit at the YSYP link above, and about the Policy Advisor role below.

YSYP is a project of Learning Life’s DMV Democracy Learning Community (DLC), an association of DC area individuals and organizations working to make democracy more fun and inclusive by developing social events, products, services and spaces that entertain and nurture learning, networking, collaboration and wider, deeper citizen participation.

The Advisors We Are Looking For

Policy Advisors should:

  1. Reside in the Washington, DC metro region.
  2. Have at least five years of policymaking experience at school, city, county and/or state government levels, ideally in DC, Maryland or Virginia.  That experience can be in research, government or public-facing advocacy, and/or government policy implementation, though preference is for professionals with present or past experience in school, city, county and/or state government policy making.
  3. Want to bridge socio-economic divides and nurture youth engagement in policymaking to help strengthen American democracy.
What Policy Advisors Do

The Advisor tasks below are in rough chronological order.

First, complete this survey to register your interest in serving as a YSYP Policy Advisor.  Optional but encouraged in the survey: fill out those survey parts that allow us to introduce Summit participants and observers to you via a digital poster (see below for example).

We will then get back to you promptly if we decide you are a good fit.  If you are a good fit, then take these three onboarding steps:

  1. Required: Zoom meeting with Learning Life’s Director, Paul Lachelier, to go over summit details, and answer any questions.  Paul will email you to schedule that meeting.
  2. Optional but encouraged: Join the DMV Democracy Learning Community Linkedin Group to get Summit updates and connect with participating fellow policy advisors, mentors, and youth.
  3. Optional but encouraged: Sponsor one or more DMV 8th-12th grader’s participation in the Summit.  $200 per student.  At the link, make sure to note “Youth Summit sponsor” when you contribute, and thank you!

After the above onboarding steps, as a Policy Advisor you contribute to the following Summit activities (all dates are tentative).  Note that you can volunteer as both a Policy Advisor and Policy Mentor, in which case you would attend one or both of the first two Saturdays, and the 3rd and 4th Saturday.

  1. Required: On Saturday, September 12 OR 19, 2026, 1:00-2:30pm, lead or co-lead an introduction for 8th-12th graders of policymaking at DMV school, city, county, or state government levels.  September 12: school and city levels.  September 19: county and state levels.  Each Saturday, we aim to have four Policy Advisors speak, two at each level of government, and each working in different governments to give our young deliberators wider perspective.  Each Policy Advisor will have at least ten minutes to speak.
  2. Optional: On Saturday, September 26, 1:00-2:30pm take part in an online “get to know you” session for student deliberators and supporting Policy Mentors and Advisors to get to know each other in small and large groups.
  3. Optional: On Saturday, October 3 (Summit Day!), 2-5pm, assist the Policy Mentors as they guide their teams of student deliberators through their policymaking deliberations in small and large groups, then student voting on all the teams’ proposals.
  4. Optional but encouraged: Beyond YSYP, during the year when you can, testify about the Summit alongside Learning Life staff and/or Summit students at school, government and community meetings in person or online to help expand the Summit, and advocate for youth engagement in government policymaking.

The total time commitment for Policy Advisors is 1.5 to 7.5 hours in September and October, with hours varying depending on your participation in optional activities above.