Where We Believe the Balance Needs Reconsideration
Our Concerns
Our concern is not with family preservation. Our concern is what happens when preserving a family’s physical placement conflicts with protecting a child from serious harm.
Child welfare policy must recognize both the harm that can result from unnecessary removal and the harm that can result from leaving a child in an unsafe environment. Neither should be minimized.
We believe Washington should examine whether the legal standards and practices established under HB 1227 give courts and child welfare professionals sufficient ability to intervene before serious, foreseeable danger becomes catastrophic harm.
Family preservation and child safety should not be competing goals. The goal should be to preserve families safely—and to act when that is not possible.
Our Proposals
Keeping Kids SAFE respectfully requests legislative sponsorship of targeted amendments to Washington’s Keeping Families Together Act.
We are not asking Washington to abandon family preservation.
We are asking Washington to ensure that family preservation never requires a child to remain in circumstances presenting a substantial risk of serious harm.
Our proposal addresses three critical areas:
1. Replace “imminent physical harm” with “substantial risk of serious harm due to child abuse or neglect.”
2. Require illegal substance use and drug-related activity affecting a child’s environment or caregiver to be meaningfully considered as a child-safety risk.
3. Establish enforceable child welfare workload standards so frontline caseworkers have the capacity to protect children.
Our guiding principle is simple:
Keeping families together should remain the goal.
Keeping children safe must be the condition.