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Feds Award $600K To N.M. Agencies For Rural Opioid Response

courtesy of Marcie Davis
Kids enjoy the Santa Fe Recovery Center's new playground after it opened its residential treatment program for mothers with young children in 2018.

Three New Mexico agencies are getting $200,000 each to plan responses to the opioid crisis in rural parts of the state. One will use the funding to do regional-level evaluation and coordination in Rio Arriba and Taos Counties.

The Santa Fe Recovery Center(SFRC) will spend the next year working with partner agencies to figure out how to better serve people trying to recover from addiction in northern New Mexico.

One of those partners is Las Cumbres Community Services, which specializes in working with infants with special needs.

"That was not our expertise," said SFRC project coordinator Marcie Davis. "We’re used to serving the moms and the dads, but not the little ones, so we were so excited that they were willing to come on board with us."

Davis said the center is the only place in the state where young kids can come stay with their mothers as they get residential treatment.

SFRC will also work with the Rio Arriba County Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the North Central Regional Transit District, to strategize about how to help people get to treatment facilities.

If their planning efforts are successful, Davis says, the SFRC will apply for the next round of federal funding, up to $1 million for implementation. 

Capacity Builders in Farmington and the Southwest Center for Health Innovation in Silver City were also chosen for the 2019 grants. A previous round awarded funds to Rio Arriba County and El Centro Family Health in Española.

Last spring, the grants were originally prioritized for rural U.S. counties with mostly white populations, not including counties in New Mexico with high rates of overdose deaths. After KUNM reported on this, the feds changed their priorities for the grants. 

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Support for KUNM’s Public Health New Mexico project comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the McCune Charitable Foundation, and from KUNM listeners like you.

Hannah served as news director at KUNM and reported on education, Albuquerque politics, and anything public health-related. She died in November 2020.
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