Joan Romin, the intake coordinator for Ayudantes, moved to Santa Fe five years ago, and as a recovering addict, she scouted the town for a good place to seek help in case she needed it.

When she passed by Ayudantes' Apache Avenue office, she knew she wanted to be a part of what was going on there.

"I just knew I wanted to work there," Romin said as she sat comfortably in her office in that same building she was intrigued with five years ago.

Romin said she's recovering from many things — depending on which decade you ask about — but most recently from cocaine and alcohol dependency, and that is what made her want to get involved in the field.

"I'm a recovering addict, so it's part of my life," Romin said. She got a job with Ayudantes four years ago. "I've just always wanted to work with people."

This year marks the 30th anniversary for Ayudantes, a nonprofit founded to offer help for mental-health and substance-abuse problems in the community.

Romin said her favorite aspect of working at Ayudantes is "seeing someone grow through the process and get clean and sober, or just seeing someone recover and go on to be productive at work or go to school."


In 1979, social worker Violanda Nuñez, now Ayudantes' executive director and founder, saw there was a need to establish community mental-health and rehabilitation center.

"The only model for services was a medical model — the psychiatrist and medication," Nuñez explained.

She recalled that during her graduate training in San Antonio, Texas, she had worked in a community mental-health center where social workers worked with the families to provide access to services and treatments in addition to medication.

"When I came back to New Mexico — because I'm originally from here — I wanted to work in that kind of setting but we didn't have that here," Nuñez said. She wanted to work in a setting that called for teamwork between the case worker, social worker and the family.

She teamed up with Mela Salazar and the late Phyllis Nye, both in the social-service field, to bring something like that to Santa Fe.

Now, Ayudantes has three offices — one in Santa Fe, one in Las Vegas, N.M., and one in Española — and it helps hundreds of people and families every year. Nuñez said as of last month's count, Ayudantes served 353 people between the three clinics in 2009.

Each of the three clinics has its own specialty. Española specializes in psychological/social rehabilitation for schizophrenic patients; Santa Fe specializes on working with people coming out of the judicial systems; and Las Vegas focuses on prevention programs, such as substance-abuse prevention.

Changing with the economy

At one point, Ayudantes had a staff of 60 employees at all three locations and a residential facility. Now it's down to 18 employees.

"We've had our peaks and valleys," Nuñez said. "We're in a valley right now."

The Ayudantes annual budget has shrunk from 3.8 million to 1.2 million over the last few years and Nuñez said that is concerning to her because it is not serving less people.

"That's why it concerns me because we don't have the money to hire additional therapists," Nuñez said.

Funding had been the biggest challenge over the last 30 years, Nuñez said, and now the group is focusing energy on rebuilding and trying to get more community support.

"We still have all three sites," Nuñez said happily. "We just have peaks and valleys just like most small agencies."

Shaking the stigma

For 27 years, Ayudantes had a methadone program to treat people who were addicted to heroin and other opiates. Although the staff psychiatrist writes the occasional prescription, the treatment is no longer provided on site.

"We had the challenge of trying to keep community support because there's a real stigma attached to opiate treatment," Nuñez said. "Getting community support was really difficult and now that we're no longer providing the methadone treatment, I think that stigma is still attached to the name. To try and overcome that we've changed our logo, and the name is still the same but we have a new Web site."

Nuñez said people are hesitant to donate to treatment of something they view as a voluntary situation.

"A lot of folks are still under the belief that addiction is determined by will and it's not a disease," Nuñez said. "They don't see spending money on treatment as valid."

Although Ayudantes relies on state funding, it looks to community donations for a large part of its fundraising. Now that the methadone program has folded, Nuñez said she's hoping the community can help.

Still, donations are down approximately 50 percent in the last year because of the poor economy and other factors.

"A lot of folks still to this day — even when we're 30 years old — don't really know who we are," Nuñez said.

The people behind the program

Ayudantes isn't planning anything fancy for its 30th anniversary celebration, but Nuñez invites the community to come into the Apache Avenue office and take a tour.

"Come and visit," Nuñez said. "I'll give them a brief history of who we are ... and get them to feel a little bit more comfortable with who we are."

Ayudantes offers group therapy, family therapy and individual therapy. The Santa Fe Community Alcohol Management Program is another of its programs that seeks to help alcoholics by offering various tools, such as nutrition education, stress management and relationship therapy.

Ayudantes offers several support groups such as a women's support group, a men's support group and a shoplifting recovery group, among others.

"They're surprised that we have a psychiatrist and they're surprised that we do groups and that we have a licensed therapist," Nuñez said.

Nuñez said the most rewarding thing about working at Ayudantes is being able to help people.

"We value the potential in individuals so that's what we strive to do — to help them realize their potential," Nuñez said. "What we want to do, and what we want to encourage, is people not to come back but to build on their own strengths and know that they're capable."

"This is a wonderful place," Romin said. "A lot of times we can offer services to someone who might not be able to get services elsewhere."