On April 8, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez released the 224 page report on the investigation by the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ) of the New Mexico Children Youth and Family’s Department (CYFD) and its handling of abused and neglected children placed in its care. The NMDOJ investigation report was scathing. It declared New Mexico’s child welfare system is in crisis. The NMDOJ investigation into the CYFD identified systemic failures that have repeatedly endangered the children CYFD is sworn to protect. The investigation found the failures are not isolated and they are pervasive, deeply entrenched, and too often result in preventable harm.
The investigation report is entitled “Systemic Failures: How CYFD Endangers The Children Its Meant To Protect”. The link to review the entire 224 page report is here:
https://nmdoj.gov/publications/cyfd-report/
According to the 224 page report released by the New Mexico Department of Justice, the rampant dysfunction within CYFD largely comes down to two issues:
- Prioritizing reunification of children with families at the expense of the child’s safety.
- Misusing state confidentiality laws to keep information from the public.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said this:
“Confidentiality provisions have been weaponized by that agency, as a form of intimidation and retaliation not only against their own employees but others who have information about the failures.”
LAWSUITE FILED
During the April 8 press conference releasing the NMDOJ report, Attorney General Raúl Torrez announced that the NMDOJ also filed a lawsuit against CYFD alleging the child welfare agency intentionally obstructed its investigation by improperly citing confidentiality laws designed to protect children’s privacy in abuse and neglect cases. The Justice Department alleges CYFD used those confidentiality laws to intimidate staff and foster parents expressing concerns about its practices. The lawsuit alleges that CYFD management threatened whistleblowers, including former employees, if they came forward.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he plans to work with state lawmakers to pursue legislative reforms of the child welfare system, but he believes the Roundhouse must rebuild CYFD from scratch. Torrez said this:
“I am of the view that the Legislature should start with a blank piece of paper. … Instead of trying to redesign a broken house, start with a blank sheet of paper and build what you think needs to exist from the ground up, and then see if you can map that on to the existing structure. … I’m not sure that you can, to be perfectly honest with you, in part because it’s not only a structural problem, it’s a cultural problem.”
House Speaker Javier Martínez, D-Albuquerque, said he did not disagree with Torrez’s suggestion to rebuild CYFD from the ground up. Speaker Martinez noted he has sponsored legislation in the last 3 years to move control of the child welfare agency out from under the governor to an independent commission. He also said CYFD is spread too thin to be effective, given it manages both protective services and juvenile justice programs, a point also made by the Justice Department in its report. Speaker Martínez said this:
“The truth of the matter is, the agency has long outlived its usefulness, quite frankly. The fact that we have the same agency dealing with foster children also dealing with criminal justice is insane, and that has to change.”
PLANS UNDERWAY FOR 2027 LEGISLATIVE SESSION
The reaction to the NMDOJ investigation by New Mexico lawmakers was swift and universal. State lawmakers expressed outrage at the Justice Department’s findings. They also expressed ideas on how to move forward and are looking ahead to next year’s 2027 legislative session to work on possible reforms of the CYFD.
Some efforts, including a possible constitutional amendment that removes CYFD from control of the Governor were discussed at the end of the 2026 legislative session as priorities for 2027. That effort, if passed by lawmakers and then voters, would have stripped the governor of New Mexico’s authority to appoint the agency’s cabinet secretary. Governor Lujan Grisham strenuously opposed any and all serious efforts by the legislature to reform CYFD. Governor Lujan Grisham is term limited and a new governor will be sworn in on January 1, 2027 a mere 3 weeks before the commencement of the 2027 legislative session
House Speaker Javier Martinez said this:
“[Legislation removing CYFD departmental control from the governor was] … a piece of legislation that we pushed … [during the 2026] past session. That is a constitutional amendment, so it requires ratification by the voters. … we are already working on that legislation, and we will present it again in the 2027 legislative session.”
Although Martinez supports that notion of giving the power to appoint CYFD’s leader to an independent commission, he steadfastly denies the accusation that Governor Lujan Grisham’s administration is solely at fault for CYFD’s troubles. Speaker Martinez said this:
“This failure of CYFD predates this governor. And I would invite folks from the other side of the aisle to remember what prior [Gov. Susana Martinez] didn’t do with CYFD. In fact, [Gov. Susana Martinez] … actively opposed childcare and early childhood education, which are among the most effective tools to prevent child abuse.”
Republicans have pushed backed. Republicans say Governor Lujan Grisham will be defined by CYFD’s failures. Sen. Nicole Tobiassen, a Republican representing Bernalillo County, said this:
“I think this is our current governor’s legacy, and it’s not a good legacy. … The next governor better be ready to come in and clean it up and clean it up really quickly. And if not, they’ll be hearing from quite a few of us.”
Tobiassen said the CYFD’s problems cannot be blamed on a lack of funding, since more funding hasn’t seemed to yield many improvements, based on this latest lawsuit. Tobiassen said this:
“We more than fund this agency, especially when there are times when there’s a 24% vacancy rate in employees. They’ve got plenty of money sitting there.”
House Speaker Martinez noted that one issue that continues to plague CYFD is having to deal with too much at one time, and that fixing that issue will be one of his priorities during the 2027 legislative session. Martinez said this:
“The fact that foster children are in the same agency as the agency that deals with criminal justice issues for youth is absurd. … That should have never happened. That’s one of the many fixes we need to imagine in the next legislative session.”
SPECIAL SESSION SUGGESTED
CYFD reform has been on the agenda of legislative sessions. Last year, lawmakers created a watchdog group for the agency called the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA). However, other efforts from both parties to overhaul the agency have failed including the push to separate it from the Governor’s Cabinet.
During the last two legislative sessions, state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle introduced dozens of bills in an attempt to fix CYFD. In light of the AG’s investigation, some lawmakers say it’s time to pull the department out from under the governor’s oversight. Speaker of the House Javier Martinez, (D-Albuquerque), said this:
“We’re not going to rest until CYFD is pulled from outside of executive purview. It needs to be its own agency. It needs to answer to its own commission, and it needs to ensure that children are protected.”
State Senator Crystal Brantley (R-Elephant Butte) said this:
“We need to come in, in a non-partisan way, very quickly and swiftly to bring massive overhaul changes to this organization, to dismantle this agency and rebuild it from the ground up. ”
During this year’s session, the governor said new laws aren’t the answer. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said this:
“If we keep squeezing it, it does not, in my opinion, get better; it gets more challenging.”
With this being a gubernatorial election year, lawmakers said it’s a critical time to get something done. Senator Brantley said this:
“I believe that some sort of change, and perhaps with the shift of a new governor, it doesn’t need to come out from underneath the governor, but it does need to have continued oversight.”
Albuquerque area Democrat State Senator Michael Padilla said the ongoing failures of CYFD detailed in the report were “unacceptable for the protection of New Mexico’s children.” However, he noted CYFD has struggled for many years and said the blame did not lie with Lujan Grisham’s administration. Padilla said he plans to propose legislation next year that would move governance of CYFD to a board of regents rather than the governor. The panel should include people experienced in child welfare, he said, such as a behavioral health specialist and a foster parent, and that it should have an executive director to closely oversee the child welfare system who would not turn over when a new governor is elected. Padilla said this:
“I think this allows for long-range planning, budgeting, financing, goal-setting and development for the people that do this very important work. … This is a perfect time, actually, we have a new governor coming to office; they’re not going to have the battle scars if you will, of what’s happened over the past 24 years.”
Speaker of the House Martinez said that he’s open to discussions with Attorney General Raúl Torrez and a potential Special Session to reform CYFD. Martinez said this:
“If the governor were willing to call [a Special Session], we would be at the table, with a range of possible proposals and solutions to fix this agency.”
Speaker Martinez and Senator Padilla have both said they plan to re-introduce proposals next session, moving CYFD to an independent state agency outside the governor’s control.
DOJ RECOMMENDATIONS
Albuquerque area State Senator Michael Padilla said he would welcome a set of recommendations from the AG’s Office to the legislature on how to fix CYFD and said this:
“These are the 3, or 17, or 93 things that need to change in order for us to have access to the information that helps us to make long-term decisions, and set long-term goals.”
Given the comments from Senator Padilla, the recommendation made by the NMDOJ in its report merit review. To address the systemic breakdowns undermining CYFD’s mandate, the NMDOJ made five major recommendations to reform the CYFD in its investigative report. The recommendations are:
- BUILDING A SKILLED & SUPPORTED WORKFORCE:
- Pursue surge hiring of mission-critical staff—including investigators, PPWs, and Children’s Court attorneys—and accelerate recruitment and onboarding.
- Prioritize recruitment of social workers, establish pathways for existing staff to earn BSW/MSW degrees, and require (at a minimum) that supervisors, county office managers, and other investigations and permanency decision-makers maintain social work licensure.
- Strengthen partnerships with higher education institutions to support internship-to-employment pipelines for social work graduates.
- Implement a comprehensive retention and wellness program that pairs new hires with robust supports—such as peer buddy systems and experienced mentors—alongside accessible counseling for vicarious trauma and mental health. Leverage workforce assessment tools like the Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment to identify root causes of turnover and shape employee development strategies.
- Tailor separate training tracks for new investigations, permanency, and licensing and support staff to enhance role clarity and competency.
- Implement mandatory, periodic training for investigators and PPWs, and leadership programs for incoming supervisors, targeted to address past performance gaps.
- Child Welfare Expert Recommendations: Mayola Miranda’s Recommendations for Advancing the Workforce.
- STRENGTHENING ABUSE & NEGLECT INVESTIGATIONS
- Improve investigations by adopting trauma-informed interviewing practices, corroborating witness accounts, leveraging law enforcement expertise, conducting unannounced home visits, and engaging in broader assessments of potential risks to children.
- Revise investigation finding options by adding a third, “inconclusive” category, prohibit case closures as “unsubstantiated” due to family inaccessibility or non-engagement, and apply consistent standards for investigation substantiation.
- Mandate supervisory compliance with pre-initiation and closure staffings, including escalation to COMs for repeat abuse or neglect reports. Require a critical analysis of safety and risk assessments, confirm service referrals and engagement, and consider alternative interventions if parental participation in services is lacking.
- Create a dedicated team within PSD to investigate fatalities and other critical incidents of children in state custody, with investigative findings provided to the CYFD Secretary and the Office of the Child Advocate.
- Compel CYFD to notify law enforcement upon release of a 72-hour hold, and expand information-sharing practices to support swift welfare checks and facilitate criminal investigations. Explore ways to improve CYFD–law enforcement collaboration, such as co-locating investigators with detectives and/or encouraging joint field experiences to build trust.
- EVALUATING CHILD SAFETY & DEVELOPING SAFETY PLANS
- Retrain investigators and PPWs on proper use of SDM tools and override criteria, stressing that tools are guidance—not rigid rules—and that professional judgment and common sense must drive final decisions.
- Enforce the policy requiring completion of safety and risk assessments before child reunification, and mandate COM-level (or higher) review and approval of all assessment findings.
- Require that every safety plan is:
- Clear and specific—outline all responsibilities for both families and designated safety monitors;
- Comprehensive—address all identified safety threats and include provisions for key areas of the child’s daily life during pendency of the plan, such as education and medical decision-making;
- Explicit on consequences—define immediate responses for violations, including filing custody petitions. Prohibit use of safety plans as a means to sidestep necessary child removal from abusive or neglectful environments;
- Actively monitored—assign a dedicated staff member with a set monitoring schedule to conduct in-home visits without exception, and report immediately to law enforcement if contact is lost; and
- Closed only when safety is assured: Before plan expiration, complete new assessments and either close upon fully mitigating danger indicators or initiate additional interventions.
- Establish policy criteria for selecting safety monitors, requiring clear role expectations and rigorous background checks. Prohibit monitors with conflicts of interest, substance abuse issues, or close ties to biological parents, including anyone who previously failed to report abuse or neglect or resides in the home where it occurred.
4. CHILD-CENTERED SERVICES & PERMANENCY PRACTICES
- Treat foster families as essential partners by offering ongoing mental and emotional support, meaningful involvement in case planning, and clear communication channels with PPWs and supervisors.
- Ensure foster parents receive essential information prior to a child’s placement, including medical, behavioral, and educational details. Provide timely reimbursement and increased activity stipends to enable caregivers to meet basic needs and support extracurricular activities.
- Create a specialized CYFD team of clinicians to serve children with high needs, provide expert consultation on service recommendations to caseworkers, and ensure access to neuropsychological and other evaluations to support eligibility for appropriate programming.
- Consider legislative changes to the Children’s Mental Health and Disabilities Code to either allow mandated psychological treatment more easily, or raise the age of refusal above 14. Alternatively, create and fund youth services positions to ensure access to care for adolescents age 14 and older.
- Pursue court-ordered services when families refuse currently voluntary services and statutory criteria are met. CYFD should treat service referrals as essential to parental rehabilitation—not mere formalities—and seek custody when caregivers fail to engage with available resources and abusive or neglectful conditions persist.
- Require multidisciplinary consultation among permanency supervisors, clinicians, and attorneys—with documented approval by the CYFD cabinet secretary—before authorizing trial home visits and/or eventual reunification of a child with caregivers who have prior substantiated abuse or neglect reports, ensuring strict oversight and accountability.
- Reduce reliance on congregate care facilities and prioritize development and expansion of community-based behavioral health services—including high-fidelity wraparound services and intensive therapeutic supports—while prioritizing treatment foster care and foster parent recruitment and retention to ensure hard-to-place youth have family-based placements.
- Until the elimination of congregate care facilities:
- Require more frequent surveys/inspections of such facilities;
- Lower staff-to-child ratios;
- Mandate that direct care staff have relevant child welfare experience or complete rigorous trauma-informed training; and
- Support the Zero Suicide Initiative under the state Behavioral Health Collaborative and integrate its suicide prevention and treatment protocols into residential and congregate settings.
- Mandate the adoption and publication of clear policies for abuse and neglect investigations in congregate care facilities.
- Require that all investigative outcomes be entered into the department‑wide case management system and establish a statewide tracking process to ensure individuals who have abused or neglected children cannot work in any licensed facility.
- Maintain children in their school of origin unless a change is clearly in their best interest, preserving educational continuity and support systems to minimize instability during time in foster care.
- Establish, through policy or statute, a mandatory adoption full-disclosure process to be completed within a defined timeframe, with enforceable consequences for noncompliance.
- ACCOUNTABLE LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL REFORMS
- Amend state law to require that CYFD’s Cabinet Secretary possess professional child welfare experience.
- Demand CYFD leadership complete recurring training in child welfare best practices and legal mandates, and cultivate a non-defensive culture where decisions prioritize improving outcomes for children over protecting institutional and personal reputations.
- Consider transferring licensing and certification authority for child-serving facilities from CYFD to DOH to eliminate incentives that prioritize placement availability over safety and quality in licensing decisions.
- Require CYFD’s Office of Constituent Affairs and Office of Advocacy to share all external complaints with the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA), and designate the OCA as an appellate option for complaints unresolved through CYFD’s internal processes.
- Implement youth advisory panels and foster care exit surveys to gather feedback on CYFD performance, require publication of findings, and incorporate results into policy development.
- Seek to restore public confidence through meaningful accountability practices, including the following:
- Implementing a zero-tolerance policy prohibiting intentional misrepresentations in court proceedings or in communications with families and children;
- Mandating that all court reports and testimony in permanency proceedings be made under oath, subject to perjury penalties for material, intentional misstatements; and
- Enforcing a strict prohibition on retaliation by CYFD employees, with consistent application and serious employment consequences upon any violation.
- Institutionalize transparency through the following:
- Amending state law to limit courts’ authority to sequester hearings or restrict the release of information, except when necessary to protect narrowly defined personal identifying details or in truly exceptional circumstances.
- Guaranteeing participation in individualized planning/family centered meetings and court proceedings for every member of the child’s care team, including foster parents, therapists, educators, tribal representatives, and other essential stakeholders; and
- Committing to prompt, accurate disclosures to oversight authorities and release of non-confidential records to the press and the public, while avoiding overreliance on confidentiality protections and providing the maximum information permissible under state law.
The link to review the entire 224 page report is here:
https://nmdoj.gov/publications/cyfd-report/
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Any and all talk of a Special Session before the end of the second term of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on January 1, 2027 should cease and desist. The blunt reality is that she is a lame duck and her influence is waning. Lujan Grisham for the last two years has essentially resisted all reforms of CYFD and its likely she will not change in attitude and resistance to reforms. The new governor should not be hamstrung with decisions made by a hastily conferred Special Session.
It is no surprise that the legislators are already talking about reforming the CYFD agency during the 2027 legislative session. The discussion no doubt will start with the recommendations contained in the NMSOJ investigative report. The five recommendations made in the NMDOJ report are commendable, but the blunt reality will likely take years to achieve. The level of corruption and dereliction of duty by CYFD is likely so extensive that it would be best to simply abolish the department for the level of incompetence over so many decades.
Enough is enough! The suffering and abuse of New Mexico’s children is preventable and must be stopped immediately. The New Mexico Courts need to intervene and order the takeover of CYFD by a special master to begin an aggressive agenda to bring the department under control. The New Mexico legislature needs to step in and abolish the Children’s Youth and Family Department as it is today and create a new, independent agency that is overseen by a governing board, much like what has been proposed by New Mexico Speaker of the House Javier Martinez.
The link to a related article is here: