New Mexico has more kids living full-time with their grandparents than any other state—a caregiving arrangement that is only becoming more common.

Due to circumstances including substance misuse and incarceration, a growing number of parents in New Mexico are unable to raise their own kids. “Data from our report shows that 36,000 children in New Mexico are being raised by grandparents or other kinship caregivers, which is the highest number in the nation,” says Jovanna Archuleta, the early-childhood education program director for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Foundation, an endowment to support schooling near the government research labs. “This issue is declining elsewhere but rising here.”

To help pick up the slack, grandparents and other family members are becoming full-time custodians for young kids—or kinship caregivers, as the relationship is called. “As part of New Mexico’s culture and traditions, grandparents have always helped raise children in a very multigenerational approach,” Archuleta says. “But the data shows they’re becoming primary caregivers much more frequently—and it’s not just grandparents. We’re seeing aunts, uncles, and siblings as young as 19 stepping in to take care of children who are not theirs.”

“Data shows grandparents are becoming
primary caregivers much more frequently,
stepping in to take care of kids that are not theirs.”

 JOVANNA ARCHULETA

Raising other family members’ kids can come with many rewards, but it also has its difficulties. Despite their efforts, grandparents and kinship caregivers struggle to shoulder the burden alone. “Some grandparents don’t have vehicles to take kids to school,” says Jessica Acosta, an early-childhood education coordinator at LANL. “Financial challenges remain the biggest thing.”

In New Mexico, grandparents and other family members need support, a void the LANL Foundation is working to fill. Archuleta, a member of San Felipe Pueblo, located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, is uniquely equipped to help address this concern. In 2017, she joined the LANL Foundation to support early-childhood programs and services for the eight pueblos of northern New Mexico, eventually helping to oversee New Mexico’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department. And while it may seem like childhood and elderly programs might be far apart, Archuleta says the two have much in common. “It’s really about looking at systems, identifying gaps, and figuring out how to address them,” she says. “Everything connects.”

Archuleta and Acosta work daily to help give grandparents support for caregiving at an advanced age, connecting them with regional organizations that provide therapy, counseling, respite, and financial aid. “Local programs in the state didn’t know where to go for resources or weren’t aware that other programs like theirs existed,” Acosta says. “So we got them all together.”

The LANL Foundation also holds an annual event at the capitol building, uniting resources and assistance groups from across the state so that grandparents can get everything they need. “It’s a one-stop shop,” Archuleta says. The LANL Foundation even organized aging adults to visit the capital to support a caregiving house bill, which led to a pilot program with the Aging and Long-Term Services Department to offer more resources and support. “That has been our work, supporting advocacy and policy,” Archuleta says.

As part of this year’s Conference on Aging, Archuleta and Acosta are hosting a session dubbed “Rooted in Kinship: Co-creating Systems with Grandparents and Caregiving Relatives.” The title refers to the need to support grandparents who are taking care of grandchildren without the help of government aid, which they’d receive if they were legal guardians. The session will also serve as a forum for the community, bringing together aging adults to share their stories and to know they aren’t alone.

“We’re cocreating a system that doesn’t exist right now to help support them,” Archuleta says. “It’s for them, and together with them.”