SPOKANE, Wash. — The Washington State Office of the Family and Children's Ombuds was created to protect kids from harm in the child protection and state welfare system.
A 36-page report released last month shows that in 2022, 39 children under state supervision died from abuse or neglect, more than enough to fill an entire school bus.
An additional 35 children nearly died due to mistreatment.
Infants between zero and 12 months old accounted for more than half of all deaths last year in children under state supervision and a leading cause of death among all ages is fentanyl.
Over the last five years, the state has seen a significant increase in children accidentally overdosing on drugs, especially fentanyl. The blue bars in the graph below show near fatalities while the orange bars show actual fatalities due to accidental overdoses.
"These problems are worsened with severe staffing shortages, excessive overtime and social workers assigned unmanagebly high case loads and workers placed in increasingly dangerous situations," Republican State Rep. Travis Couture said.
According to Couture, the legislature needs to make it easier to remove children from homes where there's an active opioid or methamphetamine using parent. He's also proposing legislation that would make assault of a social worker a felony, the same protection provided to state ferry workers.
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