Task force will improve life for children in N.M.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has made family and child welfare a central theme of her administration. The governor has high expectations.
The Children, Youth and Families Department is tasked with no less than making New Mexico the best place in the country to be a child. The agency is undergoing dozens of reforms across all divisions. One of our main priorities is to improve relationships, support and training for foster parents.
Just this year alone, CYFD has included foster parents in focus groups, foster parents were involved in our annual progress and services reporting, CYFD leadership has met with many foster parents one-on-one and we held our first Foster Parent Strategic Planning Sessions last month in Albuquerque with plans for more statewide. On a larger scale, the department held Strategic Planning Sessions in more than 20 locations across the state with staff, foster parents and stakeholders. The department has met with representatives of all 23 nations and tribes across New Mexico. These are just the first steps to increased accountability and transparency in CYFD. And it’s proactive outreach work — the essential work of building relationships in communities across the state — that hadn’t been done in years.
The House Joint Memorial 10 Child Protective Services Task Force was one of the important assignments given CYFD in the 2019 Legislative Session. We welcomed the joint memorial from legislators, informed by foster parents, and began work in May to fill the task force. The purpose of this task force is to “recommend changes for improving the safety and well-being of children in the care of the child protective service system by improving the relationship between CYFD and resource families, for better supporting resource families and for collaboratively working toward better recruitment and retention of resource families.”
Naming members to the task force took three rounds of open applications to ensure we had participants who were as specialized as the memorial recommended. The members of the task force were selected with great intention, and through the process we realized there was no voice from children who grew up in the foster system. We were able to identify a number of young people with a wide range of experience to share their experiences on the task force. This is crucial, as a child is as much a part of a family unit as a parent.
The task force includes representatives from every stakeholder group recommended in the Joint Memorial. HJM 10 recommended that both “an education expert” and “a child care services or other children’s services provider” be “invited to participate in discussions of the child protective services task force, as appropriate.
Indeed, Task Force members include a licensed clinical social worker who has been employed as a school social worker, helping children, youth and families meet their needs both educationally and through services in the community. The task force also includes an Early Childhood Education expert and former classroom teacher. However, once the task force membership was announced, CYFD received feedback from stakeholders concerned and hopeful that an active classroom teacher be appointed. In the coming weeks, we will name a current classroom teacher as an additional task force member.
We believe the current membership of the task force is strong and diverse, with members representing a wide array of professional areas of expertise and personal experiences, including: a member who was a sibling to children in foster care during their childhood; a member who serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children who also was in foster care during their childhood; a member with extensive experience working with youth who have been victims of human trafficking; a member with experience working with families that have reunified after their children were in foster care; members who identify as gay, lesbian, queer and gender non-binary; members of a variety of racial and ethnic groups; two members of Native tribes and who work extensively with tribal communities; young people with lived experience in the foster care system; a member who has worked at the national level serving children in foster care in a variety of states; and much more.
I am thrilled with the diversity and range of experiences we were able to gather for this task force and look forward to working with members throughout the coming months to help improve relationships and better support our foster families. All meetings will be open to the public. CYFD welcomes the input of all those we serve. Transparency and accountability are key to reforming the way we care for children in New Mexico, and this task force will play an important role in achieving these goals.