Fire & Flood Recovery Resources
If you are in need of assistance with fire and flood recovery, download our resources PDF. You can also find additional resources (food banks, housing assistance, etc) on our Family Services Directory.
The groundbreaking 100% Otero initiative ensures that all families in the county have access to the ten vital services for surviving and thriving.
The truth is simple. The 100% Otero initiative, a program of NMSU’s Anna, Age Eight Institute, provides Otero County with a collaborative process for transforming under-resourced communities into fully-resourced environments, creating local access to services described in the book 100% Community: Ensuring ten vital services for surviving and thriving.
We know the challenges and how to fix them. All that’s lacking is the buy-in to make the health, safety, and education of 100% of Otero’s and all of New Mexico’s children and students the number one priority.
Continue to learn more and enroll in one of our courses to make real change happen in your community.
The Road to 100% is our video series highlighting the innovative work of champions working within the 100% New Mexico initiatives across the state. Watch our one-minute introduction to the series.
When you are done watching, take a stroll over to our 100% Videos page to watch the rest of our videos. We hope they inspire you to action.
What determines our health?
The 100% Otero initiative identifies the adverse social determinants of health in the form of families’ lack of access to vital services. These services, such as medical and behavioral healthcare, determine our quality of life with the capacity to prevent adverse childhood experiences, trauma, substance use disorders, and poor school achievement leading to a lack of job readiness. By guaranteeing services within Otero County, we go upstream to prevent family involvement with child welfare, law enforcement, the courts, and emergency room care.
We’re ensuring ten vital services.
The goal of the 100% Otero initiative is to remove the barriers preventing families, students, and children from accessing the ten vital services for surviving and thriving: medical and dental care, behavioral health care, food security programs, housing security programs, transportation to reach services, parents supports, early childhood learning programs, fully-resourced community schools, youth mentor programs, and job training.
WHY SERVICES ARE OUT OF REACH
When people in Otero County say, “We refer families to services,” how do they know the services actually exist?
County stakeholders, including all local elected officials, can learn which services are easily available by surveying residents. Our 100% Otero survey asks parents, students, and elders to what degree they can access support services and what the barriers to services might be.
Our goal is to ensure that 100% of families and community members in Otero County have access to ten vital services, promoting the health, safety, and resilience of all county residents.
How Survey Results Guide Solutions
Explore the latest 100% Otero County Survey to learn what’s easily available in all the communities within a county’s borders. This information is what guides the initiative’s ten action teams, each one focused on replacing service barriers with easy access.
We’re creating 100% Family Centers.
The 100% Otero initiative county surveys reveal many barriers family members face when seeking services. The initiative addresses all barriers to ten family services by building the 100% Family Center: One Stop Service Hubs and community schools as 100% Service Hubs to increase access to all ten vital services through onsite, web-based, and navigator-supported linking to service providers. With one-stop-service hubs, we can confidently say, “We’re referring families to services.”
THE FAMILY SERVICES DIRECTORY
Another important step in guaranteeing that we can be confident when we say “we’re referring families to services” is to not only verify that the services exist, but that they are working effectively. A county may not lack a wealth of printed or web-based directories as schools, child welfare, health councils, and local governments often create them. Still, the vital question is: How up-to-date and accurate is the information about services and is that service meeting the need it is addressing? Otero County has answered that question with their Family Services Directory. Each resource in the directory to local services is verified, periodically checked, and updated by the 100% Otero initiative team.
2024 100% OTERO SUMMIT
The 100% Otero Summit on Feb 8th was a huge success. Enjoy these moments from the incredible event that sent attendees home charged up and excited to make change happen.
THE 100% OTERO INITIATIVE TEAM
COUNTY STAKEHOLDERS
The local initiative is a collaborative effort, with community members at its core, to create a county where all children, students, and families have access to ten essential services for surviving and thriving. This vision is realized through the active engagement of local innovators, leaders in local governments, and family-serving organizations. The initiative is designed to develop programs, policies, and funding strategies to enhance service access, which may involve the establishment of community-based and school-based one-stop service hubs. For more information, contact us.
INSTITUTE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TEAM
The local initiative is part of the university’s statewide strategy to address significant barriers to healthcare, food, housing, and transportation security, among other vital services, that are jeopardizing the well-being of children, students, and families. The Anna, Age Eight Institute team supports local stakeholders in capacity building and fostering partnerships with state, county, city, and school governments, as well as philanthropy, to ensure residents’ access to the services that determine the quality of life—called the social determinants of health. Contact the institute at annaageeight@nmsu.edu.
Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD
Co-Director – Anna, Age Eight Institute
Institute Technical Assistance Team
Dominic Cappello
Co-Director – Anna, Age Eight Institute
Institute Technical Assistance Team
Gregory Sherrow
IT Director – Anna, Age Eight Institute
Institute Technical Assistance Team
Marangellie Trujillo
Associate Director – Anna, Age Eight Institute
Institute Technical Assistance Team
Did you know? Our transformational 100% New Mexico initiative is guided by web-based, self-paced courses provided free to all New Mexicans.
