The State of Iowa Youth Advisory Council, formerly the State of Iowa Youth Action Committee, was established in 2001 by Governor Vilsack as a way in which high-school youth could communicate and inform legislative decisions. Over the years, several state agencies within the Iowa Collaboration for Youth Development have supported SIYAC by offering staff support, allowing employees to serve as mentors, and by using the collective SIYAC voice to help guide state-wide projects impacting youth.
Supported Iowa's Keg Registration law.
Proposed and promoted a poll worker law along with the Secretary of State which lowered the minimum age of poll workers to 16.
Supported and promoted the passage of the Healthy Kids Act.
Partnered with Team Nutrition and the "Youth in Action for a Healthy Iowa" symposiums.
Supported anti-bullying legislation and held community forums promoting awareness of bullying.
Young people need stronger family and community supports. They also, however, need to have access to the tools, training and trust to apply their creativity and energy to effect change in their own lives and in the future of their neighborhoods, communities, cities, and states. In 2008, 20% of students responding to the Iowa Youth Survey felt they adults in their community did not care about young people. One-third of our youth state they are not made aware when adults in their community are proud of them and almost 30% do not feel as if the adults in their community would be there for them if they needed help (Iowa Youth Survey, 2008).
In current state-wide structures, youth are provided various trainings with limited opportunity to practice these newly acquired skills. SIYAC requires members to be actively engaged in the work, provides a formalized expectation to their state-level role, and will allow them to practice their new skills, such as team-building, group facilitation, communication, and conflict management.
The Governor and legislators will have direct access on a quarterly basis to youth representatives serving on the state council who have been the conduit for local conversations regarding issues in their community. In many established state-level youth councils, legislators engage youth to provide expert testimony in committee meetings. SIYAC serves to synthesize solutions to modern-day issues facing young Iowans, such as the increasing obesity rates of children, sharp tuition increases for Iowa colleges and universities (Generation Iowa), and problems facing rural communities.
SIYAC will be accepting applications for the 2010-2011 school year on a rolling basis. You can either apply online through email or use the mail in application.
*If you are going to use the email application, please take note to save it as an XML file.