The New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) is actively recruiting community resource parents for children in the care of their department.

“We’re trying to do recruitment of resource parents, who were once known as foster parents, for the communities in Taos County,” said Angel Cardenas, Placement Supervisor for the CYFD Unit in Taos County, in an interview with Questa del Rio News. “We’re really lucky to have a lot of relative placements in our county but they are usually only willing to be a placement for their own family and not children brought in from the community with no resources. We really need places for kids who don’t have family or family friends. These families can be tremendously helpful in stepping in to help us out,” she says.

Cardenas explained how the ideal candidate for a resource parent feels a sense of responsibility for the children, caring for them like they are their own. The department has the candidates go through to become certified. It is somewhat of a lengthy process, but the placement workers are helping the prospective resource parents throughout the whole process.

“Our goal is always reunification between the biological parents and their children, we don’t ever want to see kids not go back to their parents.” The length of time in which a resource parent will have children in their home is solely based on the length of the case. Everything that is done in CYFD is confidential information due to the information of the children. Cardenas, however, wants to make it clear that the goal of the department is always reunification with the parents. “The department does not want to separate families, yet it does not always turn out that way. If reunification is not a possibility for our children, we look at families who are willing to adopt or enter permanent guardianship.”

CYFD hopes to get as many candidates as possible to make sure that every child in their custody has a home, at least temporarily. They especially need resource parents to take in teens.