How Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Make Childhoods Safer?
Ensuring ten vital services for surviving and thriving are accessible to 100% of New Mexico’s children and families is exhausting work. How might AI make the process easier, faster, and more efficient?
Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello
February 26, 2024
Welcome to a captivating exploration into the realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to enhance childhood safety. There are suddenly so many innovative ways AI can revolutionize our 100% New Mexico approach to ensuring ten vital services for surviving and thriving, propelling us toward a brighter future for all.
In the quest to ensure essential services for every family in New Mexico, we are faced with the monumental task of orchestrating a complex machine with a myriad of moving parts. But fear not, for AI stands ready to lend its unparalleled efficiency and expertise to our cause, streamlining our efforts and alleviating human exhaustion.
While AI is not a panacea, it possesses remarkable capabilities that can accelerate our progress in key areas of the 100% New Mexico initiative. From automating tasks such as identifying organizations within our ten service sectors to generating creative solutions during brainstorming sessions, AI offers invaluable support in our quest for innovation and efficiency. It answers questions about improving the health, safety, education, and quality of life of all New Mexicans, and provides insights gathered from across the globe. AI can draft proposals for a 100% Family Center, identify potential funders, and even aid in the important tasks of grant writing and research. AI is empowering us with unprecedented capabilities.
What can AI do for you?
But how does AI bolster the efforts of our action teams focused on increasing access to vital services? Imagine heading the 100% Behavioral Health Action Team. You tap into AI’s vast repository of data to identify effective strategies, analyze barriers to care, and glean insights into best practices for increasing vital services in rural and urban areas. The results are delivered with remarkable speed and precision and without the need to make sense of a dozen spreadsheets and hundreds of pages of reports. Imagine all ten action teams with AI as a virtual researcher, able to make sense of complex information, identify funding streams, and suggest pathways to increasing services.
The list of what AI can do to support our mission of making New Mexico the safest state to be a child is breathtaking. AI is revolutionizing the private sector today and its power must be harnessed to serve the public sector tomorrow. While some see the power of AI as a toolkit for sowing dissent and confusion, we are set on using AI to serve the public good.
AI is not a replacement for humans, it is a tool for humans. No small organization can afford to hire an admin assistant, researcher, and grant writer for every staff member, but AI can give us just that and more. As we chart a course toward a safer and more equitable future, join us in harnessing the transformative power of AI to ensure every child, student, and family can thrive.
Want to find out more about how we are leveraging technology to solve the problems impacting so many families in New Mexico? Join the 100% Answers discussion area on our 100% Training site.
Did you know? Our transformational 100% New Mexico initiative is guided by web-based, self-paced courses provided free to all New Mexicans.
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Dr. Katherine Ortega Courtney
Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD. is a changemaker, psychologist, author, and life coach. Her work in child welfare advocacy has instilled change in data-driven trauma prevention in states across the country. She has worked in policy and research and has led community initiatives through her work at the Santa Fe Community Foundation and the New Mexico Early Childhood Development Partnership. As a psychologist and life coach, she coaches individuals and organizations on interrupting the cycles of trauma, addressing the burnout rate in government jobs and child welfare, and providing the tools and skills to achieve the work-life balance that will trickle down to better outcomes in prevention. Her doctorate work at Texas Christian University was in experimental psychology focused on substance abuse treatment and prevention.
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Dominic Cappello
Cappello is a New York Times bestselling author and TEDx Conference curator with decades of experience advocating for health, safety and education. He has a Master of Arts in Liberal studies with an emphasis on Language and Communication from Regis University. He worked for the New Mexico Department of Health Epidemiology and Response Division and the New Mexico Child Protective Services Research, Assessment and Data Bureau, where he co-developed the Data Leader for Child Welfare program, which he implemented in New York City, Connecticut and New Mexico.
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The 100% New Mexico initiative is a program of the Anna, Age Eight Institute at New Mexico State University, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service. Contact: annaageeight@nmsu.edu or visit annaageeight.nmsu.edu to learn more.
