{"id":654077,"date":"2018-12-10T13:45:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T20:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=654077"},"modified":"2018-12-11T08:13:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T15:13:31","slug":"nm-foster-care-company-shutting-down-following-reports-of-safety-lapses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/12\/nm-foster-care-company-shutting-down-following-reports-of-safety-lapses\/","title":{"rendered":"NM foster care company shutting down following reports of safety lapses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_654079\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-654079\" src=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Playground\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Searchlight_LaFamilia.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Don Usner \/ Searchlight New Mexico<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A playground in Farmington near the home of Hope Graciano, a foster parent licensed by La Familia-Namaste. Graciano is currently on trial for felony child abuse.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>La Familia-Namaste, one of New Mexico\u2019s largest private foster care companies, is closing its doors at the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The closure comes on the heels of <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/investigation-reveals-serious-abuses-within-treatment-foster-care-system\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an investigation by Searchlight New Mexico<\/a> revealing that the 30-year-old nonprofit failed to properly vet foster parents for past abusive behavior, placing children in environments that in some cases have led to severe child abuse.<\/p>\n<p>La Familia-Namaste is one of 10 remaining companies in New Mexico that provide treatment foster care, a specialized type of foster care for children who have severe, usually trauma-related behavioral health needs. It\u2019s the latest in a string of behavioral health organizations <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/04\/martinez-owes-new-mexicans-an-apology-for-medicaid-freeze\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to fold in recent years<\/a>, meaning yet another disruption in services for traumatized children.<\/p>\n<p>Parents of children currently served by La Familia-Namaste \u2014 which also provides adoption, counseling and psychiatric services \u2014 say the company failed to notify them of the upcoming closure, leaving families scrambling to find vital services for their kids.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico<\/a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. Read its Raising New Mexico series\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>. Support its work\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsmatch.org\/organizations\/searchlight-new-mexico\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Kathy Spencer, an Albuquerque mother whose adopted son was receiving counseling services from La Familia-Namaste, discovered that he had lost his psychiatrist after his pharmacy was unable to obtain refills for his prescriptions. She made several unsuccessful calls to the company to find out what had happened, only to learn of the closure on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>It was the family\u2019s fourth service provider to close in as many years, leaving her son once again without a psychiatrist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy child has been through many losses in his time,\u201d said Spencer. \u201cNow all of the sudden, without notice or a chance to say goodbye \u2026 for a kid who\u2019s gone through lots of disruptions, that\u2019s really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly Curtis, interim director for La Familia-Namaste, acknowledged that the organization is closing and attributed it to unspecified financial reasons. Earlier this year the company was in the process of a merger with All Faiths, an Albuquerque nonprofit behavioral health agency; the merger fell through following revelations of safety lapses within La Familia-Namaste\u2019s foster care operations.<\/p>\n<p>All Faiths director Krisztina Ford, who was interim CEO of La Familia-Namaste during the failed merger, did not answer repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>La Familia-Namaste\u2019s closure will impact safety processes for foster homes managed directly by the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. The company has been an important partner for CYFD, earning over $1.6 million to conduct safety evaluations for state-run foster homes. Now CYFD will have to decide whether to do its own evaluations or outsource that responsibility to another company. CYFD spokesman Henry Varela did not answer repeated requests for comment.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Searchlight\u2019s investigation, <a href=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/05\/investigation-reveals-serious-abuses-within-treatment-foster-care-system\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published in May<\/a>, identified La Familia-Namaste as one of many treatment foster care companies that have repeatedly violated state regulations for protecting foster children.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2015 and 2017, CYFD identified at least 28 instances in which treatment foster care companies broke rules on checking for abuse and neglect, at least 38 cases in which courts records were inadequately reviewed, and at least 91 instances in which documentation \u2014 academic records, medical records, the child\u2019s history throughout the foster system \u2014 was either missing or incomplete.<\/p>\n<p>Despite those widespread problems, CYFD has routinely renewed the license of La Familia-Namaste and other troubled companies.<\/p>\n<p>In the past five years, only one company has had its license revoked by the agency. Familyworks Inc., a treatment foster care operation run by the for-profit residential youth treatment center Desert Hills in Albuquerque, was shut down by CYFD in August following revelations of ongoing sexual assault in one of Familyworks\u2019 foster homes. Prior to the revelations, CYFD renewed the company\u2019s license despite finding nearly 300 violations over a seven-year period.<\/p>\n<p>Treatment foster care companies have been facing numerous problems internally as well, including lower reimbursement rates from Medicaid and private insurance and a shortage of qualified psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, according to George Davis, former director of psychiatry for CYFD.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is nearly an impossible environment to survive,\u201d Davis said in an email. \u201cLa Familia-Namaste was probably the best of them, and there are not enough left to refer all the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>La Familia-Namaste will be sending its current foster care clients to High Desert Family Services, a for-profit business based in Albuquerque. High Desert was formerly the New Mexico chapter of the MENTOR Network, a national for-profit chain that has been under scrutiny from Congress following repeated problems with safety and oversight, often resulting in child abuse.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2015 and 2017, CYFD auditors found 23 safety violations in High Desert\u2019s treatment foster care operations, citing the agency for failing to properly check for reports of abuse and neglect by foster families.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives from High Desert also failed to respond to numerous requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>La Familia-Namaste, one of New Mexico\u2019s largest private foster care companies, is closing its doors at the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":654079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[234],"class_list":["post-654077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654077"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654088,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654077\/revisions\/654088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}