Building a Legacy 2019 Annual Report

In 2018-2019, members of the Otero County Community Health Council (OCCHC) and Behavioral Health Local Collaborative engaged in an intensive facilitated strategic planning process. The purpose for the gatherings was to identify gaps in Otero County’s behavioral health system of care and to prioritize actions to address those gaps.

As a result of the strategic planning process, the OCCHC identified the need for a mobile crisis response team (MCRT). The City of Alamogordo, led by the Police Chief, submitted a proposal to the Paso del Norte Health Foundation to support the first year in a multi-year collaborative effort to integrate an MCRT unit into the Alamogordo Police Department (APD). The project was funded in 2019 and includes significant leveraging plus a level of community commitment for the project to continue serving the greater Otero County population of approximately 65,000 people.

The Alamogordo Police Department consists of 59 sworn personnel and 24 civilian staff. Adding an MCRT and related policy and practice improvements will contribute to preventing inappropriate justice involvement for people living with mental illness including substance use disorders. MCRTs are a well-recognized and established evidence-based best practice endorsed by policing subject matter experts and organizations to include the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). MCRTs were also recognized as a key tool to support diverse and vulnerable populations by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in 2015.

Finding something fun to do on a Friday night wasn’t always easy for teenagers in Las Cruces. That is, until the Boys and Girls Club opened a space designed especially with teens in mind. In 2018, the Club organized weekly teen nights on Fridays at their downtown Las Cruces location. To attract youth that would otherwise not go to the Club, the organization recruited 10 Teen Brand Ambassadors to invite teens to join in. The Ambassadors helped organize and lead fun activities for their peers as well. The approach worked. More than 275 teens participated in the program last year alone.

The Boys and Girls Club program is one of 13 programs funded through the Paso del Norte Health Foundation’s Healthy Kids Initiative in 2019 focused on increasing health outcomes and decrease risky behaviors like smoking and drinking by engaging disconnected youth in high quality programs during out-of-school hours. The Health Foundation defines disconnected youth as young people between the ages of 5-17 who are not otherwise involved in out-of-school activities and not working and would benefit from engagement in positive activities and interaction with caring adults.

In 2019, the Paso del Norte Health Foundation partnered with the El Paso Diabetes Association (EPDA) to build their capacity to provide essential diabetes education and support in our community.

Diabetes is currently the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, with an estimated 9.4% of the U.S. population with the disease. As the sixth largest city in Texas, 13.9% adults in El Paso have diabetes, which translates to about 94,000 people. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in adults over the age of 75 in El Paso. It accounts for the age-adjusted death rate 32.2 per 100,000 population in El Paso compared to 20.9 and 21.2 deaths per 100,000 in Texas and the U.S., respectively. In short, El Paso has more diabetes than many other places and it is poorly managed.

For El Paso to effectively respond, a comprehensive approach for Diabetes prevention, screening, and management — including a strong Diabetes Association - is essential.

The Health Foundation has invested in EPDA staff leadership development through REALIZE Executive, organizational strategic planning, and a strengthened insurance billing system. The Health Foundation has also provided grant funding to EPDA to support Diabetes Self-Management classes, increase capacity to serve more residents, and strengthen relationships with regional medical providers. Additionally, the Health Foundation is working with EPDA on an updated health cooking class, Sabrosa Vida, which serves people with diabetes and those at higher risk for developing diabetes.

The Health Foundation looks forward to making additional investments in the coming years across the continuum of diabetes prevention and care in our community. Partnering with EPDA has been an important start.

The El Paso Healthy Schools Coalition was founded in 2018 with an important goal: to improve the health and wellness of students across El Paso. The Coalition is made up of school district employees, parents, and community partners to share best practices and policies to improve student health. The Coalition is supported by Action for Healthy Kids – a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering schools, families, and communities to take actions that help children lead healthier lives – through a grant from the Paso del Norte Health Foundation.

Over the last two years, Action for Healthy Kids has worked with the El Paso, Socorro, Ysleta and Canutillo Independent School Districts to improve their wellness policies and strengthen their School Health Advisory Committees (SHACs) with more parent engagement.

In 2019, the Coalition developed a policy agenda with four areas of focus: improving recess policies, increasing school lunch participation, particularly in middle and high schools, exploring Safe Routes to School programming and policies, and encouraging joint-use agreements of school facilities.

One SHAC has rewritten a recess policy for school board approval. School nutrition directors have formed a working group to share ideas about increasing school lunch participation. A Safe Routes to School working group of more than 20 school and community representatives has been formed to address improving infrastructure and education on walking and biking to school.

Ultimately, working to improve student health and wellness is smart. Children who are active and eat regular, healthy meals perform better academically, and have better health outcomes.

Youth and young adults are particularly vulnerable to the negative consequences of binge drinking, including unintentional injuries, pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual assaults, and future alcohol addiction.

To help combat underage and binge drinking among youth in Ciudad Juarez, the Fundación del Empresariado Chihuahuense (FECHAC) expanded its “Responsible Merchant Program” with support from Paso del Norte Health Foundation’s SHIFT+ Initiative. The Responsible Merchant Program was initially developed and implemented by FECHAC in 2015 to train more than 600 alcohol retail establishments, like restaurants and bars, on the laws, tools and techniques to reduce the sale of alcohol to minors.

In 2019, FECHAC expanded the program training 100% of OXXO employees from its 265 stores on the legal sales of alcohol to minors (which is 18 years old in Ciudad Juárez), sales after hours permitted by law, and the right to request identification for the sale of alcohol. To test the effectiveness of the training interventions, FECHAC hired mystery shoppers to act like minors trying to purchase alcohol. The results were impressive. 85% of merchants asked for identification and refused to sell alcohol to minors.

Over the past 24 months, the Mexican sector of the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission worked in collaboration with Paso del Norte Health Foundation to develop a collaboration among Juarez leaders and behavioral health service providers.

The result was the Red de Organizaciones dedicadas a la prevención y atención de Trastornos Mentales, Neurológicos y por Abuso de Sustancias (ROTMENAS), which translates to the network of organizations dedicated to the prevention and care of mental, neurological and substance abuse disorders. This growing group of more than 40 organizations and agencies now has a mission, strategic plan and four active work groups to implement data-informed actions that will reduce negative bias associated with mental illness and improve the Juárez behavioral health system of care.

In this short period of time, ROTMENAS partners are influencing change in the State of Chihuahua with 12 of their proposed amendments to the state mental health act approved. In addition, the partners educated more than 1,600 health and education professionals trained in mental health and addiction programs. This includes 189 trained in Mental Health First Aid and more than 280 healthcare professionals trained in “MH Gap,” a program developed by the World Health Organization for use by doctors, nurses, other health workers as well as health planners and managers. The program prepares participants for integrated management of priority mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions using algorithms for clinical decision making in non-specialist health settings.

The ROTMENAS partners also developed two annual events. The first is a symposium for health professionals to share data and known treatment approaches for some of the most prevalent mental health conditions in the Juárez area. The second annual event engages youth from area schools in suicide prevention awareness activities. These events have already helped more than 1,300 adolescent youth connect with community organizations to learn about resilience skills and mental health myths and facts.

A behavioral health provider resource and referral directory for Juárez providers was also developed and is available to download at: https://rotmenas.saludfronterizachihuahua.org/directorio.

Now armed with passion, drive, and data, the Juárez ROTMENAS partners are making lasting system improvements and building a culture of support and acceptance for individuals in need.