Our Manifesto

Hey. I see you.

Every child deserves to be seen. Every one. Not as a case number. Not as a problem to manage. As a whole, bright, funny, worth-it kid, with a name and a laugh and a future.

We believe in children, loudly.

We believe a safe, loving, permanent home is not a luxury. It is the starting line, and every child in New Mexico gets to stand on it.

We believe in the people who show up.

Foster parents, kinship caregivers, grandparents, social workers, volunteers, and neighbors: you are the miracle. You are not alone, and we will never let you feel that way.

We believe in hand up, not hand out.

Training, resources, and community turn good intentions into lasting stability. Families thrive when they are equipped, not judged.

We believe in accountability without dehumanization.

The institution is consequence-free. The people it serves are not. We will keep asking to see what happened to the human being, and we will ask with respect for every person in the room.

We believe in joy.

Resource fairs. Game nights. Backpacks, fishing poles, holiday lights. Kids who have been through the hardest things deserve the best days, and we are in the business of making them.

We believe in showing up together.

We work across differences, with anyone who will put children first. Disagreement is fine. We refuse to lose sight of each other's humanity when we disagree.

We are unrelentingly optimistic.

Not foolhardy. Earned. We have seen what happens when a community decides to wrap around a child. It works. It changes everything. We have a very low tolerance for dumb inefficiencies and a very high tolerance for showing up. And we are just getting started.

Children first. Families strong. New Mexico, better.

Join us.

Our Story

I'm a former foster parent, and in 2018 I founded New Mexico Child First Network with a mission unlike any other in our state: to serve New Mexico's most vulnerable children. We believe each child deserves a safe, loving, and permanent home, and we exist to help children in care get there.

We do it by backing the people who stepped up. We offer resources, services, support, and training for foster parents, kinship caregivers, and the families raising children in care, through resource fairs across the state, trauma-informed training, support groups both online and in person, and connections to community-based services.

And we make room for joy. In 2025 we hosted four signature events for children in foster care, from Girls Day to a Fishing Extravaganza to a Back to School Bash to Holiday Family Night, with resource fairs for families alongside three of them.

Everyone connected to Child First, from our staff to our volunteers to our donors, has a real chance to change a child's life. When kids struggle in other settings, we want them to find a place to thrive. Our passion has grown right alongside the need in our community, and we are not slowing down.