In this disrupted era of politics, our initiative’s work has never been more critical. Five steps can get the local 100% initiatives to their goal.

Anyone streaming the mass media understands that we live with unprecedented challenges with families in the crossfire. The federal government’s role in ensuring services to strengthen health, safety, education, and social justice is hotly debated in Washington, DC. The fallout is hitting all fifty states. We understand that neither the federal nor state governments had any legal obligation to provide these services. And for the most part, state, county, and city governments don’t ensure universal access to parents who cannot afford private sector pay-as-you-go services.

This article offers five steps to move forward with our 100% New Mexico agenda–one that prioritizes every child’s health and safety in New Mexico.

Our strategies and solutions were clear.

When the Anna, Age Eight Institute was founded in 2019, we knew from decades of research that families struggled to access vital family services. We knew the public health challenges that resulted from a lack of service, including adverse childhood experiences leading to trauma, substance use disorders, low school achievement, and lack of job readiness. We also knew the solution: creating a one-stop service hub in each county to link visitors to ten services onsite, online, and through navigators. Hub staff would also work to improve and grow service access across each county.

Our local initiative validated the harsh reality through surveys of parents who reported service barriers instead of access to healthcare, affordable housing, and transportation. We understood that our volunteer initiative member-led coalition required full-time staff and a base of operations. Hence, our mission is to fund one-stop service hubs as family resource centers with a dual purpose: linking families to services and building services. The centers would also serve as the home base for the local 100% New Mexico initiative and align with the work of all family and health-related organizations in the county.

“1% for 100%” is how the work can be funded.

In our book 100% Community: Ensuring 10 Vital Services for Surviving and Thriving, written to guide the 100% New Mexico initiative, we wrote that one strategy to fund services would be the “1% for 100%” policy. City and county governments would earmark 1% of the operating budget to support service development to ensure service for 100% of families in their county. Hence the slogan “1% for 100%.” We proposed this solution five years ago to institutionalize funding rather than depend on unstable, nonrecurring funding. Like our police and courts, vital services require stable financing.

Half a decade later…

Five years after launching the 100% New Mexico initiative, no county, city, or state government has a “1% for 100%” strategy, meaning that there is no institutional and recurring funding to address systemic barriers that affect access to essential services like healthcare, housing, transportation, and education—known as the social determinants of health (SDOH), despite their importance. As we have written exhaustively, almost every public health, safety, and education challenge can be tracked by the lack of access to vital services. Why so little progress, one might ask. This is an ongoing and essential discussion within every local initiative, but what’s important is how we move forward in an era where support for family services may disappear due to radically new federal activism.

Only New Mexicans will fix New Mexico’s lack of accessible family services. These Five Action Steps can produce results.

The federal government will not be doing the work of supporting families anytime soon. We may find federal dollars disappearing in New Mexico, leading to considerable disruptions in social services and degrading infrastructure. The impact on low-income households will be significant. Five key components must be addressed on different levels of government in New Mexico to address inequities and injustices. The following five steps are presented to produce results, and they are not linear, requiring simultaneous activities with 100% New Mexico initiative members.

Action Step #1: Approach State Government Leaders.

To address inequities and injustices, these must be addressed:

1. State Governance: Governors oversee state agencies responsible for public health, education, housing, and transportation.
2. Legislative Action: State lawmakers can pass bills promoting service access but often fail to implement systemic changes, such as funding school-based health care and family resource centers in all public schools.
3. Workforce Development: Addressing workforce shortages in essential sectors like healthcare and education requires regional plans to grow the workforce.
4. Adapting to AI: States need plans to address significant job displacement caused by AI and robotics. AI can help the state’s workforce development agency create jobs that AI cannot replace while also assisting the state’s public education department in aligning curriculum and instruction with the emerging needs of the AI era.
5. Centralized Coordination: A central team is necessary to ensure the implementation of these components across state infrastructure.

Initiative Action: We encourage all 100% New Mexico participants to meet with their state senators and representatives to discuss families’ needs and open a dialogue about funding priorities. We also encourage change agents to reach out to the leaders of the state departments of early childhood learning and care, child welfare, and public health, as they have the financial assets to implement our proposed strategies today.

Action Step #2: Engage with City and County Government Leaders.

Local governments can be activists in ensuring vital services and aligning their work with all city, county, and state strategies.

Implement the “1% for 100%” policy: Ensuring that a portion of city and county government budgets earmark funding for increasing services access among ten vital services identified in the research to strengthen the health and safety of children and their families.

Fund the One-Stop Service Hub: Family Resource Center: Identify a local family-focused or youth-focused organization with solid infrastructure and fund expanding its services through the one-stop services hub. This could be a medical services provider, a CASA (court-appointed special advocates) organization, or other family-focused enterprises. Building a new organization is unnecessary when a local one can be enhanced.

Initiative action: We encourage all 100% New Mexico participants to review their city and county budgets and assess their priorities. This is a relationship-building process focused on promoting the idea that local government can inspire service development and funding a one-stop service hub.

Action Step #3: Partner with School Government Leadership.

Schools are positioned to be effective service hubs as they are where most of our children and youth and their families are familiar. A superintendent’s office could support the development of several strategies to increase family services. While funding may not be immediately available for these strategies; what’s important is the vision and starting the fundraising process.

A school-based health center: This strategy significantly increases medical, dental, and mental health care access. We have successful models in some schools in New Mexico, and students and their families require universal access. Each can be customized to align their services with existing healthcare in the county.

A school-based family resource center: This service delivery model is currently being used in 3,000 centers across the US, but only a handful in New Mexico. This center can be staffed by social workers and community health workers to link students and their families to ten vital services onsite, online, or through staff navigators.

A community school: A community school is a strategy used to enhance school programs that greatly support students and their families through school and community-based family enrichment events, cultural events, and more. A full-time community school director can support the school in assessing needs for services and working collaboratively with service providers to meet them.

Initiative action: We encourage all 100% New Mexico participants to review their school district budgets and meet with school superintendents and board members to open a dialogue about strategies to begin developing school-based health care and family resource centers to meet the needs of students and their families.

Action Step #4: Consider the Role of Philanthropy.

Our network of foundations can be visionary game changers. New Mexico has millions of dollars in foundation funding available, yet most of it is not directed at creating a countywide system of accessible services. Foundations do not provide institutional financing for recurring programs and service development, as only governments do. However, they can give vital start-up funds to local organizations to pilot new evidence-informed projects in the short term and evaluate results. They are also usually run by professionals comfortable using technology and AI to assess service barriers and other challenges and identify solutions. Foundation expertise can be invaluable to local organizations, governments, and schools.

Initiative action: We encourage all 100% of New Mexico participants to explore the foundation network in New Mexico and assess their priorities. By using AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, you can search for local and national foundations that might align with the work of the 100% New Mexico initiative. AI can also help in writing proposals.

Action Step #5: Collaborate with Higher Education.

As part of NMSU, we understand the role of higher education in supporting local capacity-building. Universities are not usually set up to fund local organizations or initiatives. Still, they can provide valuable frameworks, research, and technical assistance when counties work to identify challenges and solve them. Universities can also partner with local entities to develop participatory research projects that spotlight local problems and co-create solutions by local change agents, such as 100% New Mexico initiative participants.

Initiative action: We encourage all 100% New Mexico participants to contact local higher education to explore partnership opportunities and develop research projects focused on service development and aligning service organizations across a county. Many nonprofit organizations, including councils and coalitions, have partnerships with higher education, and these should be explored to assess how current strategies align with the 100% New Mexico initiative. We stress that our work is about collaboration, not competition. It’s also about getting measurable and meaningful results.

The Urgency of the 100% New Mexico Initiative

We now live in a society disrupted by federal government activism, which may mean far less federal support for family services. New Mexico has depended on federal support since it became a state, and losing federal dollars can devastate social services. We also face job losses as AI transforms society, replacing jobs across all sectors, from knowledge and entertainment to industry, retail, and fast food. We can also expect economic downturns such as we experienced in 2008. We also have no idea if another pandemic could arrive. Still, our state’s healthcare system is woefully unprepared, with families lacking access to services in so-called “normal times.” Our vulnerable populations are now more susceptible to disruptions in every aspect of their lives, with children being at the greatest risk.

Initiative action: As we have been writing for five years, ten vital services are required to create a New Mexico where all children, students, and families thrive. Our initiative is the only one with the vision of 100% thriving through services that are accessible, affordable, and user-friendly. We are the change agents that can transform New Mexico, and it’s a heavy responsibility and a historic opportunity. Once our one-stop service hubs, staffed to assess, plan, act, and evaluate progress, are up and running, the work of the 100% New Mexico initiative will be much easier. As volunteers, local initiative members have done profound work, but the next phase requires paid staff and a stable institutional base of operations.

Our 100% Role in Transforming New Mexico

If the leadership of 100% New Mexico doesn’t lead, our services for children and families may wither away. But we do have good news. New Mexico is fortunate to have vast financial assets, with a ten billion dollar yearly operating budget and more than 35 billion dollars in “rainy day” funds. The funds exist to transform New Mexico into a state where every family can thrive. Visionary leadership from New Mexico, including leaders in the local 100% New Mexico initiatives, elected officials, academics, and community activists, can support policies addressing all our current and future challenges.

Human ingenuity and good governance can address the challenges New Mexico has endured for centuries, but our future is not predetermined. As we enter this brave new world of colliding crises exacerbated by the federal government, our mission within the 100% New Mexico initiative is clear: the time for action is now, with clearly defined steps to shape New Mexico’s future.

Initiative action: Enroll in the web-based, self-guided course “Developing the One-Stop Service Hub” to gain insights into developing a proposal for family resource centers. The course includes a draft proposal to customize and share with all potential funding sources, including elected leaders, community stakeholders, and foundations. For technical assistance in taking our “Five Steps,” contact us.