The Florida Youth Council

The Florida Youth Council is pleased to announce that our partners at The Advocacy Center for Persons with Disability have provided the resources for a second printing of our IEP guide book,  Navigating Your IEP: Are You on the Right Track for Success? Navigating Your IEP is an IEP guide written for youth, by youth. It provides helpful advice on how a student can go from being a passive observer in their IEP meeting, to leading the discussion and taking charge of their educational and life planning in a meaningful way. We hope that you will take the time to read Navigating Your IEP and share it with others in your community. Hard copies are available upon request by contacting Alex Brown by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or by phone at (850) 224-4670.

We are already more than a week into 2010 and we at Florida Youth Council are very excited about the coming year. We are coming off a very productive 2009 and foresee 2010 being an even better year.

In 2009, we accomplished many things. We provided a lot helpful information at The 11^th Annual Family Café. While there we had an exhibitor booth and presented during 6 different breakout sessions. Our topics included disability history, getting involved and social interactions.

Building off momentum from The Family Café, the Council hosted its 2^nd Annual Youth Summit just a few months later. The event was a huge success. We had over 120 people participate in the summit and we had great speakers and presenters.

At The 2^nd Annual Youth Summit the council unveiled the latest project it has been working on, its IEP guidebook, Navigating Your IEP: Are You on the Right Track towards Your Future? This product was designed for students with disabilities with the idea of telling them how to take a leadership role in their IEP meetings.

The council is hoping to build off all of the momentum that was generated in 2009. In 2010 the council plans to again have a presence at The 12^th Annual Family Café, and to make The 3^rd Annual Youth Summit bigger and better in every way. Also, there is a plan to design another product that will hopefully be rolled out at The 3^rd Annual Youth Summit.

With all the exciting things the Florida Youth Council has planned for the 2010, we hope you will follow us through our website, as well as through our ever-interesting blog site http://floridayouthcouncil.com/blog/. We hope everyone has a great 2010 and we hope to see you all during this upcoming year.

Welcome all to the October 2009 issue of The Noodle. The theme for this edition of the ever popular Noodle news letter is “Thoughts on Leadership.” The members were asked to think about what leadership means to them, and how they could express that to others. Members have written about how they are leaders, what leadership means to them, and even about leaders in their lives. All the articles come together to form a pretty diverse look at leadership. I hope you enjoy these articles all about leadership.

Use this link, November 2009 Noodle, to access the electronic version of The November 2009 Noodle.  Printed copies are also available by contacting our office at 888-309-CAFE (2233). 

You can also access a word version of The November 2009 Noodle at this link.

Disability Factorids

Did you know:

In 1984 Gallaudet University, a university for the blind, football quarterback Paul Hubbard created the “huddle” to prevent the opposing team from seeing the signs the Gallaudet team used to communicate their next play to their teammates.

Over 51 million Americans - 18% of the population - are classified as disabled.

The diagnosis of autism is four times more prevalent in males than females.

Baseball hand signals used by umpires to signify balls, strikes, out and safe originate from Outfielder William Hoy’s request to umpires that they use sign language because he was deaf and could not hear the umpires’ verbal calls.

 Visually impaired individuals competed for the 1st time at the 1976 Paralympics in Toronto.

In 1776, Stephen Hopkins referred to his Cerebral Palsy when he signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence saying, “My hands trembles, but myheart does not.”

One in four people will be affected by mentally health in the course of their life.

Florida, the fourth most populous state, ranks third in the number of persons with disabilities. This number is estimated at 2.2 million people with disabilities

The typewriter was invented as a private writing device for a blind member of a royal family.