‘Make smart choices’

LOS LUNAS — The mission statement of the Valencia County DWI Program is relatively straightforward, but the reality is this: The program does so much more.

The program, which began in 1998, aims to “Reduce the occurrence of drinking and driving including underage drinking in Valencia County through prevention and education, enforcement, adjudications, sanctions and treatment” as stated on its website.

However, program coordinator Ginny Adame, who started with the DWI program in 2005 and became coordinator in 2011, will tell you the program is more than the name suggests.

“The name doesn’t really tell the story of everything that takes place through DWI programs,” she acknowledges. “And not just mine, but other programs throughout the state have programs that are not identical, but they have some similar components.

“(A lot of ) people don’t know about (DWI programs) unless they get a DWI, or unless their kiddo interacts with us in some way. Or if the community recognizes the partnerships that we engage in. But other than that, people really probably don’t even know that we exist.”

Adame says most Valencia County residents are familiar with VC-DWI’s Underage Task Force, which focuses on prevention with activities that target students ranging from kindergartners to seniors in high school.

One example is the recent Prom Night programming in partnership with the Starlight Cinema 8 in the village of Los Lunas. The event gives high-schoolers a fun, alternative activity after the year-end dances.

What is not so well known are the programs’ screening and treatment aspects.

As stated on the VC-DWI website, individuals convicted of DWI in Valencia County are referred to the village of Los Lunas Valencia County DWI Program for the completion of the state-mandated alcohol/drug screening — the "Impaired Driving Assessment" or IDA — after sentencing by the magistrate court judges from Divisions I, II and III. The 13th Judicial District Court judges also send individuals to participate in the program.

“Our goal is not to do punitive things or to be involved with our clients in a punitive way,” Adame says. “We really want to help them gain the skills that they need, finish their sanctions, which they are sanctioned for things like community service and different types of school classes that they have to take.

“Our goal is to help them gain the skills that they need or the support or the connections to community resources so they don’t come back to our program so they’re better for their family, for their friends, for their community, and it increases safety, obviously,” she says enthusiastically.

Adame said the program has been “successful that way,” pointing out that VC-DWI’s recidivism rate — the measure of folks who come through the program then come back through — is very low.

VC-DWI’s treatment component has also been a success, though it is currently going through some changes. The agency has an in-house, outpatient treatment program for people seeking treatment services and employs a small number of substance abuse treatment providers.

The treatment program provides client assessments, treatment plans, individual and group therapy, and auricular therapy, acupuncture performed on the ears to stimulate specific points helpful in treating various health conditions.

“(Currently) we are only seeing the misdemeanor level folks,” Adame says.

Unfortunately, Adame reports the program’s long-standing provider, Joanne Cordova Sanchez, retired after 39 years of service.

“She’s bilingual (as well) and so you can imagine the dent in our treatment program,” she says. “We still have an amazing treatment provider here, but Joanne Cordova Sanchez gave many years, not just with our program, but with many treatment programs here in New Mexico, but we enjoyed the last of her years providing services.”

Bilingual providers are extremely hard to find, Adame says, and providers themselves are also in short supply in the state.

“So treatment, both mental health and substance abuse treatment services, are lacking ... but we have been able to provide free services, free treatment services to our sanctioned clients, and then we also have the ability to see people walking in off the street,” she concludes.

To help keep their capacity to handle clients, Adame says the program recently partnered with Belen-based Heart and Soul of New Mexico to help provide services for clients who only speak Spanish.

“As you can imagine, it’s very important for people to receive treatment in their primary language, and so we have a contract with Heart and Soul to provide those services,” she says. “They’re great partners, but we’re unable to see everybody here on-site, and that’s different for our program.”

The Valencia County DWI Program also has a licensed substance abuse associate still on site, Angela Ramirez, who provides the auricular detox service. Adame says the service “has been found to be very helpful with cravings and addictions to include weight loss and different kinds of things, and it’s very relaxing if you’ve never had it done.”

The DWI program, which is funded by a local DWI grant through the village of Los Lunas, also has its enforcement component. In addition to underage party patrols, enforcement ranges in scope from DWI checkpoints and saturation patrols to compliance checks.

VC-DWI currently partners with the Belen Police Department, Bosque Farms Police Department, Isleta Tribal Police Department, Los Lunas Police Department, New Mexico State Police and Valencia County Sheriff’s Department.

Compliance checks focus on detection, documentation and prosecution of DWI, underage drinking, sales to minors, social hosting and/or providing alcohol to minors.

“Coming from a prevention background myself, I really like to focus upstream as far as we can, so we focus around our younger populations,” Adame says, “and with the idea that if we can intervene early with those populations, that we won’t see them as adults in our adult criminal justice system”

She continues, “So while we do, of course, encounter adults... our focus is around trying to intervene around underage sales to minors, so we’ll work with special investigations units around doing compliance checks in our community.”

VC-DWI also does coordination, planning and evaluation, which helps integrate efforts and offers oversight and evaluation for the components of the DWI program and also has a well-regarded compliance program — the Misdemeanor Compliance Monitoring Program (MCMP) — which was implemented in 2012 and officially received state accreditation in July 2022.

The MCMP offers supervised probation services for alcohol-involved misdemeanor offenses, including those convicted of DWI offenses, and alcohol-involved domestic violence offenses. Random drug and alcohol testing is required as part of supervised probation. Compliance officers also make sure offenders comply fully comply with all court-ordered mandates.

“I think one of the things that’s unique about our probation program or misdemeanor compliance program is that our goal is to help the clients succeed,” Adame says proudly. “When they succeed through our program, we succeed as a program.”

Community and connection is one thing those affected by alcohol and substance abuse need to succeed, Adame says. One aspect of the program that addresses this is the Youth Success Corps. Housed at partner organization TNT Boxing and Youth Mentoring Center, which also provides mentors, the YSC is a comprehensive program for kids, says Adame.

“Most of our kids are sent to us through JPO (juvenile probation officers).”

VC-DWI also works with Teen Court, the Reception and Assessment Center and Boys and Girls Circle, as well as a 10-week program called Envision Your Future, which focuses on “helping kiddos identify what it is that they want to do with their lives, what their goal is for themselves.”

“Upstream programs” such as community schools, mentoring programs, job programs, early childhood programs, and parenting programs are all equally important, Adame says.

“When you put those together in a community, you’re likely to have decreases in things like child abuse, violence and substance abuse,” she concludes. “You have all of those things accessible to your entire community. Which of course is a challenge, but it’s a dream, right? So we can have our folks accessing services that they need to survive, then they’re more likely to thrive.”