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Meadows Grant

New Grant Aimed at Addressing Mental Health in the Texas Panhandle through Primary Care Physicians. 

A new initiative from the Amarillo Area Foundation in partnership with Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute will help mental health access to Texas Panhandle residents through integrated care, or care in collaboration with their primary care physician.

The program will be delivered utilizing existing entities, Coalition of Health Services, BSA Healthcare System, and Family Medicine Centers.  An estimated 80% of adults in the Texas Panhandle with mental health concerns can have their needs met through integrated care in the primary care setting.

This initiative will have a single goal: to free people from depression. Barriers standing in the way of this goal include failure to identify and treat depression early, access to treatment, and public perceptions about both treatment efficacy and stigma more broadly. The Initiative focuses on removing these barriers through the combined effort of health systems and the community more broadly.

Within health systems, we are working through this initiative to promote:
  • Universal screening for depression (and other mental health and substance use disorders),
  • Implementation of measurement-based care (MBC) and the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) for depression, and
  • Reengineering of workflows and billing systems to take advantage of new payment codes for primary care-based depression treatment (CoCM).

The pilot of this program will focus on three areas, Amarillo through BSA Healthcare System, Canyon, through Family Medicine Centers, and Hereford, through the Coalition of Health Services. These three areas will be provided the necessary equipment to meet the mental health needs of their patients.

Education

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Health

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Economic Opportunities

Claude Daycare

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Borger Theatre

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Broadband

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Amber Fund

Donor Estate

Mr. John Bourdon Hines was a resident of Pampa (Gray County, Texas) for most of his life.

He loved to travel, and he loved his beloved Collie and companion, Amber. Early in 2022, the Estate of Mr. John Bourdon Hines created The Amber Fund to honor Mr. Hines’ deep admiration for Amber.  The purpose of the fund:  to provide animal welfare assistance for dogs in Armstrong, Carson, Collingsworth, Donley, Gray, Hemphill, Hutchinson, Roberts, and Wheeler counties.

The Amber Fund is a component fund of the Amarillo Area Foundation, an endowed Field of Interest Fund established to make grant distributions at least annually for the care, adoption, medical treatment, and well-being of dogs in Gray County, Texas, and the contiguous counties noted above.  This funding opportunity supports one of the Foundation’s impact areas, Health, by mitigating community health risks from unvaccinated stray dogs and improving mental health through dog adoptions.

Beginning with a $6.9 million gift, this fund will generously serve our region for years to come as this endowed fund continues to grow.  Distribution recommendations are made in partnership with regional veterinarians and community leaders each year.  $250,000 was awarded to three nonprofits in 2022, including Pampa Animal Welfare Society, Pampa Meals on Wheels (meals for dogs), and Wellington Organization Rescue Dog Shelter.

Listening Tours

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WorkForward

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Updates on Strategic

Focus From Strategy Leads

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3rd Grade Literacy

AAF is committed to supporting education in the region and is focused on early literacy and ensuring more students are accessing and enrolling in higher education after high school. Literacy is a foundational skill necessary for success later in life. Literacy is a necessity for students as they progress through school, and is also fundemental to a student’s future and career, including living a healthy and vibrant life. As a strategic focus for the Amarillo Area Foundation, we are committed to helping improve literacy rates in the region alongside nonprofits, partners, and school districts. Only 43% of third-grade students in the Texas Panhandle are reading on grade level which lags the State of Texas’ rate of 45%. We see an opportunity to improve literacy in the region, and thereby, improve education outcomes for students.

3rd-Grade Reading/ELA, Meets Grade Level

Region 16 vs. State of Texas

Region 16

43%

State of Texas

45%
3rd Grade Literacy By Race/Ethnicity

Literacy proficiency looks different across student populations in the Texas Panhandle. As the demographics of the region change, AAF is committed to investing in all students to ensure a strong future and workforce for the Texas Panhandle.

2018 White

54%

2019 White

52%

2018 Asian

49%

2019 Asian

46%

2018 Hispanic

34%

2019 Hispanic

37%

2018 Black

27%

2019 Black

27%

Health

Amarillo Area Foundation

The Texas Panhandle is fortunate to be the home of high-quality healthcare, though the pandemic did highlight two areas of opportunity for better well-being: mental health and food insecurity. By focusing on these two areas, the Foundation hopes to improve health outcomes for many generations.

Mental Health

supporting & partnering with organizations

By the numbers

  • 1 in 5 American adults will have a diagnosable mental health condition in any given year.
  • 57% of adults experiencing a mental illness did not review mental health services in the past year. (MMHPI)
  • High school students with depression are more than 2x more likely to drop out than their peers. ( NAMI)
  • 50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, 75% by 24. ( NAMI)
  • Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for people ages 10-34. 

75

Adults with Mental health conditions

30

Youth with Mental health conditions

80

can be treated in a primary care setting

Coming out of the Pandemic

  • Underlying indicators of depression are more than three times higher than the pre-pandemic baseline, affecting more than one-fifth of Americans.

  • The number of people seriously considering suicide has doubled, and the rate of pediatric emergency room visits for suicide is now double pre-pandemic levels, with the greatest increases seen among adolescent girls.

  • A major contributor to this mental health crisis is that we do not detect and treat mental health needs until eight to ten years after symptoms emerge if at all. Instead, we wait until suffering becomes visibly obvious, too often in the form of a crisis.

Source: Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute

What does this mean for the Foundation?

Looking to support and partner with organizations that are addressing mental health by:

  • improving access and early detection to include those in our most rural and underserved areas
  • reducing stigma
  • expanding use of telehealth
  • increasing mental health workforce and collaborative care

Food Insecurity

Beyond the food

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life, and also points out that, “It is important to know that hunger and food insecurity are closely related, but distinct, concepts. Hunger refers to a personal, physical sensation of discomfort, while food insecurity refers to a lack of available financial resources for food at the level of the household.

“Food insecurity describes a household’s inability to provide enough food for every person to live an active, healthy life. Food insecurity is one way we can measure and assess the risk of hunger.”
-Feeding America

Primary cause of food insecurity is low income

Poverty and food insecurity are social determinates of health and are associated with some of the most serious and costly health problems in the nation.

Food insecure and low income are vulnerable to poor nutrition and obesity due to additional risk factors:

  • Lack of access to healthy affordable foods
  • Cycles of food deprivation and overeating
  • High levels of stress, anxiety, depression
  • Fewer opportunities of physical activity
  • Greater marketing of obesity-promoting products
  • Limited access to health care

Household food insecurity is a strong predictor of higher healthcare utilization and increased healthcare cost

  • This translates to $77.5 billion in excess annual healthcare expenses nationally.
Seniors on a fixed income often must make difficult decisions between paying for food and critical healthcare.
Seniors with Food Insecurity may experience a number of challenges:

    • Food running out
    • Skipping meals
    • Choosing between food and medicine
    • Postponing medical care
    • Poor health outcomes
    • Higher health care use and costs
      Source: FRACS Hunger and Health series
Food insecurity increases the risk for chronic health conditions:

  • Increased risk for negative mental health impacts
  • Inadequate intake of nutrients
  • Total healthcare costs increase steadily with increased severity of household food insecurity

1 in 8 Texans are food insecure

12.5%

Households with seniors in Texas face food insecurity

11%

Looking to support and partner with organizations addressing food insecurity by:

Increasing access to health foods especially in underserved areas to include rural and designated food deserts.
Those working in collaboration and taking a coordinated approach to address food insecurity.
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