Tierra Nueva Counseling Center of Southwestern College

Empathy, Love, and Kindness
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As a service provider to our beloved southside of Santa Fe, Tierra Nueva Counseling Center provides sliding scale Counseling and Art Therapy services responsive to client needs. Our practice is person-centered, ecological and ethical. We hold reverence for the worth of each person, based in empathy, love, and kindness. We offer bilingual services (Spanish-English and ASL).

We are familiar with the struggles of our community—a community navigating poverty and addiction. Santa Fe’s Southside is an area where health disparities are large and residents are without equal and equitable access to mental health care and services. Poverty is a factor that contributes to declining mental health, physical health, and limits the overall lifespan of those in our community. According to the Christus St. Vincent Health Needs Assessment for 2020-2022, the median household income for Agua Fria Village is $30,529. Thirty-five percent of our clients report that their annual household income is less than $22,000.

With the pandemic, our clients were tasked with surviving a deadly virus amid their already challenging lives. We sought ways to continue to provide them with much needed support during this critical time. We were quickly able to switch from in-person to telehealth, giving clients continuous support without lapses in their treatment.

With the support of our donors, we created take-home art-kits of brand-new art supplies at no charge for clients (children and adults) to be able to continue art therapy as their healing work. We also waived all sliding scale client fees providing free mental health treatment, so those paying out of packet would not have to sacrifice therapy to make ends meet.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic tasked us to continue to work within our values of service, mindfulness, empowerment, partnership and love. With community support we are able meet this challenge and provide uninterrupted

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