Two Big Announcements: Our Partnership with the National Foster Parent Association and Our New Seat at the Alliance for Opportunity

We have two pieces of news for our foster, kinship and adoptive families, and for everyone who works alongside us.

New Mexico Child First Network is the premier state affiliate and partner of the National Foster Parent Association!

For more than fifty years, the National Foster Parent Association (NFPA) has worked with caregivers, child welfare professionals and community partners so that every child has a safe, stable and nurturing home. Its work rests on networking, education and advocacy, and it speaks up for the more than 400,000 children in care across the country.

As NFPA's partner in New Mexico, we will connect our families to what NFPA offers. The NFPA Training Institute has more than 50 free online courses, open around the clock, with a certificate for each course completed. NFPA also follows legislation that affects foster, kinship and adoptive parents and reports on it in its monthly ConnectU newsletter. In turn, we will carry New Mexico's concerns to the national table.

Learn more about NFPA at nfpaonline.org.

We have joined the Alliance for Opportunity.

On October 19, the Alliance for Opportunity (A4O) welcomed seven new members to its coalition of state organizations working to transform the safety net into a system that helps more Americans reach lasting independence through meaningful work. We are one of the seven, along with the Alabama Policy Institute, the Commonwealth Foundation (Pennsylvania), the John Locke Foundation (North Carolina), the MacIver Institute (Wisconsin), the Platte Institute (Nebraska) and the Rio Grande Foundation, our fellow New Mexico member.

A4O described our role this way: we are focused on the root causes of poverty and instability that put vulnerable children and families at risk. Our founder and executive director, Maralyn Beck, put it like this:

"For the past decade, New Mexico Child First Network has served children in foster care and those at risk of entering state custody, the children who pay the highest price when our social safety net fails. We've never stopped believing New Mexico can do better, and joining A4O allows us to go upstream to solve root issues: repairing our social safety net and rebuilding New Mexico's ladder of upward mobility. Every child deserves safety, stability, and a real chance to flourish, and we're more hopeful than ever that this partnership will help get them there."

Read the Alliance's full announcement at allianceforopportunity.com.

Every child deserves the best. Thank you for standing with us. Follow us on Facebook so you never miss an event or an update.