YAS Blog

October 23, 2025

The first cohort of the Youth Advocacy Subcommittee convened in July 2025 and met through the end of October. Below is a summary of what we did together. 

In July, we met twice a week as the Youth Advocacy Subcommittee for School’s Out Washington and started introducing ourselves individually and learning about what Youth Development means. We researched the representatives and senators in our district, created groups, discussed possible approaches for meeting with legislators, and contacted local legislators from our legislative districts.

In August, we learned how to contact legislators and started practicing what we were going to discuss with them. Due to their busy schedules and personal commitments, scheduling meetings with legislative offices proved to be challenging. As we began reaching out to their legislative assistants to schedule meetings, we roleplayed within our groups and asked each other questions, trying to be as prepared for the meetings as possible and sent follow up emails to those who did not respond. 

It seemed that all legislators we met with were concerned with the budget deficit. We shared that the need was great – only $2.7 million out of the $18.9 million in state youth development investments were renewed in the biennium budget (2026). Legislators overall on both sides of the aisle were very supportive of youth development. Some of the legislators vocalized support for fiscal transparency in Washington state. 

The budget deficit was the biggest difficulty the group encountered, and definitely required a firm approach in the sense that a clear plan was necessary. They asked very few specific questions, but we answered them to the best of our ability and made sure to leave the representatives with things to think about once the meeting was over. We were lucky enough to get follow-ups as well in order to advance our agenda. We did a lot of preparation and studying for these meetings.