New Mexico Legislator calls for complete overhaul on CYFD agency

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- The Children, Youth, and Families Department of New Mexico has been under heat for months. The New Mexico Department of Justice began an investigation into the agency after a 16-year-old foster child committed suicide while in its care.

On April 8, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez released a 214 page report from that investigation. It goes into detail on eight systemic failures that they found with the agency. The findings were pulled from over 20,000 documents as they interviewed people in the system. Multiple deaths of children in the agency's care were discussed as well. The full report can be found here.

ABC-7 spoke with New Mexico State Senator Nicole Tobiassen. She said she was aware of the casework surrounding the report and was very glad to see the AG's work on it.

"I'm so thrilled tha the AG and his team have done such amazing work to detail out in black and white, that hopefully had a shock factor in a good way for people to realize this is way bigger than just the agency as it stands," said Tobiassen.

In January, it was found that children had been sleeping in the Las Cruces CYFD office overnight. Tobiassen said situations like that had been happening in Albuquerque as well. She said kids had been placed in nearly 100 different foster homes as well.

"I'll ask you, if you were placed as a kid in 80 different homes, what kid of adult do you think you'd be today?" said Tobiassen. "You'd be a broken shell of a human. These kids have no chance because they have no sense of self, or safety, who who they are in the world. We're failing them so badly."

CYFD was unavailable for an interview but they did release a statement about the report's findings. The full statement can be found below.

"We are still reviewing the attorney general’s report, but it’s clear that it underplays or ignores significant, measurable progress the department has made in the last seven months — progress acknowledged by outside partners, the plaintiffs and co-neutrals in the Kevin S. settlement and sister agencies.

The death of any child is a tragedy. We grieve the loss of every life and share in the heartbreak endured by family and friends. 

CYFD did not have the opportunity to review Attorney General Torrez’s findings, recommendations, and conclusions before their release today, which prevented CYFD from assessing them and taking any needed immediate corrective action to better protect children. 

The attorney general identified eight systemic issues and CYFD, under the leadership of Acting Secretary Valerie Sandoval and her team, had already taken decisive action on each. This includes: 

• Hiring nearly 250 new staff over the past six months, closing thousands of already completed cases to sharply cut caseloads and established new training and support to keep staff.
• Working closely with the state Health Care Authority, Department of the Health and the Early Childhood Education to implement the governor’s executive order related to the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act, reducing deaths of substance exposed babies under the directive to zero.
• Providing new resources for foster families, building out a more specialized care system known as Foster Care Plus for children with high needs and actively recruiting more foster families.

• The end of office stays. The practice of children staying in offices ended on
  February 12. A new and collaborative public and private partnership is successfully placing children in safe settings.
• Working with law enforcement across the entire state to identify at-risk children and help keep them safe, as law enforcement has authority to remove children from unsafe settings.
• CYFD strongly disputes that we are overusing congregate care, when, in fact, ninety percent of children in foster care are placed in family settings, including kinship, based on their needs.
• CYFD also disputes that we put reunification ahead of child safety. Federal and state law require we attempt reunification absent aggravating circumstances.

Acting Secretary Sandoval has said on numerous occasions that CYFD has zero tolerance for retribution or retaliation."

Torrez also filed a lawsuit against the agency. You can find the full lawsuit here.