Loophole keeping needed support from caregivers
In New Mexico, family is your pride in life. For so many, family is your whole life. And family proudly takes care of their own — whether immediate or extended relatives, we are one familia. But taking care of your own doesn’t mean you can’t accept help, and that’s why I’m sponsoring the Kinship Guardianship Act, Senate Bill 146, which will better support extended family taking care of children.
I am the proud permanent guardian to a wonderful 7-year-old girl whom I have known most of her life. For the past five years, I have been her caregiver and parent. I wake and feed her in the morning before taking her to school. In the evening we do homework after dinner, watch TV or play. We also have our rough patches, but that is family life. With me, she also has someone to tell her stories about her family, to make sure she knows who they are, and to answer the questions she has about them, especially as she’s gotten older and wiser than her years.
With a formal guardianship through the Children, Youth and Families Department, kin — grandparent or other family members — and fictive kin —close family friends such as myself — are able to receive support from the department, which is a godsend when providing for and raising a child. For instance, CYFD ensures children in care have Medicaid throughout their young lives. Subsidies are available to help pay for basic needs because when any household, especially those of families on a fixed income, adds another member, especially unexpectedly, the household budget is strained. CYFD also has resources to help with parenting classes or to support the difficult family conversations that can come up when one is raising a child not born to them.
But right now, about half of those families with children in out-of-home placements are not receiving support from CYFD because of outdated federal law that limits support given to extended family members who have taken on the role of primary caregivers. I believe, as does CYFD, that all children and their caregivers should get the support they need. The Kinship Guardian Act closes this loophole.
Research shows that keeping kids inside their larger family framework greatly benefits the child. These children do better across measures of mental and behavioral health and educational achievement. They also achieve long-term housing permanency faster. Family placements are more likely to keep siblings together and help to maintain safe and appropriate bonds with the child’s biological parents. Children experience less trauma in foster care when they are placed with relatives — it eliminates one more adverse childhood experience for that young person.
Right now, New Mexico places about 25% of children with extended family members. CYFD has a comprehensive plan focused on keeping children with their extended families whenever it is safe and healthy to do so. The department is asking more questions about family supports when children come into care, and workers are using familyfinding software that helps track down relatives the department may not know about.
There will always be a need for traditional foster care, and CYFD is working hard to improve those relationships as well. Under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the department has initiatives planned or under way to make it easier for families to interact with the department as well as cut through the bureaucratic maze and provide traumainformed support to these families who dedicate their lives to helping other families rebuild and reunify.
Building stronger families means keeping those families together as much as possible. The Kinship Guardianship Act will extend support to any family taking care of a child not their own, help families reunify, and help further the care and support so desperately needed for our most vulnerable children.