Archives for 2021

Back to School is right around the corner, it is that exciting time of year when children all over the city get ready to go back to school, and our kids at Santa Maria are no different. They are enthusiastically waiting, maybe with a bit of nerves, and wondering if all their friends will be there on the first day of school.

Unfortunately, our kids experience something else too… NEED!!

As their mothers have chosen to embark on the journey of RECOVERY, they are also not able to provide backpacks, school uniforms and new shoes to their children because of lack of employment or resources while they are in recovery. But there is hope, and this year you can be the reason for one child being completely equipped and excited about their first day at school.

MAKE A GIFT HERE

We are excited to welcome Baylor College of Medicine addiction psychiatry fellows to Santa Maria. The fellows will be assisting with our detoxification and medication assisted treatment programs as well as providing additional integrated psychiatric services. The program provides an opportunity for fellows to provide integrated mental health and substance use disorder treatment while at the same time building their capacity to meet the specialized needs of women and diverse populations and understand and address the larger social context, social determinants of health, and health disparities affecting our population.

Family and Community Literacy Workshops and Resources

Read and Rise program is back, at SMH, and our residents are enjoying every word of it.

The Read and Rise program provides families with hands-on strategies for building literacy at home, reinforces the fact that parents are their child’s first and most important teacher, and builds text-rich environments by providing take-home books, and other parent resources for families who participate in the program.

Special shout out to our very own SMH volunteer, Pattie Holacek, for her efforts to lead this class.

“When I grew up, no one read to me, we did not have books in the home and so I did not know how important reading to a child was. I am excited to know this because I am a stay-at-home mom and I can read all the time during the day. My kids love it. They are learning to recognize the animals in their books and the sounds they make, it is so cute!” 

~Read & Rise, Program Participant

On the last day of class, each mom makes a book using the letters in their child’s name, add other objects that start with the letter of their names, and then draws an illustration to go along. Making it a personalized gift that is fun and can be read over and over to their child.

Santa Maria Hostel (SMH) is honored to have been awarded the Houston Methodists’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program grant award.

Houston Methodist has designed the award to continue a keen focus on addressing social determinants of health which impact social minority groups such as women, people experiencing homelessness, older adults, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants and more. By directing funding to programs designed for these groups, the resources can identify and uncover the unique challenges faced by the various social minority groups. Once uncovered, especially designed programming can address the root causes of these health inequities which can lead to poor outcomes. Santa Maria’s awarded funding focuses on women who are struggling with substance use disorder and have criminal justice involvement.

Amelia Murphy, Senior Director of Recovery Support Services will direct the DEI program. It will be staffed with capable peer recovery support specialists equipped to dismantle the unique barriers their participants face. For many years, SMH has worked closely with reintegration of women after incarceration, on our campus, directly in the jails and prisons and in the courts.

We thank Houston Methodist for their forethought and leadership in the area of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We are proud to be selected as one of their partners in this effort.

We would like to thank Swatantra and Bimla Jain and the group of young professionals at Katy Rotaract for their generous donation and Joi and Angel from Joiful Entertainment that made this event possible. It was a magical and inspirational afternoon.

Rev. Tammy Heinrich, Pastor at Terrace United Methodist

In April, Santa Maria was selected as one of 10 sites to participate in the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities’ Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative. With generous funding from the Episcopal Health Foundation and the Powell Foundation, the collaboration will begin this spring and run through June 2023.

The selection announcement included the overarching goal that “the group will infuse, accelerate and align brain science research throughout the human-serving sector in an effort to create lasting systems change and influence policy that will ultimately improve the lives of children and families in Texas”.

NAS refers to the symptoms a newborn baby experiences from in utero exposure to substances or medication, typically an opioid.

Every 25 minutes a baby is born with NAS. Texas’ NAS Medicaid birth rates have increased every year since 2013.

Each year SMH supports many expectant mothers through residential treatment and community-based intervention and care for affected individuals. Through our programming, we support the health of the mother and the ability for healthy babies to be born and thrive.

If you are interested in more information, please consider registering for the NAS public symposium, here.

Cary White, our new Chief Development and Communications Officer is a native of Florida but no stranger to the needs of underserved communities and families struggling to make ends meet in Texas, that is why for the past 25 years she has dedicated her life to enhancing life transforming services through programming, fundraising and local likeminded partnerships.

Our original award of CARF (Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) recognition was March 3, 2018. Our recent renewal survey awarded us three additional years of recognition. This distinguished award was earned by Santa Maria after a process of intense inspection which recognized the focus of our leadership to continually improving services, gathering pertinent feedback from participants and to meeting internationally recognized standards in care.

Mary Buchner, Chief Clinical Officer

De’Audra Whiting, Senior Director of Quality Improvement

Valencia Jack, Executive Assistant

Led by Mary Buchner, Chief Clinical Officer and De’Audra Whiting, Senior Director of Quality Improvement and expertly coordinated by Valencia Jack, Executive Assistant.