Cassandra Sanchez, who has served as New Hampshire’s child advocate since 2022, is being replaced, Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced Tuesday.

As child advocate, Sanchez is the state’s official youth-focused watchdog, overseeing the state’s child welfare, juvenile justice, and youth care systems, and advocating for the best interests of children in the state.

Sanchez told the Bulletin Tuesday she received a call from the governor’s chief of staff late Monday informing her the state was moving on from her as child advocate. Her term expired this month. The governor’s office didn’t answer the Bulletin’s questions about why Ayotte decided not to extend her tenure for another term. Sanchez said she’ll remain in the role on holdover status until her replacement is confirmed.

“I’m so proud of the work that the office has done in the time that I’ve worked in the office,” Sanchez said. “I would not have done anything different. Nothing in this role was ever or should ever have been about me. And so at the end of the day, if I’m not the one that they want in the position, I hope that the office can continue the good work that we were doing.”

On Tuesday, Ayotte nominated Diana Fenton, a former prosecutor and currently the chair of the governance unit within the Department of Education, to replace Sanchez. As chair of the governance unit, Fenton served as legal counsel for the department. She also served as assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice from 2007 to 2015. She will need to be confirmed by the Executive Council before she can be officially appointed.

“Throughout her career in public service, Diana Fenton has held herself to the highest professional standards,” Ayotte said in a statement. “Having worked at the Department of Education and as an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, Diana knows that protecting children is critical to the future of our state.”

However, Sanchez said she’s concerned that her potential successor doesn’t have any experience in child welfare.

“Child welfare is so unique and such a nuanced field,” she said. “Without my expertise in child welfare, I would not have been able to have as many successes as we’ve had with the office.”

Sanchez, who worked at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families before coming to New Hampshire, said Fenton can expect “a huge learning curve.” She advised Fenton to lean on the employees in the office because “they have, collectively, so many years of experience in this work, and they are true experts.” Sanchez said even with her experience she had a greater learning curve than she expected.

Fenton didn’t respond to the Bulletin’s requests for comment.

Fenton is set to take over the office less than a year after major budget cuts shrunk its team. The state budget signed into law this June cut $500,000 from the Office of the Child Advocate as a cost-saving measure. As a result, the office went from a staff of nine to four, Sanchez told the Bulletin at the time.

Sanchez said she doesn’t know for certain why she isn’t being reappointed, but she is “pretty confident” that her public opposition to a number of Republican LGBTQ+ bills “was likely a big cause.” In April 2024, she joined a coalition of LGBTQ+ advocates in opposition to bills that would ban gender-affirming care, ban transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams, keep transgender children out of restrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth, and require public school teachers to reveal a students’ sexuality to their parents if asked. In April, multiple Republican state lawmakers publicly rebuked those efforts and said it was in part why they wanted to reduce, or even eliminate, the Office of the Child Advocate’s budget. Ultimately, lawmakers passed legislation prohibiting the child advocate from participating in partisan advocacy.

Sanchez said she doesn’t regret taking those positions.

“By no means would I ever change our stance on those issues,” Sanchez said, “and the way in which we advocated to support all children in the state.”

Sanchez was the second person to serve as child advocate, preceded by Moira O’Neill, who resigned after one term. The office, which is independent of any other state agency, was created by the Legislature in 2018 in response to a massive abuse scandal at the Sununu Youth Services Center. More than 1,300 former residents of the Sununu Center have filed lawsuits, with allegations including abuse, assault, and rape. The state has already paid hundreds of millions of dollars in court settlements to victims.