The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department has its work cut out for it this year.
As part of new annual goals under a landmark child welfare lawsuit, the agency will be required to recruit 180 new nonrelative foster homes this year and must serve 100 children through a new program designed to set up care for foster children with the highest needs, spokesperson Jake Thompson wrote in a statement.
The state must also put 116 new children in treatment foster care — a type of home with specialized training and capacity for children with severe trauma and high mental health needs — for at least 60 days, New Mexico Health Care Authority spokesperson Marina Piña wrote in a statement.
State representatives struck an optimistic tone about the goals.
“All the parties involved are working together in a new spirit of collaboration and cooperation that enabled us to quickly reach collective agreement on the 2026 targets,” Thompson wrote. “The targets accurately reflect our needs, and yes, we are on track and feel very confident we will meet them, which will measurably improve the quality of care, and the safety and security of children in state care.”
Piña also said the annual goal for treatment foster care reflects what the state projects it will need in order to adequately serve children coming into its care.
“CYFD and the HCA have put a lot of thought and care into developing this metric,” she wrote.
The Kevin S. lawsuit was filed in 2018 by more than a dozen foster children, and resulted in a settlement agreement in which CYFD and the Health Care Authority committed to an array of reforms. The state has struggled in recent years to make good on those promises.
That has resulted in arbitration proceedings and two orders handed down by an arbitrator last year ordering the state to make progress on specific obligations.
The goals came after the plaintiffs and state reached an agreement, approved in early March, that CYFD and the Health Care Authority had made enough progress on those previous orders and could start work on an updated set of goals.
New Mexico had a deadline of March 31 to set the specific amounts it would need to reach by the end of the year. The state worked with field experts in the case to determine those totals.
So far in 2026, CYFD has recruited 22 nonrelative foster homes, Thompson wrote. Another 136 homes of relatives of foster children have also been brought on this year.
The agency recruited 122 new nonrelative foster homes in 2025, which was 46% of its goal of 265, according to a report released by field experts in the case earlier this year.
Some of the goals are new for the state, such as the requirement to serve 100 children in its Foster Care+ program.
That program, designed to equip families with the training and resources they need to care for children who need greater care and supervision, is a relatively new initiative at CYFD. There are currently 35 children in Foster Care+ across 28 families.
New Mexico is also following a refined definition of “new treatment foster care placements.” Piña said the state is now also defining such placements as a child going to a home they have not previously stayed in during the preceding 365 days. So far this year, the state has made 41, she added.
Last year CYFD made 121 new treatment foster care placements, which was just short of half its goal of 244, according to a report by the field experts released earlier this year. That number did not follow the current definition of new treatment foster care placements.
The new order in the lawsuit does not call for the state to meet specific recruitment goals for front-line caseworkers. Still, Thompson said CYFD has “aggressively removed hundreds of already completed cases that should have been taken off the books.”
“We are actively recruiting and hiring new caseworkers and case aids, greatly easing the heavy burden on all staff,” he wrote.
Tara Ford, attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, said her team is reviewing the new targets. She cited recent successes for New Mexico like increasing the number of timely wellness checks on children entering state custody in saying the state is capable of meeting its obligations when leaders sets their mind to it.
“It’s imperative that children have safe places to sleep, where their needs are being met and we expect that the state will meet these targets,” she said. “… We know that when the state leaders come together and align resources that they can meet targets that they’ve agreed to.”