The Olympian says the allegations in the lawsuit “demand a thorough review of DSHS policies and procedures to protect the state’s most vulnerable children.” And The Olympian mentions our silence on litigation, which I assume is a reference to our not commenting to reporters when they called the same day this lawsuit was filed and before we had the opportunity to read and review it with our legal counsel. I am not aware that The Olympian tried to contact us prior to writing this editorial.
Indeed, since the time of this tragic case seven years ago, our policies and practices have been revised and we are constantly reviewing, rethinking and improving our work and applying the lessons we’ve learned to our practice in the field.
As a result, we have made numerous changes and improvements, which have been acknowledged by our state and federal partners and recognized some key state legislators. There have been measurable improvements in child safety in this state and our highest priority is to do more and to do better for the sake of the children and families in Washington.
Our staff have led in this effort and continue to do so while facing extremely difficult circumstances in ever-changing environments.
These are not allegations; they are facts:
• More social workers are visiting children in foster care each and every month. The practice in 2003 was to see children every 90 days. From March through May 2011 an average of 96.5 percent of children received health and safety visits each month.
• Significantly fewer children have experienced repeat maltreatment since Gov. Chris Gregoire mandated quicker response times to reports of child abuse and neglect in 2005.
• Today social workers respond by making contact with children regarding emergent referrals and non-emergent referrals 98 percent of the time within either 24-hour or 72-hour timeframes.
• We now have more children exiting foster care than are entering care.
• Most children, last year 51 percent, are able to safely return to their families following removal due to abuse or neglect.
• The landmark Braam Settlement of 2004 has for years driven changes in foster care. The Children’s Administration FY2010 Braam Settlement Agreement Annual Performance Report reflects that the Children’s Administration met the benchmark, improved performance or maintained performance on 22 of 28 outcomes addressed in the report.
• We have worked with the National Resource Center for Child Protection to strengthen our efforts with families to keep children safe. Social workers and supervisor training of this comprehensive approach is under way.
• Washington is one of only two states that met five of seven performance measures in the latest round of federal Child and Family Services Reviews.
There are approximately 1.6 million children in Washington state. Last year, Children’s Administration received 78,544 reports alleging child abuse or neglect and of those 37,711 were screened in for investigation. As of September 2010, there were 11,625 children in our care, 9,757 of them in out-of-home care, with 3,554 living with relatives.
I wish I could tell you that no child in this state will be abused again, but I cannot.
Even with our best work with children and families, people do terrible things to children, even their own children. We work hard to find quality families to love and nurture children put in their care. And all of us take it to heart any time harm is inflicted on a child with whom we’ve had contact.
We take each child’s situation personally and use each child’s case as a lesson to evaluate our training and practice. We have put in place numerous policies and practices to improve children’s safety in their homes. We continue to learn and to improve our policies, practices and training to improve safety for all children.
A serious, informed, enlightened assessment of the public child welfare system in this state would be based on the effectiveness of the system across an array of measures today, not the allegations raised in litigation over any single case nearly a decade ago.
Denise Revels Robinson is assistant secretary for the Children’s Administration of the Department of Social and Health Services.
