Santa Fe Baby Fund

The Santa Fe Baby Fund promotes the healthy development of babies and toddlers in Santa Fe County, prenatal through age four, and raises awareness of the critical importance of investing in early childhood for the benefit of our residents and our community.

WE INVITED REQUESTS FROM ORGANIZATIONS THAT WORK TO ADDRESS THE FOLLOWING FUNDING PRIORITIES:

• Increasing access to high quality, affordable infant and toddler care;

• Supporting the early childhood workforce; • Improving access to reproductive health services for adolescents and young adults; and • Supporting young parents ages 24 and under, and their infants and toddlers; and

• Supporting grandparents or other non-parent kin raising infants and toddlers.

First Born of Northern New Mexico

Las Vegas

Mission | First Born of Northern New Mexico (FBNNM) provides quality preventive home visiting services to expectant parents and families with infants, toddlers, and children up to five years old. The program's mission is to improve the overall health and mental wellness status of New Mexico families. Proposal | FBNNM will provide quality hybrid home visiting services to expectant parents and families with children up to five years old, in an effort to prevent and/or decrease adverse childhood experiences. The program's families will receive quality support in accessing early prenatal care, taking care of baby and new mom during postpartum period, while supporting the overall general development and infant mental health wellness for children up to five years old. Noteworthy | First Born of Northern New Mexico provides home visiting services to San Miguel, Mora, and Harding counties, which are identified as target priority communities of Early Childhood Investment Zones, and priority communities for Children Youth and Families Department. According to KIDS COUNT 2019 Data, San Miguel County's statistics include: Low Birth Weight was 10.3% with New Mexico at 9.1%, Substantiated Child Abuse Cases 15/33, and a total of 27.3% of three to four year olds enrolled in a Preschool setting.

Growing Up New Mexico: The Early Childhood Partnership

Santa Fe | growingupnm.org

Mission | To engage the whole community, bringing together people and resources to create increased opportunities for young children and the adults in their lives to achieve their dreams and aspirations. Our vision is for all children to succeed in school and life. Proposal | Growing Up New Mexico seeks support in our local programmatic efforts and state-wide policy efforts to expand equitable access to high-quality home-based childcare care for low-income families with infants and toddlers. We are also working to increase economic stability for home-based providers by shifting the public perception of home-based providers from baby sitters to professional early childhood educators, thereby affording them the recognition and compensation they rightly deserve. Noteworthy | Approximately 50% of Santa Fe's infants and toddlers are cared for by home-based providers, and families who most frequently utilize home-based care fall into one or more of the following communities: non-white, immigrant, low income, and/or rural. Research has shown that homebased childcare can improve children's cognitive, language, social emotional, and physical growth; offer economic opportunities for providers; and give families a convenient and flexible option for childcare.

Human Milk Repository of New Mexico

Albuquerque | mothersmilkbanknm.org

Mission | Human Milk Repository of New Mexico, a local mother’s milk bank, collects, screens, processes, and distributes human donor milk (HDM, breastmilk) for medically fragile and at-risk infants, and seeks to increase equitable access and availability of HDM. HDM access ensures high quality, affordable infant care, reducing lifethreatening infections and long-term disease that can devastate families, especially young parents. HMRNM provides HDM for adoptive guardians to ensure infants have nutrition for gut formation. Proposal | Human Milk Repository of New Mexico requests funds for outreach to Santa Fe County birthing hospitals for use of HDM for at-risk infants, and to establish two HDM donation stations for mothers in Santa Fe County at hospitals, pediatric clinics, or other community sites for convenient and equitable access. Most at-risk infants are born to families of color and access to HDM is a health equity issue as introduction of formula to fragile infants can cause life-long health complications. Noteworthy | The HMRNM coordinates with birthing hospitals in the state to provide tens of thousands of ounces of human donor milk to critically ill, premature, and low birthweight infants. The annual rates in New Mexico per live births in 2019 were: NICU 16.1% (3,700), Preterm 10.1% (2,325), and Low Birth Weight 9.3% (2,200). There is currently no data available to HMRNM on Santa Fe County hospital use of HDM and part of our strategic plan is to determine usage, unmet need, and collaborate on solutions.

Many Mothers, Inc.

Santa Fe | manymothers.org

Mission | To provide in-home services and wraparound care to achieve health equity and wellbeing for babies and their caregivers in northern New Mexico. Proposal | Many Mothers provides critical support to families in the first months of a baby's life in an effort to create healthier, equitable outcomes for all children and their caregivers in northern New Mexico. By providing navigation services and volunteer-based, hands-on care, we support the improvement of each family’s Social Determinants of Health (SOD) related to housing, utilities, safety, food security, and transportation. Noteworthy | According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "the major reasons for physical and psychological maltreatment of children within the family often are parental feelings of isolation, stress, and frustration." Within Santa Fe, those of Hispanic descent are 38% more likely to be in poverty, 24% more likely to be unemployed, and 25% less likely to graduate from high school (U.S. Census 2018).

New Mexico Association for the Education of Young Children

Albuquerque | nmaeyc.org

Mission | To promote quality care and education for the well-being of all young children, birth to age eight, through professional development and advocacy. Proposal | NMAEYC is applying for this grant to support professional development workshops targeted at the needs of northern New Mexico communities as they work to transition out of COVID-19. The workshops will focus on Social Emotional Learning, Trauma-Informed Care, and STEM and Play training for early childhood educators and childcare providers that work with babies and toddlers in Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, and Santa Fe counties. Noteworthy | The 2021 State of Babies Yearbook for New Mexico highlights that while New Mexico often equals or exceeds that national average in most Positive Early Learning Experience categories, i.e. reading and development screenings received, it is doing so in spite of economic hardships. The Yearbook highlights the economic strain on families for appropriate childcare and developmental resources, with 41.1% of a single parent's income and 12.5% of a married couple's income going towards childcare.

New Mexico CASA Association

Albuquerque | newmexicocasa.org

Mission | To develop and support the local Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) programs that provide volunteer advocacy for abused and neglected children in foster care throughout the state of New Mexico. As the statewide association for all local CASA programs in New Mexico, we provide a wide range of support and services that enhance and strengthen the quality and impact of the CASA services delivered to foster children in our state. Proposal | The New Mexico CASA Association asks for your help to provide enhanced services to grow the local CASA programs in our state so that one day every abused and neglected foster child in New Mexico will have access to the transformative service and support of a CASA volunteer. Our work ensures local CASA programs provide high-quality advocacy services for foster children and can successfully grow their programs to address the overwhelming need for additional CASAs in our state. Noteworthy | There are typically 2,000–2,500 children in foster care in New Mexico at any time. These children often suffer negative emotional, developmental, and social effects from their abuse that can lead to disease, disability, social problems, and even death if not recognized and addressed. This is where CASA programs come in. CASAs work to improve the safety, health, and well-being of foster children by ensuring their needs and best interests remain a priority in an overburdened child welfare system.

Presbyterian Medical Services

Santa Fe | pmsnm.org

Mission | Presbyterian Medical Services designs and delivers quality, accessible, integrated health, education, and human services in response to identified community needs of the multicultural people of the southwest. Proposal | PMS strives to reduce teen pregnancy rates in Santa Fe County by providing confidential, no cost reproductive health services to female and male students, ages 12–19. Additionally, PMS addresses health inequities by providing easily accessible services that are unbiased against race/ethnicity, income, and sexual orientation, as well as being culturally and linguistically accommodating. Noteworthy | New Mexico’s teen birth rate is the 8th highest in the country and 15% of all teen births were to teens who already had a child. Teen mothers are more likely to experience negative social outcomes, including lower rates of school completion and reduced earnings. Their children are more likely to achieve less in school, experience abuse or neglect, have more health problems, be incarcerated at some time during adolescence, and give birth as a teenager. PMS strives to reduce teen pregnancy rates.

Santa Fe Recovery Center

Santa Fe | sfrecovery.org

Mission | Santa Fe Recovery Center works with individuals to sustain lasting recovery from substance use disorders and related mental health disorders by providing culturally relevant evidence-based treatment and education in partnership with other community organizations. SFRC's Women & Children’s Program is one of the only substance use disorder recovery-oriented continuum of care programs in New Mexico available to women, including those who are pregnant and postpartum, and their children five and under. Proposal | SFRC is requesting funding to invest in Circle of Security training for 10 child care staff and clinical staff who work with parents and children. Providing this training to child care and clinical staff directly supports parents 24 and under, including their infants and toddlers; increases access to high quality, affordable infant and toddler care; and supports the early childhood workforce. This evidencebased training will help staff support parents in developing a healthy attachment with their infants. Noteworthy | National comparisons as of 2016 showed that New Mexico ranks 48th in children in poverty (under age 18), 30th nationally in infant (age 0 to 365 days) mortality, 39th in drug overdose deaths, 47th in suicide death, 48th in unintentional injury death, and 50th in alcohol-induced death. All of these statistics are linked to the multigenerational cycles of substance use disorders in New Mexico as underlying issues of trauma and mental illness, without treatment and sustained recovery, perpetuate.