Safe

New Mexico families are the foundation of our communities. Investing in our families means investing in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. This results in higher educational outcomes for children, safer communities, and healthier children and adults. New Mexico is joining a national trend to shift the child welfare system from a reactive system that responds after harm has occurred to a family and child well-being system that supports families as a strategy to prevent child maltreatment. As a component of that shift, New Mexico is utilizing Family Resource Centers, which are community-based, culturally sensitive, family-focused hubs of support and resources that provide services based on the needs and interests of families within their community.

Youth who age out of foster care are more likely to experience homelessness, incarceration, early parenthood, employment and academic difficulties, physical health issues, and mental health disorders than youth in the general population. Improving services to keep youth safe and prevent homelessness is a top CYFD priority. In FY24, the Extended Foster Care (EFC) Program was fully implemented to support young adults aged 18 to 21 and young adults aged 21 to 26 to receive Aftercare services, all in effort to effectively provide the best support and services to youth and young adults impacted by the foster care system. In addition to those that age out of the foster care system, New Mexico’s EFC program also serves young people between the ages of 18 and 21 whose adoption or guardianship finalized through CYFD after the age of 14, but where the youth is no longer receiving financial or emotional support from their parent/guardian. All young adults enrolling in the program are eligible for monthly housing maintenance payments, regardless of their Title IV-E status.  The EFC Program enrollment rate in FY24 was at 77.77% which is higher than the national average.

Youth and young adults impacted by foster care need and deserve a holistic relational-based approach to engagement that provides an effective safety net and a developmentally appropriate/identity affirming support system as they transition into adulthood. In FY24, Fostering Connections expanded housing services  in furtherance of our mission and commitment to provide quality services to older youth/young adults  by accomplishing our mission to reduce youth homelessness. In FY24, Fostering Connections successfully worked in partnership with young people who have experienced foster care to revive Leaders Uniting Voices Youth Advocates of New Mexico (LUVYANM), the New Mexico Foster Youth Leadership Board. This organization was dismantled as a result of COVID. In FY24, Fostering Connections received an increase in youth voice and authentic youth partnership as a result of the revival of LUVYANM.

Fostering Connections is committed to the creation and implementation of a child welfare system that meets the needs of youth and young adults by ensuring staff and stakeholder understanding of adolescent development, the impact of trauma, authentic youth-adult partnerships, and by identifying exposure gaps and providing access to opportunities that address these gaps and support young people to thrive into adulthood. Fostering Connections staff believes young people and their families are not simply clients but are powerful catalysts for change in their own lives and are partners in changing the systems that impact their lives. The Fostering Connections program aims to provide identity affirming and developmentally appropriate services to youth/young adults by implementing a practice model that is designed to authentically partner with youth and by operationalizing our values about older youth to include supporting young people to move beyond surviving to thriving, eliminating racial and ethnic disparities, youth are able to define their own family and know what is best for their life, engage in authentic partnership and in a trauma informed and developmentally responsive way, recognize youths strengths, recognizing that youth have a right to normative life experiences and have a right to fail safely, and recognize young people as change agents in their own learning and life.    

Children placed with kin experience fewer placements, more frequent and consistent contact with birth parents and siblings, fewer negative emotions about being in foster care than children in non-relative placements and are less likely to run away. CYFD continuously increased the percentage of foster children placed with relatives from 36.3% in April of 2022 to 37.7% August of 2023, and as of June 2024 43.3% (869 children) were in Relative/Kin Home placements.

In FY20, CYFD and the Second Judicial District also developed the state’s first ICWA court. The court has a dedicated hearing office, District Court Judge, Children’s Court Attorney, and Permanency Planning Unit.  The ICWA unit will start working directly with the Tribal ICWA workers to collaborate on the recruitment and retention of Native resource families.

CYFD created a Tribal Affairs division to include the expansion of the role of the Tribal Liaison to a Director of Tribal Affairs and the addition of Tribal Coordinators within the Behavioral Health Services, Juvenile Justice Services, and Protective Services divisions. This new division specializes in addressing needs of tribal families, identifying culturally relevant services, developing intergovernmental agreements, providing technical assistance to Tribes, and providing consultation and training for CYFD staff in their interactions with tribal children, youth, and families, the use of cultural compacts, and cultural considerations. This division is conducting a compliance review of all ICWA cases and developing procedures to ensure preferred placement, while also having out-of-preferred-placement reviews every 30 days until a child is in a preferred placement.

CYFD has established an initiative to provide safe placements for youth under the age of 18 who are survivors of child sex trafficking. CYFD staff are receiving training on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation-Identification Tool (CSE-IT) to assess for risk or experience of sex trafficking of minors. CYFD is collaborating with Bernalillo County to develop a Safe Home in that community for youth survivors of trafficking.

CYFD BHS requested and was allocated capital outlay funds in the 2020 Legislative Session for a safe home for child survivors of sex trafficking. Additional expansion funds were allocated to CYFD BHS to designate for programming at this facility. CYFD BHS were also awarded capital outlay funds from Bernalillo County for the purchase of a home for child survivors of child sex trafficking. It previously secured programming funds for this facility. CYFD BHS are collaborating with Bernalillo County to identify a building to purchase for this program. CYFD continues to vet locations and have meetings with possible service providers. These facilities will offer a full array of services and supports to females and males ages 12 to 18 who have a history being trafficked.

Fostering Connections partners with Life Link and the NM Dream Center, New Mexico’s only programs for victims of human trafficking, to offer emergency and permanent safe housing, mental health and substance abuse services, and linkage to additional community resources for victims of human trafficking. Fostering Connections will continue to partner with Life Link to offer prevention and intervention resources to youth and young adults in New Mexico.

CYFD PSD, BHS, JJS and community-based providers have continued to partner to support and serve youth who are at risk of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.  BHS has led the efforts in the implementation of the West Coast Children’s Clinic’s Commercial Sexual Exploitation – Identification Tool (CSE-IT).  CYFD secured the training items needed to train direct service PS and JJS staff as well as PHS providers in the use of the CSE-IT in the coming year.  In the upcoming state fiscal year, two residential facilities for commercially sexually exploited youth will be established and BHS continues to work with Bernalillo County to set up a Safe Home.  The Safe Home will serve adult survivors of trafficking; eligible survivors will be able to remain for 90 days so that they can transition into the appropriate place of residence or service in a trauma informed manner. BHS continues in their efforts to establish a Safe Home for child survivors of sex trafficking who are between the ages of 12 and 18.

CYFD FS provides funding, program support, and oversight for immediate shelter and supportive services for survivors of domestic and dating violence and their dependents including specialized services for abused parents and their children.

Accounting for approximately 45% of all public and private domestic violence funding in New Mexico, CYFD-funded service providers served 9,059 survivors and their dependents in FY24. Supplementary funding supports the Children’s Capacity Building Project, which is an ongoing effort to enhance the quality and depth of responses to children in domestic violence programs throughout New Mexico and their protective parents. CYFD also provides oversight and funding for DV offender treatment programs, to reduce future incidents of domestic and dating violence and supports the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence to build coordinated community response efforts in three focus communities and thirteen additional communities throughout New Mexico. Coordinated Community Response efforts connect law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, probation, and additional stakeholders in a community to increase the safety of survivors and their families.

In 2014, the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NMCADV) partnered with CYFD to increase trauma-informed services to families exposed to domestic violence. The goals of the Children’s Capacity Building Project (CCBP) are to assist and support children exposed to domestic violence in healing from the trauma they have experienced and to repair and rebuild the relationship between the non-abusing/protective parent and the child impacted by the abuse. There are currently seventeen (17) CCBP project sites. For a comprehensive list of survivor service, children’s capacity building, and offender treatment project sites, visit cyfd.nm.gov.

The CYFD BHS Licensing and Certification Authority (LCA) Bureau supports children’s behavioral health facilities to provide best practice trauma responsive care.  They also monitor programming relating to health and safety of children. The LCA certifies six children’s Medicaid behavioral health services:

• Accredited Residential Treatment Services (ARTC)
• Behavioral Management Services (BMS)
• Day Treatment Services (DTS)
• Non-Accredited Residential Treatment Services (RTC)
• Group Home Services (GHS)
• Treatment Foster Care (TFC)

LCA performs statewide facility licensing surveys of all children’s Crisis Shelters, New or Innovative Programs, Multi Service Homes, Group Homes, RTCs and ARTCs. LCA receives all CYFD Statewide Central Intake (SCI) reports of abuse/neglect allegations involving any child/youth receiving Medicaid BH Services from LCA’s certified and/or licensed providers. It applies its licensing and/or certification regulations to its review of the SCI Report for provider compliance. LCA receives Serious Incident Reports (SIRS) from its regulated providers and triages the SIRs according to the acuity, risk and urgency of the incident and/or allegation.  LCA investigates acute allegations of health and safety violations.