Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s executive order on Jan. 19 mandated an end to the long-standing practice of housing foster youth in the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department’s office buildings. But it also raised questions about the state’s bill of rights for children.
The order presents significant challenges for foster care caseworkers, who have only weeks to find alternative placements for children and teens who, in some instances, have been living in office buildings for years.
Most of the kids living in offices have been placed there because no other options exist. Many have complex, trauma-related mental health needs. Others have physical disabilities that traditional foster homes are unequipped to handle.
Some, however, have settled into CYFD office buildings because they prefer those accommodations to other living situations their caseworkers might have found for them.
Under New Mexico’s “Foster Child and Youth Bill of Rights,” children in foster care who are 14 or older have the right to refuse medical and behavioral health services. They also have the right to “have a permanent plan for placement, to participate in developing this plan, and to have choice in placement or the right to request a placement change.”
CYFD caseworkers have sometimes interpreted that provision to mean that youth can refuse foster placements outside the office. Some advocates have worried that teenagers will refuse to go to whatever alternatives are found for them following Lujan Grisham’s executive order.
While the foster care bill of rights could impact efforts to place youth into behavioral health settings, employees interviewed for this story said, caseworkers are being instructed that placements outside of the office are mandatory from this point forward. (Searchlight is not naming these employees because they are not authorized to speak to the media and could face retaliation if identified).
“The office is going away,” a CYFD employee with direct knowledge told Searchlight. “What we’re being told, and what we’re telling the kids is, if we can find a family member or a shelter or somewhere else that’s a licensed placement, that’s where the kids are going to go. If you run away, that’s on you.”
In the past, teens placed in settings they disliked have repeatedly run away, a 2022 investigation by Searchlight and ProPublica found.
Often, these teenagers would be housed in youth homeless shelters — facilities that do not provide psychiatric care and are unequipped to handle CYFD’s highest-needs kids — and would routinely suffer mental health crises or run away while living in these facilities. After such a crisis, the investigation found, the youth would be moved to another shelter. And then another.
When a teen exhausted all shelter options, they would return to CYFD’s most reliable fallback: its office buildings.
The governer ordered to not let children in custody stay in offices. They shouldn’t have been in the offices to begin with. Let some children go home. Stop taking kids from their God given families. Cyfd foster parents are abusive to kids. And CYFD isn’t transparent. The number one answer. ” Who cares about another person’s kids” the answer “ZERO” nobody. Why doesn’t CYFD work with the deficiencies families have. Foster parents aren’t always the answer. Most do it for the money. Most could give a rats ass. As does cyfd. They fail everyday protecting these children who are traumatized over And over. Help the parents. Foster parents should only be a source when actually really in needed. The budget get paid for abusing children instead of help families stay together. Caseworkers should have more compassion not just profile. Do your job with compassion and empathy. Cold hearted and people with child care experience are more important to keep the right feel of what these children suffer in the hands of CYFD. ITS Wrong to LEGALLY Kidnap KIDS.