Child deaths and critical injuries in Washington’s child welfare system hit a record high in 2025.
State lawmakers are looking for solutions, and Democrats and Republicans each have proposals. They would increase court oversight in certain child welfare cases, keep investigations open longer and encourage keeping children at home while requiring services. Lawmakers are also looking at adding money for caseworkers and other supports.
In 2025, 22 children enmeshed in child welfare died and 35 more nearly died, state officials told lawmakers last Wednesday. About half of these incidents involved opioids. Children ages 0 to 3 are most likely to be hurt. These cases cover deaths and injuries related to maltreatment where families have been involved in the child welfare system in the past year.
The total of 57 is an increase over 49, 50 and 43, respectively, in the past three years.
The preliminary numbers shared last week didn’t quite reach the doubling or tripling feared based on the figures early in 2025. State officials believe this could be due to declines in opioid overdoses over the summer.
Republicans blame a 2021 law called the Keeping Families Together Act for the rise in deaths and injuries. The law raised the standard for separating children from their parents, and aimed to keep them with other relatives instead of foster care. The goal was to stop poverty from being used as a reason to take kids away from their parents, and to avoid inflicting the trauma of being separated from family.
Lawmakers revamped the law in 2024, instructing courts to give “great weight” factoring in the presence of opioids when deciding whether to separate children from their parents. Removals ticked up.
Still, since the law was first passed, fewer children have been entering foster care than exiting.
Gov. Bob Ferguson’s proposed budget includes state funding for more caseworkers and improving the workload of existing staff. He also earmarked money to add slots to the Parent-Child Assistance Program to support mothers with substance use disorder and other work focused on addressing the risk of drugs to toddlers.
Vickie Ybarra, the assistant secretary for partnership, prevention and services at the Department of Children, Youth and Families, said the spending plan “included a set of interventions to help prevent critical incidents.”
“Programs that will help us better engage families with substance use disorder treatment and create home environments for young children that are more safe and connect families with services,” Ybarra said in a Senate committee meeting.
The Department of Children, Youth and Families has already taken some steps to address the increase in deaths and injuries.
The state now requires “safe child consults” for all child welfare cases involving opioid use and a child younger than 3. These reviews help determine whether officials will allow a child to go home or petition a judge for care elsewhere. Caseworkers on neglect and medically complex cases are also getting increased training. Officials have also hosted listening sessions with staff to help identify roadblocks to working with families with drug use issues.
Child deaths and critical injuries in Washington’s child welfare system hit a record high in 2025.
State lawmakers are looking for solutions, and Democrats and Republicans each have proposals. They would increase court oversight in certain child welfare cases, keep investigations open longer and encourage keeping children at home while requiring services. Lawmakers are also looking at adding money for caseworkers and other supports.
In 2025, 22 children enmeshed in child welfare died and 35 more nearly died, state officials told lawmakers last Wednesday. About half of these incidents involved opioids. Children ages 0 to 3 are most likely to be hurt. These cases cover deaths and injuries related to maltreatment where families have been involved in the child welfare system in the past year.
The total of 57 is an increase over 49, 50 and 43, respectively, in the past three years.
The preliminary numbers shared last week didn’t quite reach the doubling or tripling feared based on the figures early in 2025. State officials believe this could be due to declines in opioid overdoses over the summer.
Republicans blame a 2021 law called the Keeping Families Together Act for the rise in deaths and injuries. The law raised the standard for separating children from their parents, and aimed to keep them with other relatives instead of foster care. The goal was to stop poverty from being used as a reason to take kids away from their parents, and to avoid inflicting the trauma of being separated from family.
Lawmakers revamped the law in 2024, instructing courts to give “great weight” factoring in the presence of opioids when deciding whether to separate children from their parents. Removals ticked up.
Still, since the law was first passed, fewer children have been entering foster care than exiting.
Gov. Bob Ferguson’s proposed budget includes state funding for more caseworkers and improving the workload of existing staff. He also earmarked money to add slots to the Parent-Child Assistance Program to support mothers with substance use disorder and other work focused on addressing the risk of drugs to toddlers.
Vickie Ybarra, the assistant secretary for partnership, prevention and services at the Department of Children, Youth and Families, said the spending plan “included a set of interventions to help prevent critical incidents.”
“Programs that will help us better engage families with substance use disorder treatment and create home environments for young children that are more safe and connect families with services,” Ybarra said in a Senate committee meeting.
The Department of Children, Youth and Families has already taken some steps to address the increase in deaths and injuries.
The state now requires “safe child consults” for all child welfare cases involving opioid use and a child younger than 3. These reviews help determine whether officials will allow a child to go home or petition a judge for care elsewhere. Caseworkers on neglect and medically complex cases are also getting increased training. Officials have also hosted listening sessions with staff to help identify roadblocks to working with families with drug use issues.
Senate Bill 5979 focuses on dependency petitions filed in court that don’t argue children should be removed from their parents, but that a court needs to order services for the family.
This bill calls for developing guidelines and training on these in-home dependencies as an option to support and supervise families without having to resort to putting kids in foster care. It follows similar recommendations from the Office of Family and Children’s Ombuds.
Justice argued it strikes an important middle ground.
“Our system is framed as a choice between two extremes, removing a child or closing the case with no further involvement,” she told lawmakers last week. “In reality, there’s a wide range of options in between. This bill addresses one of those responses.”
The Department of Children, Youth and Families argues the work envisioned in the bill is unnecessary because it already has a process to file for in-home dependencies.
State law defines a “dependent” child as one who has been abandoned, abused or neglected or “has no parent, guardian, or custodian capable of adequately caring for the child, such that the child is in circumstances which constitute a danger of substantial damage to the child’s psychological or physical development.”
“In situations where that exists, it is not always advisable to do an in-home dependency,” said Julie Watts, the agency’s deputy government affairs director.
House Bill 2511 looks to define “imminent physical harm,” the standard courts use to decide whether to remove kids from their home. Judges across the state are applying this standard inconsistently, Watts said.
The legislation would define the term as a situation where “there exists a substantial risk of serious harm to the child’s safety or well-being. This risk may arise from conditions in the home, the caregiving environment, or caregiver conduct.”
Opponents see this as undercutting the standard set in the Keeping Families Together Act.
Examples cited in the bill include physical abuse, emotional neglect, exposure to chronic unsafe conditions, failure to provide necessary supervision, caregiver impairment due to drug use and “other circumstances reasonably likely to cause significant developmental, psychological, or physical injury.”
Allison Rogers, who works at the Department of Children, Youth and Families in child welfare, said courts are interpreting imminent physical harm in the “strictest possible way.”
“We have the ability to create a policy that aligns the intent of the law with how it plays out in court,” she said in a House committee hearing. “Prioritizing reunification is possible, while also saying that children shouldn’t be in actively dangerous situations.”
The bill dealing with the “imminent physical harm” definition is the only one of the four bills on child welfare issues not scheduled for a committee vote this week.
