CYFD report: Burnout, fear impeding agency
Specialized ‘micro’ training for front-line investigators and supervisors recommended by consulting firm
High staff turnover, heavy workloads and employee fear are cited as some of the biggest problems hindering the performance of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department when it comes to ensuring the safety of the state’s most vulnerable kids, a consulting firm says in a long-awaited report released Friday.
The agency issued a news release detailing immediate steps to address recommendations in the report, including specialized “micro” training sessions for front-line investigators and supervisors; a new team to review serious injuries and child deaths; and more uniform training for caseworkers on how to determine the risk level a child faces in a home.
Cabinet Secretary Barbara Vigil, a former state Supreme Court Justice, said in an interview Friday, “We’re working diligently in expanding our workforce and making sure we have the resources in place to support them in this difficult role that they play in child welfare.”
Vigil ordered an independent review of the agency in mid-November, about a month after she was appointed to the position, in response to a call for reform spurred by a series of violent child deaths in 2021.
A few days before she announced the agency would undergo a review, a Valencia County woman had been accused of killing her 1-month-old son. CYFD had been notified of the mother’s mental health issues, a court document says.
Other high-profile child deaths have occurred since the review was ordered. In June, a Socorro mother was charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death after her year-old son died of a fentanyl overdose, according to KRQE-TV and other news sources. KOB-TV reported in May the child welfare agency had been accused in a lawsuit of trying to cover up its involvement in the life of a 4-year-old boy who was fatally beaten in 2019.
Vigil said in an interview Friday the findings by Nashville-based consulting firm Collaborative Safety on staff turnover and employee concerns reaffirmed the department needs to make improvements.
The company’s recommendations “will enable us — me and leadership — to prioritize where investment needs to occur,” she said.
The report received a mixed review from lawmakers.
State Rep. Rebecca Dow of Truth or Consequences, who lost her bid last month for the Republican nomination for governor, said she believes the state wasted time and money — about $60,000 according to the consulting firm’s contract — on a document that provides no new information.
“It was so vague,” Dow said. A settlement agreement in a 2018 lawsuit against the state brought by foster children has much of the same information as the new report and provides additional recommendations, she said.
Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, said, however, he was grateful to have received what he described as a quality product.
“I am very thankful to the current Cabinet secretary, and very thankful to the current administration and the workers at CYFD for actually getting to the bottom of this, and putting some color — if you will — to exactly what’s ailing us in this very critical area,” he said.
Vigil stepped into her role at CYFD after former Secretary Brian Blalock left amid controversy over
the firing of two high-level employees who had raised concerns about the agency and the use of a secret messaging app. Blalock could not be reached for comment on issues cited in the report.
Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokeswoman for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, wrote in an email Friday the governor “acknowledges that we have a long way to go to reverse the failed policies of the past. We owe it to the children we serve to do whatever we can to improve a historically broken system.”
The report emphasizes the causes and effects of a high turnover rate in difficult jobs. Employees feel burned out from dealing with families who show up in their caseloads repeatedly, and the sense that they will be blamed for a tragic outcome — feelings justified by punitive measures taken in the past against employees, the report says. “These punitive responses increased defensive practice amongst staff and impacted staff feelings of agency support, which was strongly connected to turnover.”
Turnover leads to staffing shortages that cause workload increases, which in turn lead to burnout and increased turnover, the report says.
Collaborative Safety co-founder Noel Hengelbrok said one way an agency like CYFD can ensure employees don’t feel a lack of support is to include them in the discussion process when things go wrong.
“I think a lot of staff feel like they’re being left out of the process . ... They feel like they’re on this island while all this activity is happening around them,” Hengelbrok said. “[For] agencies who build what we call ‘safety culture’ ... when something goes wrong we don’t see people being pushed out of the process.”
The report also cites inconsistencies in staff training in the use of decision-making tools to assess dangers in a home. Child welfare workers across New Mexico are given unequal training time with the tools, largely due to time constraints caused by heavy workloads.
And, it says, new employees are too quickly handed large caseloads.
Vigil said new, uniform training will help employees better understand their roles — and how much input they can have when they face concerns about a child’s safety.
“We don’t want them just checking off the box and relying upon this tool to decide whether, indeed, the child is safe or unsafe,” Vigil said. “We wanted to augment their own critical thinking to ensure they’re using it as a tool — not as a replacement for good judgment.”
Vigil also said the agency has begun using a graduated workload system in which employees with more experience are given more cases.
Asked to comment on critics of CYFD who might feel the steps the agency is taking to make improvements aren’t enough, Vigil said it’s easy to be critical without being an expert.
“I have to defer to individuals who actually have the expertise to help guide the system,” she said. “Otherwise, it is just being critical without being thoughtful.”