Beginnings:
• The Life Link was the brain-child of State Farm agent Carl Luna, and his wife Carol Luna, with friends at their local church.
• Carl Luna, the co-founder of The Life Link, was lost from a fatal car accident on December 24th, 1988? He was traveling home from Estancia, New Mexico, where he had purchased a ranch with a large house where he was planning on taking care of disabled children.
• The Life Link was the first emergency Family shelter in Santa Fe. There was one for singles, but not one devoted to keeping the family together.
• The Executive Director, Carol Luna-Anderson is a nurse? She received her R.N. in 1967, and then her Masters Degree (MSN) in 1983, and quickly rose to administration positions. She left her position as Nursing Administrator at Los Alamos Hospital in Los Alamos, New Mexico to work full-time for her new and struggling The Life Link and family shelter called La Luz de Santa Fe in 1992.
• Raymond (Ande) Anderson, Carol's husband since 1995, actually met Carl Luna just weeks before Carl's death? Carl Luna was traveling through Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa from Uganda. Ande was living in Nairobi at the time and had lunch with Carl who was on his way back to the U.S. Ande had not met either Carl Luna or Carol Luna previously. Through an invitation of Carl Conley, Carl Luna's best friend and Ande's boss at the time, informed Ande of The Life Link. In December of 1989, Ande left East Africa to join the The Life Link.
Still Current, Old Information, that is little known:
• In 2000, The Life Link partnered with the University of New Mexico's CASAA branch to become one of six agencies in New Mexico that runs clinical trials to further better treatments for drug abuse. The clinical trials follow this path: (keep the acronyms in mind, you'll need them later)
Health and Human Services (HHS) works through
National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) that works through
Clinical Trial Network (CTN) that works through
Regional Nodes, i.e, University of New Mexico (one of 16 in the country) that works through
Community Treatment Programs (CTPs), i.e., The Life Link (and five others in the state, that work with clients to further some of the best drug treatments available)
• Carol Luna-Anderson serves as a CTP representative on the Steering Committee of the CTN of NIDA.
• Raymond Anderson serves as a the CTP representative on the Research Utilization Committee (RUC) of the Southwest Node CTN's panel. Their goal is to take the research lag from trial to community - from currently 17 years down to a few years.
• The Life Link has had and is having the opportunity to work with some of the best scientists in the world to reduce addiction problems?
• Life Link Training Institute has staff that trains agencies and clinicians in some of these best-practices
The Life Link is on the cutting edge of some of the best drug-abuse clinical trials in the country.
Other little known bits about The Life Link:
• In the early days of The Life Link, it owned a thrift store attached to its family shelter? It helped the agency with funding quite well until the whole shelter plus thrift store was torn down to make way for the new building?