For the record, Allison Kreutzinger, representing the Department of Children, Youth and Families, told the Senate Human Services Committee on the first day of its 2025 session that DCYF’s work ranges from prevention programs to juvenile rehabilitation and juvenile justice partnership.

The agency “puts equity up at the front and top,” Deputy Secretary Chief of Staff Jenny Hedden said, and its central intentions include reducing the number and rate of children in out-of-home care and creating successful transitions to adulthood for youth in the system.

DCYF officials told senators the state is doing more prevention work — voluntary home visiting and combined in‑home services delivered by community providers — while continuing to manage the child protective services (CPS) intake, investigation and family‑assessment pathways. Allison Kreutzinger said the agency serves about 3,000 families annually in voluntary home‑visiting programs and that combined in‑home services are delivered through community providers after a family comes to the department’s attention.

The department showed the committee that total children in out‑of‑home care dropped from more than 9,000 in 2018 to just under 6,000 in 2023. “We think that decline ultimately represents a good thing for Washington state's children as long as we can support those families enough so they can be safe,” Hedden said. Committee staff and DCYF presenters emphasized that the courts are not involved in most preplacement services and that the majority of children who enter care ultimately reunify with their families.

DCYF highlighted kinship placements as a major shift in practice. Officials said kin placements account for roughly 58% of out‑of‑home care placements in the department’s most recent data and that the state has increased licensure rates for kin. Kreutzinger said the result is that more relatives receive financial and nonmonetary supports after unexpected caregiving begins.

Several senators asked about specifics. Senator Noelle Frame asked about an alternative, less‑burdensome kin license; Kreutzinger said the state adopted child‑specific licenses and 90‑day initial licensure to allow more immediate financial support while kin decide whether to proceed to full licensure. Officials said federal changes also now permit kinship‑specific approaches for non‑safety licensing items, which DCYF is implementing through rulemaking.

The department described work to eliminate emergency placement exceptions — nights spent in hotels, offices or other short‑term settings — under a negotiated court settlement referred to in testimony as the DS settlement. DCYF said the settlement targets young people with five or more placements and placement‑exception nights; under the settlement, regional administrators must approve placement exceptions, shared planning meetings occur for affected youth, and emergent placement services contracts were updated to be more developmentally appropriate.

On juvenile rehabilitation (JR), DCYF said that the JR population is small relative to earlier system touchpoints (arrests, detention) but older and more complex because of changes in sentencing and diversion policies. The agency reported 374 unique JR intakes in calendar year 2023, and officials said JR facilities include Echo Glen, Green Hill School and community facilities as part of a continuum that also offers a new Community Transition Services (CTS) option for eligible young people to serve portions of sentences at home under electronic monitoring.

Senator Tina Orwell and others asked whether smaller intake numbers reflect repeated short stays; DCYF staff cautioned that available statewide data are not linear and are drawn from multiple systems, but said policy changes focused on diversion and upstream services have reduced the number of youth entering the institutional JR pipeline. DCYF reported population counts during the briefing: 110 youth at Echo Glen, 232 at Green Hill, 84 in community facilities, seven on CTS and 107 on mandatory parole at the time of the presentation.

Officials also addressed fentanyl and substance use concerns when senators asked whether removal standards had changed. Hedden said the department does not support changing removal standards, but that fentanyl‑related risk complicates safety planning and the state must invest in treatment and upstream services. "We do not believe it is a change in the removal standard," she said, while acknowledging the agency is monitoring related metrics.

The committee’s chair, Senator Claire Wilson, thanked DCYF staff and noted the committee’s constrained budget context for the 105‑day session, saying not every measure will be funded and that the panel will prioritize incremental approaches.

Background and next steps: DCYF staff offered to provide committee members additional data and follow‑up materials, including a block‑grant report on juvenile justice funding, updated kinship licensure rules, and the department’s DS‑settlement implementation data.