OLYMPIA, WA – Officials with the Washington State Department of Children, Youth & Families are reporting an alarming increase in the number of children under state supervision who died or suffered near-fatal incidents due to opioid exposure in the first quarter of this year.
Last week, DCYF held a meeting with key staff and officials to discuss the “concerning” and “drastic” increase, with 54% of the child fatalities due to opioids. The disturbing numbers follow troubling statistics from 2023 and 2024, when a total of 37 children under state supervision were killed either by drug exposure, abuse and neglect, or other incidents, including fire or being left in a hot car.
Of the 37 deaths, fentanyl was the leading cause of death for children under DCYF care in 2023-24.
According to information provided in last week’s briefing from DCYF and shared with The Center Square, there were 27 fatal and near-fatal child incidents in the first three months of 2025, compared to 9 incidents in the first quarter of 2024. Seven of the incidents were fatal, 20 were near-fatal, and 16 involved children from birth to age 3. The last figure is an increase from six such incidents in the first quarter of 2024.
Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, told The Center Square he will again champion a bill he has tried before to amend the Keeping Families Together Act, which he blames for leaving children to languish in dangerous home environments with drug addicted parents.
“As we go into the next session in January, that bill will be reintroduced again,” he said. “And what’s unfortunate in the Keeping Families Together Act in this space is that the longer it takes, the more kids die. And that’s why I’ve been absolutely on a mission to try to fix it, and I’m at a point now where I’m starting to get some reasonable Democrats in Olympia to listen to this.”
Couture says despite having bipartisan support for the bill to remove children from the homes of drug addicted parents until they get clean and sober, DCYF has repeatedly resisted the legislation.
“The ultimate roadblock is the recommendations of [the] Department of Children, Youth & Family Services, namely the secretary of DCYF, who used to chair the [House] Human Services, Youth & Early Learning Committee, that this bill would go to,” Couture said, a reference to DCYF Secretary Tana Senn.
The committee was disbanded and its responsibilities redistributed in 2025.
Couture said he’s been told by the chair of the House Early Learning & Human Services Committee, Rep. Steve Bergquist, D-Renton, that if child deaths continue to go up “and it didn’t look like things were working,” that he would revisit the bill and hear it in committee.
Couture said the first quarter numbers of critical incidents involving children should sicken everyone.
“And if you extend and you project those numbers between quarter one throughout the rest of the year, we are easily landing at over 100 deaths of children in our state or near deaths,” he said. “If you don’t have the ability to bathe, feed, nurture, care for a child, then that is a negligent place to be in as a parent. We know that people who are abusing fentanyl can’t even do those things for themselves, let alone another human being like a small toddler or a child or a baby.”
Couture noted Washington’s child endangerment laws also need modification as they specify meth use of a parent, but not fentanyl, which is the current prevalent drug of choice for hardcore addicts.
The Center Square reached out to DCYF via email to inquire about the briefing and first quarter 2025 statistics, as well as Couture’s assertion that the agency has resisted changes to the Keeping Families Together Act.
“About half of these are fentanyl related, and the other half are physical abuse and/or neglect. It is not possible or appropriate to point to a single cause. The agency will continue to review the data, the cases, and update information,” DCYF Child Welfare Communications Consultant Kortney Scroger emailed The Center Square.
She continued: “Additionally, the agency is concerned about the increased impacts of the fentanyl epidemic on young children and families across Washington state. At this time, DCYF is working on a decision package of services to support all families and young children, including those impacted by high-potency synthetic opioids.”
DCYF is hosting a media briefing regarding the data on Friday, June 27. The Center Square plans to cover it.
