New Mexico falling short on new foster homes, again

The state Children, Youth and Families Department promised to license 265 new non-relative foster homes for abused and neglected children in state custody by Dec. 31, but so far has recruited less than 100, a legislative panel learned Friday.

“The good news is we are bringing on new foster parents regularly,” said CYFD chief operating officer Brenda Donald. “But the reality is, we’re not going to hit those numbers by Dec. 31.”

To date, the state has recruited 78 new non-relative foster homes, far short of the 265 that CYFD officials agreed to as part of the legal obligations in the 2020 settlement of a civil rights lawsuit known as Kevin S.

The case, brought by a group of foster children and child welfare organizations, led CYFD to agree to reform its practices and procedures to improve the foster care system.

Donald, speaking to the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice committee, said CYFD’s new leadership team hopes to streamline the process of becoming licensed as a foster parent. “We found that in the past we’ve lost some people because the process is too long,” she added.

The agency, with new acting Cabinet Secretary Valerie Sandoval, has also hired a consultant from Oklahoma to help ramp up a new program called foster care plus, to provide homes for children in state custody who “have a higher level of need,” and for foster parents, “who need a high level of support.” Modeled after a successful program in Oklahoma’s child welfare system, foster care plus began this summer with 10 children, and has grown to 26, Sandoval said.

Children eligible for such intensive care settings would previously have had to live temporarily at a CYFD office building or housed out of state because there were no suitable foster homes, Donald said.

Donald, a child welfare consultant who was hired for the new COO officer job in September, previously worked for the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia in helping reform their child welfare agencies.

Sandoval told the legislative committee that CYFD has home studies pending on 196 prospective foster parents living around the state.

Increasing the number of foster homes in New Mexico has been CYFD’s goal for years, but the agency in 2023 recruited 129 new foster homes after promising to add 190. CYFD also is obligated under the settlement agreement to lower caseloads, increase and retain qualified caseworkers, and improve data collection.

Committee member Rep. Eleanor Chavez, D-Albuquerque, read part of a letter she received last week from a new foster parent.

The CYFD foster parent expressed dismay about the three-day foster parent training course, Chavez said.

“It was more like a Amway sales pitch,” the letter read. Foster parents were asked what kind of car they would be if they were a car, and what kind of plant they would be at the start of the course and at the end. “We had to repeat the words we are good enough and smart enough to do this’” for five minutes, the letter stated.

“That was basically the entire course,” the foster parent wrote. The parent lamented that the course didn’t include “vital information that would have been beneficial to us once licensed.”

Committee chairman Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said he doesn’t have high hopes about the new team’s ability to achieve the reforms.

“It’s just shuffling chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” he told the CYFD team. “I’m really hoping you’re going to be different.”