Pegasus Legal Services for Children

This past year Pegasus continued its work as a legal resource for children, youth and their caregivers, and the community concerning the legal rights and needs of children and youth. In FY25, we served over 2,100 clients. Pegasus exclusively serves low-income New Mexicans who would not be able to afford an attorney, ensuring that the ability to afford an attorney is not a deciding factor in their life. Our clients are reflective of our state population, we serve individuals of all racial and ethnic identities, offer direct services in both Spanish and English, and translation services for other languages.Pegasus attorneys are specialists in childrens rights and family law including Kinship Guardianship, Adoption, Youth Law, Child Abuse & Neglect, Client Advocacy, and Systematic Advocacy. Our Kinship Guardianship Program (77.3% of cases in FY25) provides legal services to grandparents and other kinship caregivers taking care of children whose parents are unable or unwilling to provide them with proper care. Last year, our Kinship Guardianship cases had a 98% success rate indicating that Pegasus clients are awarded their Guardianship status by a judge and the legal protections that come with this status. As an extension of Our Kinship Guardianship Program, Pegasus is offering adoption services to kinship caregivers who have had a Kinship Guardianship Order for 24 months or longer, or who meet special circumstances such as when both parents of a child are deceased. In FY 25, adoption services accounted for 5.9% of cases.Our Youth Law Program (7.6% of cases in FY25) consists of two main tiers: Family law for young parents under 25 years old, and legal support for homeless, runaway, and/or incarcerated youth. Both tiers also support youth with mental health issues.Pegasus attorneys also represent children or youth who have experienced violence, abuse, neglect, or harm. Pegasus has a special focus on representation of Indian Children in the child welfare system and new services for undocumented youth. In FY25, we represented children on the Pueblos of Zuni, Santa Ana and Isleta. Abuse & Neglect services accounted for 9.2% of cases in FY25. We are currently training more Pegasus attorneys to take Abuse & Neglect cases as the need for such services is significant. Pegasus staffs a fully bilingual team of client advocates that provide free services to Pegasus clients. In FY25 our team connected clients to needed services including: - Social Security 21.2% - Documents & Identification 15.9% - Education Services 12.9% - Housing 9.1% - Counseling 8.3% - Food & Nutrition 7.6% - Healthcare 7.6% - Clothing & Diapers 2.3% - Other Services 15.1%Pegasus works to not only fulfill existing community needs but also takes action to redress systemic issues that produce the need for our services to begin with. In FY25, we partnered with policymakers to ensure that childrens needs and rights are taken into consideration in the development of state and local laws, policies, and regulations and we also litigated against service providers and public institutions who failed to provide adequate services to New Mexicos children and youth.