KC Counts talks with Lisa Chavez, senior director of programs and services for FYI+, about child abuse prevention efforts. Every Child Matters Fiestas are planned for Saturday, April 12 in Anthony and Thursday, April 17 in Las Cruces. Here is a portion of their conversation:
KC:
What can you tell us, in terms of child abuse in New Mexico, some of the numbers that we're looking at currently?
Lisa:
There was about 1,880 cases of child abuse reported across New Mexico during the recent one year period. About 15% of those cases were reported here in Doña Ana county. About 272 of them. So these are really just cases that are more serious in nature, really impacting the well-being of children. Any of those reported cases would be, you know, understandably concerning. One of the things that we want to do as an agency and as a community is just make sure that families have access to those resources that they need. Whether they be tangible resources, you know that help families have what they need in terms of food or clothing or, you know, access to services all the way to, you know, education around parenting or support that they might need.
KC:
How do you reach out and I mean, obviously the Fiesta is one of those ways, but on a regular basis, how do you reach out to find those individuals that you think can benefit most from your services.
Lisa:
We do a lot of things here at our agency, so it's not really just focused on child abuse and neglect. We do have services that we collaborate with CYFD on to provide specific services to families who are referred through CYFD for child abuse and neglect. So that's one way we do receive referrals from the department to really think about more prevention efforts or more light intervention efforts so that these situations don't occur again. So really trying to reduce any repeat sort of situations that would result in maltreatment. I think as an agency as a whole, a lot of our collective programming and services are really rooted in social justice, you know, we do a lot for not just Child Protective Services, CYFD, but we do a lot for juvenile justice and services, and we do a lot of our LGBTQ plus programming, and we're really trying to support those clinical needs for people who may not be insured. We just recently started doing play therapy, trauma informed play therapy. So a lot of those efforts that we make in all of our programming really serve as sort of a foundation to reduce or prevent child abuse and neglect.
KC:
What do you think are the keys for people who might be concerned about a family member or a neighbor, a student at school? How do you help people to say something about something that they might be uncomfortable with? Coming forward to report?
Lisa:
Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think it's a question that most of us sometimes feel hesitant about. We're not really sure what we should do with things that we see. Or hear so. I think the first and foremost the most important thing to remember is that as a citizen, we're all mandated reporters here in New Mexico. If you have a concern remembering that it's not your job to investigate the concern, it's your responsibility as a citizen to report the concern and really, you can do that through that #SAFE number and that connects you to the state, central intake, which will hear the concern in the report. There's information you need to have available if you can, questions that they'll ask you and then it's really up to the department, the Children, Youth and Families Department to determine how that report gets screened for any kind of investigation for further support.
KC:
So let's talk about some of the services that will be available during the every child matters fiestas.
Lisa:
Sure. As far as we are concerned in terms of being a partner in this service is that every child matters for us, there's really more of a collective sort of fun events. So there's a lot of games and that are both child and family friendly. I think there's food, there's vendors, opportunities to get merchandise, things like that. And then they'll have our partners all around Doña Ana County, those community members or community partners that really support those efforts for child abuse and neglect. So that could range from anywhere from the city’s programming, victims advocates for Las Cruces Police Department. There's a lot of different partners throughout the city and the county that will be available and typically what it looks like is just people will set up their tabling, they'll have a lot of tangible resources available for families and pathways to connection for services. I know for us, our family Resource Center will be out there. Our family success center and our Youth Success Center will be out there. That's just really pathways into ways that families and youth and children can get support and or you know, with our youth success Center really about programming and recreation and other alternatives that they would have to just come and dance or do culinary or things like that with their youth success center. So it's just really a celebratory event, just kind of honoring our families out there in the community. And reminding them that the community has supports and services and resources for them.
