Think about a foster youngster, let’s name her Mia, positioned from beginning with a loving foster household. For 3 years, she thrives, forming deep attachments and safe bonds. Then, abruptly, she is moved to reside with a distant cousin who had by no means earlier than been a part of her life, discovered solely after state staff tracked them down. Mia’s world collapses: Night time terrors, bed-wetting and behavioral points erupt.
This isn’t fiction. It’s a recurring tragedy in Washington’s foster care system, the place youngsters are pulled from secure, long-term houses and despatched to beforehand unknown kin underneath the damaging false impression that the legislation requires it.
The issue stems from a widespread misunderstanding amongst key gamers within the youngster welfare system — Division of Youngsters, Youth and Households social staff, court-appointed advocates for weak individuals, resembling guardians ad litem and Court docket Appointed Particular Advocates, youngsters’s attorneys and even judges — which is the assumption that the legislation prioritizes biology over the whole lot else. Some judges, staff and attorneys do perceive the legislation on this subject, however many don’t. Washington’s statutes and case legislation emphasize relational stability as central to a toddler’s well-being. Resolution-makers should weigh a number of placement components, not simply DNA.
Latest legislative modifications, together with E2SHB 1227, often known as the Keeping Families Together Act, deepened the confusion. It took impact in 2023 and it created a choice for placements with recognized kin when a toddler first comes into foster care. This is smart, provided that it’s much less distressing for a kid to be positioned with somebody they know somewhat than a stranger.
Analysis does present that early kinship care can cut back trauma, however neither analysis nor the legislation helps disrupting a longtime placement when a beforehand unknown and uninvolved relative surfaces. Actually, the Legislature anticipated this precise misapplication.
Legislative intent language is referenced seven instances all through RCW 13.34: “It isn’t the intent of the legislature to fabricate or anticipate household relationships which don’t exist on the time of the court docket intervention or to disrupt already current constructive household relationships.”
That ought to finish the talk. Nevertheless it hasn’t.
A 2022 Washington Supreme Court docket choice bolstered the choice for relative placement however clarified that this choice exists “so as to effectuate the empirically demonstrated hurt‑discount functions of relational stability.” Nonetheless, this case is ceaselessly cited as a blanket directive to uproot youngsters from lengthy‑time period, safe houses. One wonders whether or not these citing this case to assist this place have truly learn it.
This follow ignores many years of analysis exhibiting that placement instability wreaks havoc on creating brains. Disruptions improve aggression, melancholy and lengthy‑time period psychological well being challenges. Every transfer compounds trauma, undermines improvement and erodes belief in adults. For youngsters who’ve already endured abuse or neglect, instability could be psychologically devastating.
So why do these legally pointless disruptions proceed?
Some actors try to appropriate actual, lengthy‑standing issues in foster care. The system is undeniably damaged, however weak youngsters shouldn’t be requested to bear the price of fixing it. In different instances, overworked caseworkers and undertrained judicial officers default to “household first” with out nuanced evaluation. The mantra has turn into so normalized inside the system’s insular tradition that few query it.
It’s time for reform. DCYF should mandate coaching dispelling these misconceptions and clarifying that the legislation’s “significant choice” for kin must be utilized judiciously, not blindly. Judges ought to require proof that any proposed transfer would profit the kid, not merely additional a coverage goal. And Washington ought to put money into applications that assist combine beforehand unknown kin into a toddler’s life with out disrupting the kid’s current safe attachments.
Youngsters are legally entitled to stability. By realigning follow with the legislation’s true intent, Washington can defend weak children from additional, totally preventable, hurt.
