State looks to expand program, oversight
Resource for traumatized kids, long unavailable in Northern New Mexico, has faced fierce criticism in recent years
Andrew Salazar spent his middle school years moving around to a half-dozen foster homes in the Albuquerque area — escaping one unstable living situation only to end up in another.
Eventually, the state’s child welfare agency referred him to treatment foster care, a Medicaid-funded program designed to provide behavioral health support for some of the most traumatized kids in state custody and more intensive training for foster parents.
Salazar, 23, a college graduate now working as a congressional intern in Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland’s office, said the program helped turn his life around.
“Treatment foster care was just a lot more structure, like more access to weekly therapy, that really helped get me through my grief,” he said. “Kids with the highest trauma need it. It’s supposed to be a step up in terms of security, but my experience was it gave me a lot of freedom by helping me mature.”
While the treatment program is intended to ease the effects of childhood trauma, it has faced fierce criticism in recent years after some treatment foster parents were charged with severely abusing children. Civil lawsuits also allege heinous physical and sexual abuse of children in the program, which is run by nonprofit and forprofit behavioral health care organizations licensed by the state Children, Youth and Families Department.
Critics have said the agency’s oversight of the program has been too lax. Indeed, a New Mexican review of inspection reports for providers between 2014 and 2018 found those with dozens of record-keeping lapses and several complaints against foster families were regularly granted new licenses.
Lawsuits contend this practice allowed some providers to keep placing kids in homes even after concerns were raised.
The providers, which recruit and train their own foster parents, have a financial incentive to place as many children as possible in foster homes. There is also a financial incentive for people to serve as treatment foster parents. While foster parents in the standard state-run program receive between $800 and $1,050 per month to care for a child, those in the treatment program can receive twice as much.
Critics also complain the program is not available to children in all areas of the state, forcing many kids in state custody who need the extra support to move to homes far from their own communities and enroll in new schools.
Under the administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, however, officials say CYFD is taking a more aggressive approach to overseeing treatment foster providers, ensuring kids in state care are not further traumatized, and they hope to extend the program’s reach across the state.
Care closer to home
Northern New Mexico has not had treatment foster care available to local children for at least a dozen years.
New Mexico Solutions, which offers the service in Albuquerque, is working to change that, with plans to expand its treatment foster care program to Santa Fe County. It’s hoping to launch the service here after recruiting and training parents to care for troubled kids.
“It’s no secret that New Mexico is struggling with providing really quality behavioral health care and substance abuse treatment to its adult population,” said Angela SmithMoore, New Mexico Solutions’ treatment foster care program manager. “This lack of services for adults trickles down to children, and then our foster care system is overloaded.”
But in a county that consistently struggles with a shortage of foster parents in the state-run program, finding more specialized treatment foster families could prove challenging.
CYFD data shows there are some 2,400 New Mexico children and youth in state custody; 73 of them are living in 26 foster homes in Santa Fe County. Another 21 kids from Santa Fe County are in foster care in other areas of the state because of a lack of available homes here.
New Mexico Solutions now has 23 children and youth in 16 treatment foster homes in the Albuquerque area. About 65 percent of those kids were referred to the program by CYFD, while others were referred by a family member or another organization.
So far, New Mexico Solutions has not found adults in Santa Fe County who are willing to participate in the foster program, Smith-Moore said. But if the nonprofit is successful in recruiting foster parents and expanding its service to Northern New Mexico, advocates say, children will benefit.
“Imagine being abused and neglected and sent far away to Albuquerque, like it’s your fault,” said Annie Rasquin, executive director of the First Judicial District’s Court Appointed Special Advocates program, which provides independent, volunteer advocates for children in state custody.
“For a kid who needs therapeutic foster care to be able stay in Northern New Mexico and still see a sibling or go to the same school, that’s really important,” she said.
State child welfare officials say they hope New Mexico Solutions’ effort is the first step in a broader expansion of treatment foster care services around the state.
“We want every child in Northern New Mexico and everywhere across the state to be able to get treatment foster care,” said Annamarie Luna, the agency’s deputy director of protective services. “Having options throughout the state is really the direction that this administration wants to go.
“We have been meeting with all treatment foster care providers and other behavior health providers, asking them to please move to other parts of the state and let us know how we can be supportive,” she added.
A history of harm
As CYFD works to grow the treatment program with the help of organizations like New Mexico Solutions, it must also be able to expand its oversight capabilities to prevent children from being placed in homes where they will be harmed. There are concerns about how far an already stretched department can broaden its reach.
The department has developed an internal system to review reports of possible abuse of kids in treatment foster care, Luna said. “We take a comprehensive overview of what may be going in a specific home or entire agency.” But there are challenges, she admitted. “I think one of the biggest challenges for our agency is processing the inquiries,” Luna said. “We want to look at a bigger foster care campaign, but we don’t want to be in a position where we have a lot of inquiries and can’t respond in a timely manner.”
Problems with treatment foster care providers are well documented.
According to a May 2018 report by Searchlight New Mexico, CYFD identified at least 28 instances between 2015 and 2017 in which treatment foster care firms broke rules on investigating allegations of abuse in foster homes. At least two of the firms have since shut down.
One organization, Familyworks Inc., was named in a lawsuit filed in October alleging a longtime treatment foster father in Albuquerque had repeatedly raped a teen girl with a developmental disability. Familyworks had received previous reports of abuse by Clarence Garcia, the complaint says, but the organization continued to put children in his care.
Garcia later was criminally charged with sexually abusing six children in his care. His trial is scheduled for May.
Two similar cases were filed in 2017, alleging an Española boy and another teen were sexually abused by a treatment foster father in Tucumcari.
Manuel Preciado was criminally charged a couple of years earlier with abusing the boys, and he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual contact of a minor and six counts of raping a minor.
Hope Graciano of Farmington was charged with felony child abuse in 2017 after a boy in her care came forward with allegations of a severe beating that required treatment in a local hospital. Her trial is scheduled in November.
‘I know every child’
Smith-Moore said New Mexico Solutions gives children in its treatment foster program opportunities to signal trouble in a home, no matter how subtle. A treatment coordinator visits each foster home in the nonprofit’s program once a month and speaks with the children in a private setting, away from their care providers.
“A kid might say they’re not being fed, even though we’ve seen the house has food,” Smith-Moore said. “A lot of time, that child is expressing not feeling safe or cared for.
“We’re a really small program,” she added. “One of our strengths is I know every child and can identify every child in our program.”
The treatment coordinator checks in with foster parents by phone once a week, she added, and foster children participate in weekly therapy sessions.
State caseworkers also visit treatment foster homes.
Children, Youth and Families Secretary Brian Blalock, who stepped into the position in January, said the agency is committed to overseeing the safety of children in treatment foster care.
“CYFD’s regulation and licensing bureaus keep a close eye on treatment foster care providers,” Blalock said in a statement Friday. “We require licensing through our Behavioral Health and Protective Services Divisions and conduct site visits as appropriate. We require corrective action on noncompliance to be handled immediately and then closely monitor those cases.
“Our first priority,” he added, “is always the safety and well-being of children in our care.”
Salazar, the former foster youth, said that when it’s done right, treatment foster care is an in-depth intervention with transformational power.
“I think if you talk to any foster kids or former foster kids, they will tell you that their time in treatment foster care was the most helpful,” he said.
“Maybe people don’t realize this,” Salazar added, “but from my perspective, that type of care can really have a lifelong impact.”