Under Michelle Lujan Grisham, absentee leadership is the norm
Albuquerque, NM — Today, in conjunction with his plan to fix and reform CYFD (read the plan here), Mark Ronchetti released a testimonial video from former foster parent, Serena Talamantes. Serena has welcomed, loved and cared for over 1,000 New Mexico children over the past 16 years.
In the video, Talamantes had this to say “I just think it’s time for change.”
After serving for 16 years, Serena and her husband decided not to renew their license to continue serving as foster parents, due to the falling standards for protecting vulnerable children at CYFD.
“There’s not one story, there’s a lot of stories…and they’re not stories, they’re children.” Continued Talamantes. “It was watching kids be returned to a situation that anyone with common sense knew was not gonna work. It was watching kids be placed in shelters when you knew they would never survive,” said Talamantes. “It was watching the state believe that the only way they could go was to place kids back at home even though social workers, foster families, therapists were saying – ‘Don’t do it,’ and they didn’t care.”
The complete lack of urgency by the Lujan Grisham administration is glaring, as is the absence of any desire to fix the problems that currently exist for New Mexico’s kids.
Talamantes went on to state that the lack of communication and inaction felt intentional. “It feels like it’s personal. I feel like this admin has turned its back on the kids that need the most care and need the most help, the most vulnerable. I went all the way up to MLG with this, I called everybody and their brother with this, and I got nothing and they got nothing.”
“Under the leadership of Michjelle Lujan Grisham, Serena’s story and others like it have become far too normalized,” said Mark Roncehtti for Governor communications director Ryan Sabel, “this governor has failed to follow through on promises she made in 2018 to fix CYFD, and the children under the care of CYFD are suffering and dying.”
Original source can be found here.
