CON ALMA News:

SANTA FE – Con Alma Health Foundation announced today it is awarding $475,000 in grants to nonprofits that work toward sustainable changes that improve New Mexicans’ health.

The state’s only private foundation dedicated solely to health is providing four $50,000 multi-year grants and more than a dozen small grants to communities across New Mexico. The grants include $150,000 to 14 nonprofits that serve people in Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and northern Santa Fe counties through a partnership between Con Alma and the Hospital Auxiliary for the Los Alamos Medical Center, called the Northern New Mexico Health Grants Group.

“We are honored to partner with nonprofits that are supporting many vulnerable New Mexicans,” Con Alma Executive Director Dolores E. Roybal said. “Our grants further our goal of achieving health equity in our state, in which everyone has an equal chance at being healthy regardless of their zip code, ethnicity or income.”

Grants support advocacy, education and care for populations that need extra support, including grandparents raising grandchildren, uninsured patients, caregivers, veterans and at-risk youth.  Nonprofits receiving grants support people statewide and specifically in the Navajo and Zuni reservations and Bernalillo, Chaves, Cibola, Curry, DeBaca, Doña Ana, Lea, Harding, McKinley, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Valencia and Torrance counties.

Generation Justice, which is receiving a $10,000 grant, will produce a video and generate a discussion about the behavioral health crisis in New Mexico, Generation Justice Director Roberta Rael said.

“We hope that the production and the discussion lead to changing the minds of policymakers to benefit our community because we believe that a healthy society can not emerge from a broken system,” Rael said. 
 

Con Alma awarded a $50,000, multi-year grant to the Albuquerque-based New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty to improve the healthcare safety net for low-income New Mexicans and promote health equity – when all people have an equal chance at living a healthy life.

“With Con Alma’s support, we intend to improve access to healthcare for thousands of low-income New Mexicans with a particular focus on those who experience the greatest health disparities,” said Kim Posich, executive director of New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. “We will do so by dismantling administrative barriers that interfere with people getting care under Medicaid or through New Mexico’s Healthcare Insurance Exchange and by carving out ways of providing coverage for those to whom neither system offers a viable opportunity for care and coverage.”

Con Alma is holding its annual grantee recognition reception Friday, Nov. 21 in Santa Fe  to honor the organizations that will receive grants next year. At the reception, Con Alma will announce the recipient of the 2014 New Mexico Hero of Health award.

Northern New Mexico Health Grant Group: $150,000

• Los Alamos Family YMCA ($15,000) to support education, intervention, prevention and health outreach programs for youth in the Española Valley through positive relationships and staff-driven mentoring
• Inside Out ($12,000) to help peer counselors provide free relapse prevention tools and behavioral-health care services to uninsured youth and adults recovering from substance abuse in Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and northern Santa Fe counties
• Los Alamos Family Council ($10,000) to provide services to residents of Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and northern Santa Fe counties who need support with the critical issues of suicide, substance abuse or domestic violence
• Los Alamos Lion’s Club ($2,000) to provide eye screenings to 25 schools in Los Alamos County, Rio Arriba County and pueblo communities
• Self Help ($12,000) to support a project in which people can call 2-1-1 to get answers and referrals for their wellbeing, including medical and health care, financial, legal, disaster response, and other social supports  
• Alzheimer’s Association, New Mexico Chapter ($10,000) to support a Northern Caregiver Conference designed to educate and empower caregivers and family members caring for individuals with Alzheimer’s
• Amigos del Valle ($15,000) to provide in-home services, including transportation, information and referrals, to seniors who earn low incomes, wish to remain independent in their homes and live in the Española valley
• Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Fe/del Norte ($12,000) to continue Triple Play and Health Habits, which shows youth in Abiquiú, Chimayo, Española how eating smart,
• keeping fit and forming positive relationships adds up to a healthy lifestyle
• Cancer Foundation for New Mexico ($12,000) to eliminate barriers to accessing cancer treatment and improve health outcomes for minority residents who earn low incomes in Rio Arriba and northern Santa Fe counties
• Cancer Services of New Mexico ($10,000) to serve more people from Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties, ensuring they know about cancer services available to them, and supporting a family cancer retreat
• Coming Home Connection ($10,000) to partner with the Los AlamosMedicalCenter to train and place veteran volunteers to provide in-home care services to veterans and their families
• Compassionate Touch Network ($10,000) to support a school presentation aimed at raising awareness of mental illnesses, reducing stigma, expanding mental health education and increasing access to mental health professionals
• ECHO ($10,000) for the Food for Kids Backpack Program in the Chama elementary school to provide kid friendly, nutritious food to support good health and improve educational success
• McCurdy School ($10,000) to provide free mental health counseling to McCurdy Ministries and McCurdy Charter School students to help improve mental health, social, spiritual, familial and educational outcomes

Small Grants:

• Coming Home Connection in Santa Fe ($9,000) to partner with the Santa FeCommunity College‘s School of Nursing to train and place veteran volunteers to provide in-home care services to veterans and their families
• Curry CountyHealth Council ($8,000) to improve the health and well-being of all Curry County residents and neighborhoods through education and awareness of important health issues
• Generation Justice ($10,000) to create an awareness campaign about gaps in behavioral-health care through social media, video and radio productions, a discussion guide and a policy forum
• Health Action New Mexico ($8,000) to examine health-insurance enrollment in southern New Mexico to determine gaps and recommend improvements, including educating people how to enroll in the new health insurance opportunities in New Mexico
• Las Cumbres Community Services ($10,000) to provide direct services, training and advocacy to support reunification of parents with their children when possible and curb the growing trend of grandparents as caregivers while ensuring the safety of grandchildren
• New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils ($12,000) to educate policy makers about community health, health equity and the importance of health councils and secure
• funding to support the work of health councils throughout the state
• New Mexico Community AIDS Partnership ($8,000) to help health care providers in northwestern New Mexico provide culturally competent and clinically excellent care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer patients
• New Mexico Direct Caregivers Coalition ($10,000) to develop online educational courses for caregivers and a program that matches caregivers with employers and people needing care statewide
• Pegasus Legal Services for Children ($10,000) Using youth-friendly print materials and social media to educate rural and urban youth about their rights to access health and mental-health services
• Santa Fe Project Access ($8,000) to conduct a statewide assessment of hospital policies for charging uninsured individuals for care and make recommendations to improve access to care and promote transparency
• Senior Citizens’ Law Office ($10,000) to provide targeted outreach and education and individual advocacy to low-income seniors in central New Mexico to ensure they are enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and prescription-drug programs
• Think New Mexico ($12,000) to support an initiative involving researching, developing and advocating for a public policy solution to make health-care pricing and quality information easily accessible to New Mexico communities
• Young Women United ($10,000) to address disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes in New Mexico by increasing awareness and access to homebirth and midwifery model of care

Multi-year Grants: $200,000

• New Mexico Alliance for School-based Healthcare ($50,000) to advocate for changing the policies and practices of commercial health-insurance companies to protect the confidentiality of adolescent health care
• New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty ($50,000) to protect and improve the healthcare safety net by removing systemic barriers that prevent vulnerable families from accessing health insurance, protect indigent care for uninsured people and improve charity care for uninsured patients at New Mexico hospitals
• New Mexico Community Health Worker Association ($50,000) to recruit, train and mentor community health workers/promotores to assist with the certification and grandfathering efforts of the 2014 Community Health Worker Act
• Vision for Dignity, Access and Accountability (VIDA) in Healthcare ($50,000) to support the work of a community coalition to create a countywide health safety net and planning structure for Bernalillo County

Con Alma Health Foundation seeks to improve people’s health status and access to health care services, and advocates for health policies to address the unmet health needs of New Mexico‘s culturally and demographically diverse population. Con Alma supports and partners with organizations to improve health in New Mexico. Visit www.conalma.org.