***Summer 2018-Athens Co. First YM Exploration Meeting

Angela Lariviere, director for YouthMOVE Ohio, always suspected Athens was a plausible county to start a YouthMOVE chapter. She had even previously sent some funding to the 317 board in hopes that the opportunity would present itself. Once Jade joined the statewide YouthMOVE Ohio council in June 2018, it seemed that the opportunity had finally arrived. Jade has always had a drive for advocacy since she was young and has participated in a variety of movements and causes through the years. Now she found she could use her knowledge gained through lived experience to help others by working towards improving youth-serving systems of care. In addition, her mother, Beth, brought her own professional skill set as well as her own lived experience from the prospective of a parent navigating youth-serving systems. Part of her family's experiences included familiarity with Athens Family and Children First Council. Across the state, many established county YouthMOVEs were already using their county's FCFC to act as their lead agency. Therefore, it was logical for Angela to travel to Athens to meet with Jade, her mom and Wendy Shields, director of Athens FCFC, to begin the exploration phase of bringing a county YouthMOVE chapter to the area.