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HOUSE MEMORIAL 61
57TH LEGISLATURE - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - FIRST SESSION, 2025
INTRODUCED BY
E. Diane Torres-Velásquez and Elizabeth "Liz" Thomson
and Dayan Hochman-Vigil and G. Andrés Romero
A MEMORIAL
REQUESTING THE CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES DEPARTMENT TO STUDY
AND IMPLEMENT STRATEGIES FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STORYTELLING AS A
TRAUMA-INFORMED STRATEGY FOR CHILDREN.
WHEREAS, narrative therapy is a well-established
therapeutic approach that has been used across generations,
particularly within traditional and minority populations; and
WHEREAS, autobiographical storytelling and relating
stories of personal experiences are rooted in the same core
principles as narrative therapy, and these modalities are
effective across diverse communities and cultures, as they
recognize the individual as the expert on that individual's own
life; and
WHEREAS, people's lives are shaped by the stories they
tell themselves and others; and
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WHEREAS, storytelling approaches foster an environment
conducive to healing; and
WHEREAS, each year there are between two thousand and two
thousand six hundred children in the foster care system in New
Mexico; and
WHEREAS, children who enter the foster care system are at
increased risk for language delays and difficulties with speech
development due to adverse circumstances they may experience
prior to adoption, and these language and speech developmental
delays greatly impact the children's communication skills; and
WHEREAS, support provided by dedicated speech-language
pathologists may help foster parents and caregivers to
implement interventions that play a role in the prevention of
language delays or disorders in young foster children; and
WHEREAS, the skills involved with coherently relating
stories of personal experiences have been found to positively
affect emotional healing;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the house of
representatives hereby acknowledge the significance of
autobiographical storytelling as a trauma-informed strategy and
further request the children, youth and families department to
study and implement the following:
A. collaborate with speech-language pathologists
and licensed behavioral and mental health care providers
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familiar with trauma and trauma-informed practices and
experienced in autobiographical storytelling to provide
language development training and workshops for families and
caseworkers;
B. assist children in the care of the department to
develop autobiographical stories and share those stories in
order to support the children's emotional health and language
development;
C. design events that focus on concrete activities
with the child's present caregiver rather than traumatic events
from the child's past; and
D. provide families with a strategy plan to follow
if traumatic memories arise at home; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be
transmitted to the secretary of children, youth and families.
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