Happy October! As Zara continues her Italian vacation, we are eagerly awaiting her return, while also hoping she is having so much fun she *almost* doesn’t want to come back.
I met with an AHO youth I’ve been working with for several months this week. We rehashed the importance of him signing up for no-cost healthcare, food stamps, and therapy. In general, he has been resistant to signing up for these services and hasn’t been able to communicate why he has not followed through. Signing up for these services was part of the goals he chose for himself when he reached out for AHO support. Showing up, staying in communication, and keeping your word are the 3-principles of AHO, I want to hold him accountable for what he has asked help for and will continue to hopefully try my best to understand what is behind his resistance. I’m cautiously optimistic that when we meet next, he will have accomplished these goals he set for himself, or hopefully, I will better understand how I can help him through his struggles.
As for the Youth Leadership Team meeting this week, it was a tiny but mighty group of committed AHO youth, many of who are now in their 30s and 40s who have come back to help new youth to AHO. The Team checked in about how productive last week’s meeting was and made sure that James was well-prepared for his meeting on October 15th with Juvenile Hall (JH) leaders. Since we need the support of these JH leaders to accomplish our project, it is very important that James can clearly share the details of AHO’s offer of support to incarcerated youth once they leave the system.
At this week’s meeting, the Mill Valley Annual Film Festival was also happening right next to Aroma Cafe where we meet. We got to see some celebrities attending the Festival, but the highlight was meeting the cutest 11-week-old Corgi puppy (in photo), who we named “Goodest Boy”. We took our meeting with “Goodest Boy” as a very good sign for James’ future meeting with the Juvenile Hall leaders about our project.
Cheers to pumpkins, puppies, and upcoming meetings,
Kayla