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State’s only detox for young people set to open

The water feature outside Serenity Mesa Youth Detox's administration building also comes with a view of the Sandias, and fertile farmland. The non-profit will be accepting clients into a new detox accepting people as young as 14, and will be the only facility in the state to do so.
Daniel Montaño
/
KUNM
The water feature outside Serenity Mesa Youth Detox's administration building also comes with a view of the Sandias, and fertile farmland. The non-profit will be accepting clients into a new detox accepting people as young as 14, and will be the only facility in the state to do so.

A new detox center for young people will be the only such facility in New Mexico and it was inspired when Jennifer Burke-Weiss’ son, Cameron, was an athlete at La Cueva High School in Albuquerque, he broke his collarbone twice in quick succession.

Cameron had two surgeries, and two prescriptions for opioids. And Burke-Weiss found herself the mother of a child with a substance use disorder.

“And then I realized that there really wasn't anything in New Mexico for adolescents,” she said. “It was like almost zero adolescent treatment for inpatient and outpatient. So, we really didn't have a whole lot of options.”

She said she spent tens of thousands of dollars sending her son out of state for treatment and, through the process, decided to start a nonprofit to spread awareness of the opioid epidemic.

By 2010, she had started a small group with a few other parents. They held a 5K run that year.

“And then that kind of snowballed into more awareness events, and then we just kind of realized that there’s a lot more people in our community that were dealing with this than we realized,” she said. “So, more and more people were asking us, ‘Well, what are you going to do next?’”

Cameron ultimately lost his battle with opiates, passing away from an overdose in 2011 at the age of 18.

But, his name lives on at Serenity Mesa Youth Recovery Center. Burke-Weiss cofounded the center in 2015, and Cameron’s House at Serenity Mesa is a residence hall where kids from 14-21 years old can stay for up to 90 days of inpatient substance use rehabilitation.

Now Serenity Mesa is expanding its mission with a detox center for people as young as 14, the only such center in New Mexico.

The campus is on a property in Albuquerque’s South Valley that used to belong to a former New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Ed Mead. The land and some of the original buildings complete with vigas have been renovated into modern living spaces for patients.

“When we started this, we always said we don't want to be like anybody else.” Burke-Weiss said. “We want to break the mold, and we want to show that treatment needs to be in a comfortable environment where people feel, like, at home.”

Serene is a fitting word for the location. In between the brand-new detox facility and the administration building sits a large water feature. Standing next to it, listening to the water flow over the rocks, you’re treated to a view of the mesa and the lush green farmland in the valley below.

The view from the titular mesa at Serenity Mesa, which includes not only the sanidas, but the lush farmland of Albuquerque's South Valley below.
Daniel Montano
/
KUNM
The view from the titular mesa at Serenity Mesa, which includes not only the sanidas, but the lush farmland of Albuquerque's South Valley below.

David Burke, business partner and husband to Burke-Weiss, said the center encourages peace and positivity rather than constantly pointing out the negative.

“So, it's flipping the script and saying, ‘Hey, all day long, I've noticed you've been really respectful and really mindful of your words, and you've been really great to your peers, you know, and I really appreciate that shows like a greatness of strength and encouragement.’ And so, just kind of building inner wealth in them,” he said.

But it’s not all just positive encouragement. Burke said they take a practical approach as well. With some kids they even have to get into basic education, like reading and writing.

“We've had some who have sixth grade education where the parents just need to put them in school. And, you know, you can't fix that in 90 days, right?” he said.

The new detox has six beds and will be staffed with medical professionals 24/7. They will be able to prescribe Suboxonne for opiate use disorder, as well as other comfort and health regulation meds to safely see the teens through the acute detox phase of withdrawals.

Burke said though they’ve been taking clients into treatment since 2015, they haven’t had a detox until now and there is definitely a need.

“Yeah, it's been a long time coming. The state had a 20-bed youth detox center at Turquoise Lodge. They shut that down probably about eight years ago.”

Ever since then, he said there simply has not been an option for parents trying to find detox for their kids in New Mexico.

Jeffrey Holland, executive director of Endorphin Power Company, is a social worker who has been working in direct recovery services in New Mexico for more than 20 years. He said the problems don’t stop there.

“I mean we’re looking at a lot of kids out there struggling to get services of any kind,” Holland said. “So, not only detox, but counseling, you know, supportive living if they need it, inpatient treatment, all of it, right?”

Holland said that’s a big problem because people are dealing with addiction earlier in life now, especially with the rise of fentanyl.

“You know, you combine that with the things that already exist, such as meth and cocaine and alcohol,” he said, “and you have a recipe for a lot of people becoming addicted at a much younger age.”

But he also said that one youth detox in New Mexico’s largest metropolitan area isn’t enough to meet the needs of the entire state.

Jennifer Burke-Weiss agrees and said her organization is making plans to address that.

“We've already been approached with a couple different opportunities of opening treatment programs in other parts of the state,” she said. “So we're looking at possibly Españnola or someplace in Rio Arriba County.”

For now, she and her team are just looking forward to treating kids at their new detox, and continuing the work that started more than a decade ago.

Burke-Weiss said the detox is awaiting final licensure and expects to start accepting patients in the next few weeks.

Support for this coverage comes from the W.K.Kellogg Foundation, and listeners like you.

Daniel Montaño is a reporter with KUNM's Public Health, Poverty and Equity project. He is also an occasional host of Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Let's Talk New Mexico since 2021, is a born and bred Burqueño who first started with KUNM about two decades ago, as a production assistant while he was in high school. During the intervening years, he studied journalism at UNM, lived abroad, fell in and out of love, conquered here and there, failed here and there, and developed a taste for advocating for human rights.
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