Santa Fe’s Challenges and Opportunities Await
A new NMSU Anna, Age Eight Institute report illustrates the challenges Santa Fe’s families endure as they seek to access the services for surviving and thriving. The data provide a starting point for powerful transformation to ensure every child and student can thrive.
Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello
June 5, 2023
The new 100% New Mexico Survey Report is now available for all Santa Feans to read and discuss. Leaders within Santa Fe City and Santa Fe County governments, along with nongovernmental organizations and foundations, will find a wealth of information about barriers to vital services. The survey provides insights into families’ challenges when seeking to access essential services such as medical care, mental health care, affordable housing, food security programs, transportation, and other services for surviving and thriving. The high percentage of families struggling to access the basic services for survival may come as a surprise to some Santa Feans.
Santa Fe is in an excellent position to use to report to strengthen efforts to address all service barriers across the entire county. The report suggests that the most common barriers to accessing services are:
- Takes too long to get an appointment
- I can’t find a provider accepting new patients
- I can’t find a quality provider
- They don’t accept my insurance
- Costs too much
- Appointment times don’t work for me (especially true for working parents)
A historic opportunity awaits local champions
For those Santa Feans interested in taking on one of the most groundbreaking initiatives in the nation, we invite you to create a 100% Santa Fe initiative which is part of our NMSU 100% New Mexico initiative that is currently active in 15 counties across the state. As you can read in the report’s end pages, the initiative has seven implementation steps across a county, led by local stakeholders in action teams. In the words of public health, the initiative transforms the adverse social determinants of health into positive ones. The social determinants of health are represented by the ten vital services that determine one’s health, education, and overall quality of life. The initiative is guided by the book 100% Community: Ensuring 10 vital services for surviving and thriving. For a research brief on the initiative, please visit our evaluation page.
Designing a Transformative Process
With all the resources that Santa Fe County residents have, including robust city and county government community health programs, a 100% Santa Fe initiative could showcase how to make measurable and meaningful change that results in 100% of children, students, and families thriving.
If you are interested in being part of the start-up of a groundbreaking 100% Santa Fe initiative, a countywide transformative process guided by data, research, and collaboration to strengthen a culture of caring, please contact us at annaageeight@nmsu.edu.
Mission: The 100% New Mexico initiative is dedicated to ensuring that 100% of families can access ten vital services crucial for their overall health, resilience, and success. This university-sponsored endeavor necessitates the local implementation of evidence-based strategies encompassing both community and school-based service hubs, aiming to prevent the most pressing and costly public health and safety challenges, including adverse social determinants of health and adverse childhood experiences.
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.
