CYFD seeks three more group homes in Bernalillo County despite concerns

CYFD is seeking contracts for three additional foster group homes in Bernalillo County even as New Mexico faces renewed scrutiny over unsafe congregate care and too few family-style placements for children who cannot live at home. The move comes while state briefings say the child welfare system still lacks enough resource homes and treatment foster placements, and one Albuquerque group home contract was set to expire by the end of June after AMIkids Inc. declined to extend it.

The pressure on CYFD is not new. The New Mexico Department of Justice maintains a CYFD report section called Warehousing Youth in Congregate Care Facilities, underscoring long-running concerns that children are being placed in institutional settings when family care is unavailable. CYFD’s own foster-care materials say foster care should provide “a safe and nurturing environment” for children who cannot live at home with their families, a description that sits uneasily beside continued reliance on group homes.

A June 2025 briefing to lawmakers said New Mexico’s child welfare system is still dealing with high rates of child maltreatment and repeat maltreatment, high turnover and vacancy rates among child protective services workers, and too few resource homes and treatment foster care placements. Those shortages have also shown up in CYFD’s benchmark goals under the Kevin S. settlement agreement, which included increasing the number of resource homes and community-based placements. In February 2025, CYFD Secretary Teresa Casados said the agency was working to address the lack of foster-care placements. On March 13, 2025, the department said governor-endorsed bipartisan reform legislation had unanimously cleared the Senate.

The system’s fragility has remained visible into 2026. Reporting that year said New Mexico finally ended overnight office stays for youth in CYFD custody, and a February 2026 report said lawmakers advanced a bill requiring regular reporting on children held in offices. Separate reporting on a Government Accountability Office review found the federal Family First law has not reduced group-home use in many states, a reminder that simply adding placements does not automatically move children into safer family settings.

For Bernalillo County, the question is whether three more group homes would ease an immediate bed shortage or deepen a congregate-care model that critics say has been used as a default when the state cannot find enough resource homes, treatment foster homes or stable staff to keep children in family-like care.