OLYMPIA, WA – The Washington State Department of Youth, Children & Families Oversight Board received devastating news from the state Office of the Family and Children’s Ombuds.

During a four-hour meeting on Thursday, Patrick Dowd, director of OFCO, told board members that 45 children died or suffered a near-fatal incident during the second quarter of 2025, or April through June.

OFCO investigates complaints about state agencies involved with children in need of protection, those in state care, and families involved with the child welfare system due to allegations of maltreatment.

“There was an increase in the first quarter of 2025, both fatalities and near-fatalities. That went up to 47 in the first quarter,” Dowd said, displaying a graph showing that many of the incidents involved fentanyl and accidental ingestion.

Dowd noted that his office typically does not release data for the current year, but given the alarming increase in incidents, he felt compelled to share the data.

“We didn’t want to give the impression that things are getting better, and are actually starting to decline, when in fact we had preliminary information for the first quarter of 2025 that might paint a very different picture,” he explained.

The director noted he received new data this week for the second quarter of 2025 that is nearly as alarming as the first quarter.

“For the second quarter of 2025, it showed 45 AIRS reports [Administrative Incident Reporting System] involving child fatalities or near-fatalities, compared to 47 in the first quarter. There were six cases involving accidental ingestion of fentanyl by children ages 0 to 3,” he said.

Dowd explained DCYF only does official reviews when a critical incident happens in cases where the agency was previously involved with the family, but there are many other critical cases that OFCO examines, even if DCYF was not involved.

“We wanted to paint a picture of where things are headed in 2025. We thought it was important to share the information we have at this time,” he said. “What we found was that 36% [of the time] it was clear neglect was the cause of the fatality; about 18% it was clear physical abuse, and in about 45% were cases where OFCO identified, there were contributing factors of child maltreatment that may have played a role in the fatality.”

During public testimony, several people urged the board to pull back from policy changes when it comes to keeping children in families in homes with drug addicted parents.

“I am here today as someone who is deeply disgusted by the direction our child welfare system is headed,” said foster parent and labor and delivery nurse Jamie Williams. “Healthcare providers have never had to advocate this hard to keep children safe. We are sending our most vulnerable home to the most lethal environments. A 200% increase in critical incidents is not just a statistic; it’s a failure. A failure to protect the very children that our system was created to protect.”

Williams said policy makers have prioritized the rights of abusive and neglectful adults over those of innocent children.

“The so-called Keeping Families Together Act is tragically misnamed. Rather than preserving families, this law is accelerating the destruction of them,” she said. “It’s keeping children in unsafe environments, silencing mandated reporters and blocking lifesaving interventions. This law is not keeping families together; it is sending them to an early grave.”

Kristina Johnson also spoke during public comment, blasting House Bill 1227 (the Keeping Families Together Act).

“The kids are dying because of this law,” she said. “DCYF continues to blame the fentanyl crisis, and yes, there’s a fentanyl crisis, but if the children were not in the home, they wouldn’t be dying,” said Johnson.

Johnson argued that social workers are overworked and have too many cases to handle, and suggested that this is also contributing to child suffering.

“They need more time to get to know the family, and more time with those kids. They don’t have time. They have too high caseloads and there’s too much turnover, and they’re suffering from PTSD because there are constant fatalities in their office, or near fatalities,” she said. “How would it be to show up for work every day and wonder which kid has died today, or almost died? It’s important for kids to be with their families, but not at the cost of their lives.”

Rep. Tom Dent, R-Moses Lake, is on the DCYF Oversight Board and participated in Thursday’s meeting. After the meeting ended, he spoke with The Center Square.

“I remember I voted for it [HB 1227] because it looked like we were going to be able to keep our kids at home a little better, because sometimes it felt like the kids would be taken out of the home when they shouldn’t be, right? But now we need to fix something because it’s not working, and I’ve been hearing that for a year,” he said. “If you have legislation and it’s not working, let’s fix it. Let’s just not keep trying to make it work, especially when lives are at stake.”

During the meeting, members discussed pending changes in the board’s oversight authority and balanced that with the fact that DCYF Secretary Tana Senn, a former state representative from Mercer Island, was appointed by Gov. Bob Ferguson.

“If the trend is we’re having issues and we’re losing these kids like this, well, what’s going on? And let’s start looking at how we fix that plan, and I’m not trying to beat up on people, but if you hit the wall back up, turn left, turn right, but don’t go back and hit the wall again, right?” Dent asked.