August 14 – Children separated from parents unable to provide for their basic needs.
Inadequate follow-up of young people in juvenile criminal law and youth care.
A decreasing number of care providers with a license for social work.
New Mexico has been struggling with these issues in recent years, advocates and analysts say, leading to trauma in separated families, less support for the most vulnerable youth and a failure to retain social workers.
Two legislative working groups are developing ideas to address the problems. They expect to present these ideas to lawmakers, possibly during the next regular session of the Legislature.
“The challenge with child and family services is that it’s based on people, and what we know about people is constantly changing,” said Cristen Conley, chair of the Children’s Code Reform Task Force. “So the law has to change to keep up with the progress we’re making.”
There are several ideas on the table. The two groups are considering changing the definition of “neglect” in New Mexico’s Children’s Act, among other things. They also want to add provisions that would require more training and collaboration to improve the tracking of “crossover youth,” who have been in both the welfare and justice systems. They also want to create incentives for social workers to get a license to practice social work.
Together with the Child Law Reform Task Force, which is funded by the Legislature to recommend changes to child laws as needed, the State Child Welfare Reform Task Force discusses possible improvements to the state’s child welfare system.
It’s still early in the process. Conley said she’s presented her group’s recommendations to lawmakers, while Senate Memorial 5 calls for recommendations from that task force by Nov. 15.
Teresa Casados, cabinet secretary at the embattled Ministry of Children, Youth and Families, said she is open to changes at her agency and reforms in child welfare.
“The reason I’m here is to make lasting changes within the department, right?” said Casados, the former director of operations for the governor’s office who took over as interim secretary of CYFD in April 2023 and was appointed secretary in November.
“We want to make sure that the department is set up, that it’s well-funded, that it’s well-staffed and that it’s on track to make a difference for families across the state,” she said. “And so I’m open to any ideas, and I’m really open to any suggestions for change, and to figuring out how we can bring all of that together.”
Changing laws that govern how states deal with children’s problems is a good start, says Lorilynn Violanta, co-director of NMCAN in Albuquerque, a nonprofit focused on advocacy and policymaking for foster children.
“The Children’s Code absolutely needs to be updated, right? There are definitions that can and should be updated to make sure that we’re really supporting families in the way that they need and deserve,” Violanta said.
Avoiding unnecessary family separation
The first set of recommendations, published in June in a nearly 75-page report by the Children’s Code Reform Task Force, involve adding or changing provisions in large portions of state laws and codes that apply to children in New Mexico.
One of the most notable changes is that the definition of child neglect is being expanded. This will prevent a child from being considered neglected based on the fact that a parent, guardian or caregiver cannot care for him or her due to ‘insufficient financial resources’.
Advocates have often expressed concern about what they see as the practice of neglecting a child due to poverty, which they see as a symptom of a larger problem within CYFD.
Conley said the problem is hard to trace. The line between neglect and a parent who does his best to provide — but still falls short — is hard to identify.
“It’s a moving target,” Conley said. “And I think part of it is just getting our heads around the idea of this. You know, what does it look like? … And people are moving toward that idea of, ‘A child in dirty clothes — it can be about poverty, not about not paying attention to the needs of the child.'”
Violanta said separating families for this reason causes trauma. The responsibility lies with CYFD to make a cultural shift, placing more emphasis on helping families instead of separating them out of an abundance of caution, she added.
“The culture there is really about fear and, I think, ‘prevention is better than cure,’ but there is no thought given to the implications of [how] “Prevention is better than cure” actually leads to unnecessary separation of families,” Violanta said.
Casados acknowledged that staff are “sometimes overly cautious” and said “it’s difficult to control people’s biases.”
“I think that goes for all of our employees; they really want to make sure that safety comes first, right? And so people have different perceptions of what is safe,” she said.
The department is exploring training to combat bias, which Casados said could include a virtual reality component that would allow caseworkers to virtually enter apartments and assess the situations of different families. The training would focus on how bias plays a role in judgments.
The department’s new Division of Family Services — Casados said she administratively pushed the division through even though the Legislature did not approve CYFD’s request for a $24.7 million appropriation — is also aimed at preventing families struggling with poverty from becoming cases of neglect.
About 630 families receive services from the department, CYFD spokesman Andrew Skobinsky wrote in an email.
Researchers use standardized assessments to help workers avoid confusing poverty with neglect or abuse, Skobinsky wrote.
Casados said she would support a shift in the definition of neglect so that care providers have clear guidelines about what neglect looks like.
Tracing Foster Children in the Legal System
The Task Force on Child Code Reform also recommends that lawmakers pass a new Crossover Youth Act, which would improve tracking and support for youth with cases in both the juvenile justice and foster care systems.
The proposed legislation would require CYFD staff, public defenders, prosecutors and others to receive training on the effects of trauma on child well-being.
Importantly, it would also facilitate collaboration between the CYFD Protective Services Division and the Juvenile Justice Division, and data would be collected and maintained using a new cross-over youth coordinator.
According to Conley, a lack of “robust tracking” is hampering New Mexico’s ability to help these young people.
“The best way that kids communicate is through their actions. When they’re behaving in a way that’s problematic, it’s almost always because something isn’t supporting them in their life,” Conley said. “So we want to make sure that kids who end up in the juvenile justice system, who were already in the foster care system, don’t lose the benefits of supportive services in the foster care system.”
CYFD does monitor to some extent for young people who transmit the virus. The figures provided by the department showed 40 cases in July.
But Casados acknowledged there is a need for better data collection.
She said a new child welfare information system, which the department plans to roll out over the next 18 months, would help collect real-time data for caseworkers, such as what issues a particular household might be facing or whether a young person is on probation.
‘Certified social workers stay longer’
One of CYFD’s most persistent problems is the ongoing struggle for staff, especially when it comes to licensed social workers, according to a July presentation to the Senate Memorial 5 Task Force.
Analysts for the Legislative Finance Committee found that in June, about 7% of the agency’s protection workers were licensed. Nationwide, the ratio is between 40% and 50%.
Getting social workers licensed should be one of New Mexico’s top near-term goals, said Alvin Sallee, a retired social work professor at New Mexico State University.
“Licensed social workers stay longer and do better work,” he said. “And when they stay longer, you don’t have these vacancy rates.”
In the past, the state has looked at stipends or part-time work to enable people to go back to school and earn a master’s degree in social work and licensure, Sallee said. He recommends that the state increase the use of such strategies.
“A licensed social worker is the absolute minimum that CYFD should be looking at — the absolute minimum,” he said. “… If you’re going to hire people who aren’t licensed, make sure they go to post-secondary education.”
Casados said CYFD offers five hours of educational leave per week for employees to attend classes.
Skobinsky wrote in an email that the department typically approves educational leave for 10 to 20 employees per semester.
In exchange for an internship after graduation, CYFD also offers scholarships to students pursuing a degree in social work, Casados said.
“A lot of our social workers that we have now, I believe, were scholarship students,” she said. “… It’s been a great resource and a great program for us.”
Esteban Candelaria is a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. He writes about child welfare and the state Department of Children, Youth and Families. To learn more about Report for America, visit reportforamerica.org.
