NCCPR in Source NM: Torrez’s CYFD investigation will fail if it leaves people out

A child welfare expert weighs in on latest effort to reform NM’s foster system

 New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says he’s going to launch “a comprehensive and wide-ranging investigation” into how the Children, Youth and Families Department fails children. Allow me to save him some time. I can just write the report now — and I’ll throw in the news story that will follow. The story will go like this: 

The beleaguered Children Youth and Families Department and its embattled leadership are plagued with a shortage of foster parents and high turnover among demoralized, overworked and understaffed caseworkers, according to the blistering conclusions in a scathing report released today. 

We know this is what the report will say for a couple of reasons. First, almost (but not quite) all of that is true. Indeed CYFD’s performance is every bit as awful as Torrez says it is. Second, it’s what scathing reports on embattled child welfare agencies all over the country always say, particularly when those issuing the reports show no interest in real solutions. … 

Read the full commentary in Source NM