Agency PreK Therapeutic Preschool Seeking Four Year Olds
Conjunto Preschool is located in the heart of the Española Valley with classrooms for three- and four-year-olds. The four-year-old classroom is now offering slots for children who will have turned four by September 1st. Enrollment open for this age group for the 2019-2020 school year. The preschool provides exceptional early childhood education in an inclusive environment that unites children, families, teachers and the community. Serving families since 1979, the program promotes self-esteem, cooperative behaviors, and the constructive expression of feelings, as well as developmental growth in language, cognition, motor and self-help skills.
As indicated in the flyer below, please telephone our Española office to reserve a space. Ph: 505.753.4123 or 505.901.1119. Or visit the Espanola Early Childhood Center at 404 Hunter Street in Española.
Conjunto, which means "All Together", provides a learning environment built upon mutual respect, trust, support and collaboration. Conjunto's mission is to work with young children who have been diagnosed with or are at-risk for developmental and/or emotional challenges, integrating these students with peers who are considered "typically" developing and to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere. For more information about the preschool, click here.
Agency Announces New Executive Director Megan Délano
In January Megan Délano became Las Cumbres Community Services' Executive Director. Délano was previously the agency's Chief Operations Office and has served as a member of the organization's executive management team since 2008. Over the last decade Délano has broadened inter-agency programming, as well as community partnerships, to continue to most effectively address the needs of families in each of the agency's unique service communities. Born in Mexico City and raised in Northern New Mexico Délano graduated from Taos High School before going on to receive her Bachelor's degree from Wellesley College in 2005 and her Master's degree in bilingual/bicultural clinical social work at New Mexico Highlands University in 2016. Délano has lived and worked in South America, Europe and East Asia and has nearly twenty years of experience working in organizations committed to public health and social justice.
About Megan, former Executive Director Rex Davidson states, "The LCCS Board of Directors couldn't have made a better choice for their new Executive Director than Megan Délano. She is one of the most capable and dedicated people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. No one knows this agency better than Megan and she has been the principle architect in building one of the most comprehensive community service centers in New Mexico. Megan has a huge heart for our mission and the families we serve."
Las Cumbres Community Services is dedicated to promoting the health and well-being of people of all ages in northern New Mexico. The agency was incorporated in 1971 with a structured program of day habilitation services for adults with developmental disabilities residing in Los Alamos followed soon after with a therapeutic preschool in the Española Valley. Services for adults, children, and families have continued to expand since then in order to best meet the growing and changing needs of the northern New Mexico community. Today, the agency is one of the largest social service providers in the northern part of the state, with a staff of some 200 individuals. Las Cumbres offers direct services in Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, Santa Fe, and Taos Counties.
Women Give Taos Award Received to Support Women and Girls Impacted by Incarceration
New Mexico Voices for Children reveals that 1 in 10, or close to 52,000 of New Mexico's children have a parent who has been incarcerated. Las Cumbres' Taos Family Navigation and Nurturing Center team work closely with the Taos Adult Detention Center, particularly with mothers in detention as well as with elementary school age girls whose primary caregivers have been involved in the criminal justice system, girls receving services at Las Cumbres' Enos Garcia Elementary School-based Nurturing Center.
A grant award from Women Give-Taos will now increase the availability of parenting classes for incarcerated mothers at the Taos Detention Center as well as facilitate a focused support group for girls who are identified as having one or more incarcerated family members.
Classes at the Detention Center will be held thoughout the year to introduce compassionate limit setting and parenting skills based in empathy, love and respect. Formation of a girls support group at the Enos Garcia-based Las Cumbres Nurturing Center will provide a safe environment in which students can articulate experiences and emotions associated with the disruption in their lives as a result of having a parent who is incarcerated.
We are grateful for the generous $30,000 award from Women Give-Taos to strenghten our work addressing the impact of incarceration on mothers and girls. Pictured in the middle above is Las Cumbres' Taos Site Supervisor and Nurturing Center Director Siena Sanderson accepting the award in March.
Women Give-Taos is an initiative of the Taos Community Foundation. To learn more about their mission, click here.
Santuario del Corazon: Agency Work Underway to Assist Unaccompanied Immigrant Minors
Las Cumbres was recently awarded a federal grant to identify, screen, assess and provide comprehensive trauma treatment for immigrant children ages 0-18 who have experienced separation from a parent or caregiver due to deportation or arriving in the United States as an unaccompanied minor. This project, Santuario del Corazon, or the Heart Sanctuary: Healing Traumatic Stress in Immigrant Children, is issuing their team to visit Las Cruces, El Paso and Juarez community advocates and church representatives. among others.
The Santuario Project Team within Las Cumbres now provides specialized bilingual and bicultural services to immigrant children in two distinct ways: screening and triage for children at detention and/or immigrant shelters along the NM/MX border, and wraparound family navigation and comprehensive clinical treatment to children in our northern New Mexico service regions of Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Los Alamos, and Taos Counties.
We are currently appealing to community partners to assist in raising community awareness and building resiliency around the needs and recovery of these children. Below are a number of ways you can help. A recent story appeared in the Albuquerque Journal regarding the involvement of Monique Jacobson, former New Mexico Cabinet Secretary with the Children, Youth and Families Department. To view that story for additional details, please use this link.
For more information about partnering in any of the areas below, please contact Jose Gonzales, Project Director, at 575.779.9119 or by email at jose.gonzalez@lccs-nm.org.
Help with the project through:
1) Referrals: if you know immigrant children in need of services because their caregiver was deported or they arrived as an unaccompanied minor. Contact Jose or one of the agency offices to make a referral.
2) Connections: if you know of other providers or resoures you think we could coordinate with, or you would like to become directly involved yourself, please contact Jose.
3) Community Leadership: we want to build awareness around this situation, the trauma these children have experienced and what we as a community can do to support them. Email or call Jose.
4) Engagement: if you would like to be periodically informed of upcoming project events and trainings, please call Jose and you will be added to our communication. Donate today to help toward continuation of this timely project.
Agency's Conjunto Therapeutic Pre-K Preschool in the News
A Public Health New Mexico article, highlighted recently on KUNM, looks closely at the very specific services available through Las Cumbres' Conjunto Therapeutic Preschool in Española, serving three- and four-year-olds whose families may be experiencing drug-related trauma.
In the story, Nora Volkow, who directs the National Institute on Drug Abuse explains that we now know that traumatic childhood events like losing a parent to the criminal justice system, abuse or neglect causes physiological changes in the brain and that those changes can have serious consequences later in life if they're not dealt with early. But if children learn to function well in groups, express their emotions in healthy ways, and control their impulses in their early years, research shows they'll be more likely to succeed in school, and their chance of falling into addiction later in life can fall drastically.
That's why there is a push for more support of programs like Conjunto—which Volkow said is even more important in communities with longstanding addiction issues like Española.
To read the full article, click here. To access KUNM's Public Health New Mexico website, clink on this link.
And to learn more about Conjunto Therapeutic Pre-K Preschool, visit this page.
Finally, consider making a much needed donation today for use by the preschool, always seeking funds for healthy snacks, art supplies, and creative activities and outings. Contact the agency Director of Development and Communications to find out how you can help by emailing robyn.covelli@lccs-nm.org. Or by telephone: 505.819.5117.
Free Baby Boxes Available in Santa Fe and Espanola Las Cumbres Offices
Agency's Low Birth Weight Prevention Program in the News
Child and Family Services Wish List for Families
Podcast of Las Cumbres KSFR-FM Interview: Que Cute Healthy Baby Program