How OFRA Works

The Office of Family Representation and Advocacy provides high quality legal representation and advocacy for New Mexico families in the child abuse and neglect system. As funding allows, the Office will provide Interdisciplinary Legal Teams (a lawyer, a social worker, and a peer navigator) to advocate and help children and families successfully access the resources, services, and concrete supports they need to stay together safely whenever possible.

Meet OFRA's Newest Staff

From our Director, Beth Gillia, JD, MA

“I believe children and families deserve the highest quality legal representation, advocacy, and support because every child and every family matters.”

Our work at OFRA is guided by a diverse team of attorneys, social workers, peer mentors, and community members.

Executive Director's Photo

The Power of IDS

As part of our FY25 Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) efforts, we participated in a qualitative evaluation with the UNM Evaluation Lab, began collecting important performance data, and had an experienced contractor observe our attorneys in various kinds of court hearings in three counties.  The observations are ongoing, and we’re adding case file reviews to our CQI efforts this year.
The results are not surprising:  Interdisciplinary Legal Teams work!  The teams genuinely support families, provide valuable (and otherwise missing) information for better decision-making by everyone involved, and reduce the time to permanency.

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