Program Background:

The K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability (YTI), within the ILR School, has provided continuing education and technical assistance since 1968 on issues relating to the workplace and disability. YTI contributes to the development of inclusive workplace systems and communities through research, the development and delivery of training materials, regional, national and international dissemination of information, provision of technical assistance, and production of scholarly materials.

Research Description:

The Research Fellow will support research and development for our new program, “Pro Se: Empowering Justice-Involved Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities Through Speech and Debate Training,” which will be piloted this summer (with seed funding from Engaged Cornell). For many systems-involved youth, major challenges to community reentry include a lack of continuity between systems (e.g., justice settings and education settings), deleterious effects on social networks, and a distrust of authority and legal structures. The provision of supplemental academic and mentorship opportunities are proven to help facilitate community reentry for justice-involved youth and young adults.

The program offers training opportunities in speech and debate for youth and young adults with disabilities (ages 14-24) who are justice involved. “Pro Se” translates roughly to “on one’s own behalf,” and the goal of the program is to empower young, systems-involved individuals through self-advocacy training, focused on age and developmentally appropriate curriculum in speech, debate, and legal topics to reduce barriers to reentry. Trainers and mentors will include Cornell University undergraduates from the Undergraduate Mock Trial Association, the Speech and Debate Program, and students pursuing pre-law minors. The program offers essential two-way service learning opportunities, both for participating justice-involved youth with disabilities, and for future legal professionals from Cornell who can drive juvenile justice innovation from within.

We will be asking summer fellows to help with the pilot program evaluation, including utilizing administrative data to make program improvements, and helping plan/conduct the interviews and focus groups at the end of the program period. If the student is interested in doing so, we would also be willing to offer them the opportunity to be a mentor during the summer, and to contribute to the curriculum/implementation guide as well as any scholarly publications that are developed during the period of the fellowship.