Peer mentors provide support, knowledge
Addiction, mental health program expands to South Valley, West Side
By the time Mikayla Trujillo turned 16, heroin had her under its spell.
It would be almost a decade before she escaped the opioid’s powerful grip.
“I was entering rehab for the first time at that age (16),” she said. “Then I made my way to prison in 2016.”
She received a four-year sentence for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She served two years, but prison became a turning point. Trujillo said she had to decide if she was going to embrace a life of violence and drug abuse or if she was going to choose a different path.
She chose the latter.
THIS PROGRAM HAS COMPLETELY FLIPPED MY LIFE 180 DEGREES. YOU HAVE PEOPLE SURROUNDING YOU WHO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. DONATO VELASCO CLIENT OF ALBUQUERQUE CENTER FOR HOPE & RECOVERY
Trujillo, now 27, uses her experience from the streets and prison to help others as a peer mentor at Albuquerque Center for Hope & Recovery, which provides support for those struggling with an addiction or mental illness.
The organization, Trujillo said, is funded mostly through partnerships and grants, including a twoyear $300,000 grant from Bernalillo County
The center recently expanded its services into the South Valley and the West Side. It opened in 2001 and has been at its current location Downtown on Second Street for three years.
The organization runs its new programs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays at the Westside Community Center and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the Patrick J. Baca Library at Central and Unser SW.
Executive director Maxine Henry said that while there are many programs and services available to the same population her organization serves, Albuquerque Center for Hope & Recovery provides a component that is critical to recovery — A person who has walked the same path and offers compassion, understanding and knowledge. Like Trujillo, all employees of the center have struggled with mental health issues, an addiction or both.
“We offer peer-to-peer services,” Henry said. “This is not a clinical setting. None of us are counselors.”
What they do offer is help with finding housing and instruction in skills that will help clients find a job, such as how to write a résumé and cover letter, and, for those with a criminal record, how to discuss it during an interview.
The center also holds group meetings on a slew of topics, including anger management, anxiety, empowerment through art and journaling.
One of its most popular classes, Henry said, is Addicts2Athletes.
Those who participate are expected to show up to the gym, with other members at the center, several times a week. The exercise gives them something social to do and teaches discipline, she said.
There is no referral needed to become a center client, and services are offered on a drop-in basis.
Henry said they have seen success. Of those who find work through the center’s job development program, 40 percent are able to keep those jobs at least 90 days. She said 80 percent of clients in the 8-week athlete program graduate, and up to 70 percent of those will come back for a second round.
Meanwhile, Trujillo’s story made her an ideal candidate for the organization in helping with job development.
She said her mother left when she was 6 months old and she was raised by her grandmother in the South Valley, which left her feeling different and like an outsider.
Fear of prison didn’t set her on the path to recovery, she said. Instead, two fellow prisoners — a teacher and a mentor — inspired her to recover.
Trujillo had to take a class in prison that teaches prisoners skills they can use to reintegrate into society upon release.
“It took someone inspiring me,” she said. “My reentry teacher gave us hope and showed all the ways we weren’t flawed and could be productive citizens in society.”
Trujillo herself became a re-entry teacher and realized she was making an impact when a fellow prisoner told her that her words had changed the prisoner’s outlook on life.
“I had a bad class one day and I went to her,” Trujillo said of her mentor. “I said, ‘Do I really want to devote my youth to supporting broken women?’ She said, ‘You were called to do it. Don’t fight it.’”
The satellite office in the South Valley opened in January and the Patrick J. Baca Library office opened in July. Getting clients through the doors at those locations has been mostly through word of mouth, along with Truijillo and fellow mentor Johnny Armijo walking the streets.
“We love our jobs,” Armijo said. “We are passionate about this.”
And they’re making a difference. Armijo said they currently have about 400 clients.
Donato Velasco, 28, wasn’t really a drinker until he was 22, but he knew his drinking was becoming a problem when he couldn’t keep a job. Alcoholism, he said, runs in his family, so he was not too interested in the party lifestyle while he was a teen growing up in Santa Fe.
“Then everyone I was hanging around with was drinking a lot,” he said. “I wasn’t going to work, I was isolating myself. I wasn’t doing the things I liked anymore like fishing, hiking or riding my bike.”
His parents tried to intervene, talking to him about his drinking and reminding him of his family history.
But it took getting arrested last year in Bernalillo County for his second DUI to finally help him break free.
Velasco was given the option of enrolling in recovery court, which requires him to attend counseling, report to a probation officer and appear before a judge once a month to report on his progress.
His probation officer, he said, recommended he contact Albuquerque Center for Hope & Recovery. He enrolled in the Addicts2Athletes program.
“This program has completely flipped my life 180 degrees,” he said. “You have people surrounding you who know what’s going on.”