HOUSE BILL 534

57th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2025

INTRODUCED BY

E. Diane Torres-Velásquez and Elizabeth "Liz" Thomson

 

 

 

 

 

AN ACT

RELATING TO CHILDREN; CREATING A TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE USING AUTOBIOGRAPHIES TO TEACH CHILDREN TO RETELL THEIR STORIES TO SUPPORT LANGUAGE AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     SECTION 1. A new section of the Children, Youth and Families Department Act is enacted to read:

     "[NEW MATERIAL] AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STORYTELLING AS A TRAUMA-INFORMED STRATEGY.--The department shall:

          A. contract with speech-language pathologists to provide training and workshops to families and case workers and to develop language support and emotional development services to support language development and coherent storytelling skills with children in foster care using family experiences in mathematics, science or history exploration as the context and content for shared stories;

          B. establish standards for the delivery of training and workshops by speech-language pathologists for foster parents and case workers, including quality management and improvement, accessibility, availability of services, rights and responsibilities of providers, evaluation and documentation and confidentiality of client records; and

          C. create, implement and continually evaluate the effectiveness of a framework for storytelling and language development for children in foster care through the department to develop children's autobiographical memory."

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