The Children, Youth, and Families Department has faced scrutiny in the past years for placing foster youth in their office to stay for periods of time. At a legislative committee meeting this past week, interim Secretary Teresa Casados committed to ending these stays by working on restructuring the department. But Casados does not say there is a definite date for the stays to end.
Under Interim Secretary Teresa Casados, CYFD is undergoing a restructuring process.
Casados committed at a Health and Human Services committee meeting to end office stays at the department. According to a KRQE report and another by Searchlight NM, foster youth have reported sleeping on the floor at a CYFD receiving center in Albuquerque for weeks.
Casados said while that center has had its licensure revoked, the department is working with the behavioral health department to reinstate it, since centers like this are crucial for finding youth stable placement when first coming into the system.
"And I can tell you it’s a scary system to enter into. So, staff there to have the sensitivity to understand that and understand the trauma that those kids are placed in and the patience to the moment they walk in the door," said Casados.
While Casados does not have a timeline of when office stays will stop, CYFD wants to reopen the receiving center in Albuquerque and also open another center in the south of the state.
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