Las Cruces Sun-News: To Protect Our Children, We Must Overhaul CYFD
Albuquerque, NM – Deb Haaland, who is running to be the next governor of New Mexico, penned an op-ed for the Las Cruces Sun-News over the weekend with a plan to overhaul the Children Youth and Families Department from scratch and make sure it is helping and protecting our kids.
Read more: To protect our children, we must overhaul CYFD
A few weeks ago, the New Mexico Department of Justice released its investigation into the Children Youth and Families Department. Like every New Mexican who read the news, I was horrified as I read stories of children going hungry because of neglect, kids being kept in unstable conditions, and perhaps the most heartbreaking, lives cut short before they even really started.
No child should ever be harmed by the action or inaction of the state. It puts children at risk, contributes to dynamics that make us less safe, and prolongs the conditions that put our state at the bottom of child well-being rankings. I’m personally sick and tired of seeing those rankings year after year – and I know New Mexicans are too.
It will take bold action and persistence to build a system that makes a difference for our kids.
I’ve done it before. When I was Secretary of the Interior, I reinvigorated a department that had been decimated by Trump. Together we delivered a brighter future for communities across the country. I know what it takes to build employee morale so they are committed to the mission, to hire quality public servants, to bring consistency to management and change things that don’t work.
CYFD is understaffed and overworked, foster programs are broken, child welfare offices are not equipped to manage the growing caseloads, and the juvenile justice services caseloads are unworkable.
We must overhaul CYFD to protect our children.
On day one, I will appoint an experienced and qualified secretary and direct them to take drastic measures to increase staff, rebuild partnerships, and standardize foster recruitment and certification. We must ensure case management is reasonable for staff and that the public servants managing these heartbreaking cases have the mental health care and professional development they need to do their jobs effectively and reduce burnout.
I will also empower the New Mexico Department of Justice’s Office of the Child Advocate to investigate abuse and resolve complaints against the department and to provide rigorous oversight, accountability and transparency at CYFD. That includes mandating data sharing between the Office of the Child Advocate and child welfare agencies, State Police, the Healthcare Authority, Public Education Department, and the Early Childhood Education and Care Department, so no child falls through the cracks. I will rebuild partnerships with Native communities to ensure full compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act.
To address the troubling statistics of children involved in the CYFD system being more likely to fall into a life of crime, I will work to improve juvenile courts with the support structure that can hold them accountable and redirect children to the right path.
All of these reforms will come with the end goal of creating an independent commission to oversee CYFD that brings consistency that our children deserve. Consistency that fosters steady professionalism and streamlined services.
These are not overnight solutions – these are hard decisions, but our children deserve it. And if I’m elected governor, I won’t shy away from doing what’s right for New Mexico’s children.