Be a Youth Summit Policy Mentor

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 mentoring diverse DC area 8th-12th graders through the Youth Summit on Youth Policymaking (YSYP)?

Then volunteer to be a Policy Mentor!  Learning Life, a Washington DC-based nonprofit working to widen participation in democracy and diplomacy, seeks junior and senior policy mentors to mentor up to 100 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 Mentor 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 Mentors We Are Looking For

Mentors should:

  1. Reside in the Washington, DC metro region.
  2. Enjoy working with teenagers.
  3. Want to bridge socio-economic divides and nurture youth engagement in policymaking to help strengthen American democracy.
  4. Want to support the growth of the DMV Democracy Learning Community via engagement in YSYP.
  5. Junior policy mentors: Policy graduate students and professionals with less than five years of professional policy experience, preferably interested in policymaking at school, city, county, and/or state government levels.  Graduate students with five or more years of prior professional policymaking experience qualify as senior mentors.
  6. Senior policy mentors: Professionals with 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.
What Policy Mentors Do

The Mentor tasks below are in rough chronological order.

First, complete this survey to register your interest in serving as a mentor.  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 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 mentors and youth.
  3. Optional but encouraged: Sponsor one or more DMV 8th-12th grader’s participation in the Summit.  $150 per student.  The “sponsor” link is for DemFest fundraising overall, so make sure to note “Sponsoring Summit youth” when you contribute, and thank you!

After the above onboarding steps, as a policy mentor you take part in the following Summit activities (all dates are tentative): 

  1. Optional but encouraged: On Saturdays, September 12 and 19, 2026, 1-3pm, serve as a commentator, helping inform discussion of speakers’ introductions to DMV school, city, county, and state policymaking.   
  2. Required: On Saturday, September 26, 1:00-2:30pm take part in an online “get to know you” session for student deliberators and policy mentors to get to know each other in small and large groups.    
  3. Required: On Saturday, October 3 (Summit Day!), 2-5pm, guide your team of student deliberators through their policymaking deliberations in small and large groups, then student voting on all the teams’ proposals.     
  4. Optional but encouraged: Testify about the Summit alongside Learning Life staff and Summit students at school, government and community meetings in person or online following YSYP to help expand the Summit, and advocate for youth engagement in government policymaking.

The total time commitment is 4.5 hours (minimum) up to 12 hours (estimated) in September and October, with hours varying depending on your participation in optional activities above.