Washington State Governor Jay Inslee wants to “provide universal home visiting and universal newborn assessments to all families in Washington.”
To commence three weeks following the arrival of your newborn baby.
The startup costs are estimated at $43M.
That is the exact amount the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) paid out in settlements in 2018 across all departments.
Now, we are learning today, according to a report in The Seattle Times by Asia Fields, that this current fiscal year the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) – a reformatted version of DSHS – forked over nearly twice that amount, paying victims of their ineptitude a whopping $84 million.
From just this one department alone.
In just one year.
Soon we’ll be talking real money and those expenditures were not for day-to-day operations.
Over $100M in two years is for day-after-day failures.
And the 2020 Legislature, which convenes January 13, will attempt – yet again – based on Gov. Inslee’s Commission recommendations, to reformat – yet again – the very departments that aren’t doing their job now: protecting children.
Such legislation has been introduced multiple times by the Legislature.
Legislation did not pass when last introduced in 2005 and 2006.
However, during the 2016 legislative session, the Governor – again – floated this ship-of-an-idea to create a new department.
And the Governor appointed a 16-member crew to sail (sell) this ship-of-an-idea to the public.
But did this so-called Blue-Ribbon Commission do their due diligence to figure out how this proposed new agency would get to where it wanted to go?
No, it did not.
The Commission admitted it “did not have enough time to analyze specific programmatic approaches to achieving the vision of the new agency.”
Did this Commission examine the track record of child protective organizations who are supposedly organized to protect children?
No, it did not.
In fact, the 16 experts crewing this rather derelict vessel further admitted that they “did not conduct an in-depth analysis of performance of those agencies currently providing child, youth and family services to develop its recommendations.”
And yet the Blue-Ribbon Commission had the audacity, in its 75 pages, to write, “making large, structural changes to state government requires careful planning.”
And to think we were appalled – rightly so – at the $1.7 paid by DCYF in May of this year to a woman severely abused as a child.
The same attorney, Michael Pfau, who defended successfully the plaintiff in that case, has now won an $8.5M judgment against DCYF for what he calls their “cascade of mistakes” by multiple state employees who abysmally failed two girls the agency had placed with a sexually abusive foster parent.
Pfau has hope they’ll get it right.
“What I would like to see is a stronger statement that because of how poorly they handled this case, they will use this to make policy changes.”
A stronger statement?
Child protective services should say it all.
Policy changes?
A promised new-and-improved state agency to follow birth announcements with a knock at your door shouldn’t be one of them.
Scuttle this ship.
Return to port.
Protect children.
Do not pass Universal Visitation.
That seems to be the reaction of 18,000 folks – and counting, averaging one every 40 seconds over the last five days – having responded to the first salvo fired across the bow.
Not just no.
Hell no.
There are, inherent by task and nature, some essential agencies of social order and public concern that warrant standing relationships with university. Over time, applied research warrants renewal toward progressive efficiencies and result to the benefit of society. The big ones peak with cabinet posts under a president or governor. Social health services, by any rubric, is certainly among these, and worthy of timeless, informed public investment. If we’re not about child care and education, nothing else much matters.
Legal complaint after the fact, however satisfying, is neither remedy nor solution, and likely affords no substantive policy fix for the iceberg of related public commitment that serious social assistance and intervention require, and about which most of us living above need are scarcely aware.
Mr. Anderson,
Thanks for keeping this proposed Constitutional Rights gutting idea from our governor alive so anyone with influence and an honest desire to do what is right can help sink his ship.
While because it was so long ago, I can’t recall specifics, I do remember being disappointed with CPS everytime I made a referral in my official capacity as a police officer.
I clearly remember that the organization did not live up to their name, “Child Protective Services”. That was a longtime joke. CPS always appeared to me to be a CYA organization.
Because this is a family newspaper, allow me to be creative in defining CYA. CYA is a common acronym that stands for Cover Your (Now insert the part of your carcass that touches the chair first when you sit down.) CYA.
Lastly, after confirming that our government has not done a good job with the relatively small number of children, when compared to all the children, who inarguably need protection, how is government going to perform well when they add thousands more to the government workload?
It appears to me Governor Inslee, himself, might have benefited from having government force their way through the front door of his parents home. His parents should have been brought up on child abuse charges. Apparently when they reared their son, Governor Jay Inslee, they failed to teach him about common sense.
That leaves us with a governor who is partially brain dead as he guides his ship designed to violate the constitutional rights of new parents.
If respresentatives of our government try to bust my front door down to check on my newborn (A newborn is not likely since I am closer to 80 than 70), I will sick my dogs on them. I do not have any dogs, but I will get some if Inslee gets his new law passed.
Joseph Boyle
No! It is the social agencies who should be under scrutiny for not doing their jobs! That is what they are being payed for! II am with you Joe. …
We settled in Lakewood in 1987 after a 20-year career in the US Army.
During those 20 years we have lived in Belgium, Germany, Kentucky, and New Jersey (3 times), and we have heard/read about problems associated with government-sponsored Social and Health Services in all of those places, but NOTHING like we have observed occurring here in Washington State.
In the 32 years we have lived here there has been a nauseating plethora of stories concerning WA state’s so-called Dept of Social & Health Services’ consistent inability to provide even partially adequate services for all of their citizens (in particular protecting children) resulting in deaths, injury (physically and mentally), and a considerable drain on state funds due to lawsuits and settlements. We get very upset when we read/hear about such stories, particularly when it is obvious DSHS employees have failed to execute their duties in even a minimal way.
It is obvious to us there needs to be an intense/non-partisan investigation about this circumstance, say over the past 20 years to determine:
Who has been impacted most negatively (i.e., age groups, income level, gender, etc.)?
What types of failures are there (e.g., laws/legal, employee competency/training, etc.)?
When have these failures occurred most frequently?
Where have these failures occurred most frequently?
How many state citizens have been negatively impacted by these failures?
How much has the state expended in settlements for these failures?
Why has this been allowed to occur for so long and at such a cost (i.e., lives and $)?
How can these failures be fixed (i.e., who are the experts; what are other states doing right)?
In our opinion, this situation has gone on for far too-long, and that a comprehensive analysis is absolutely essential to properly correct this criminal assault by a misnamed state “Services” agency on our most-vulnerable citizens.
This is a re-send of our reply….just to make sure it gets read.
We settled in Lakewood in 1987 after a 20-year career in the US Army.
During those 20 years we have lived in Belgium, Germany, Kentucky, and New Jersey (3 times), and we have heard/read about problems associated with government-sponsored Social and Health Services in all of those places, but NOTHING like we have observed occurring here in Washington State.
In the 32 years we have lived here there has been a nauseating plethora of stories concerning WA state’s so-called Dept of Social & Health Services’ consistent inability to provide even partially adequate services for all of their citizens (in particular protecting children) resulting in deaths, injury (physically and mentally), and a considerable drain on state funds due to lawsuits and settlements. We get very upset when we read/hear about such stories, particularly when it is obvious DSHS employees have failed to execute their duties in even a minimal way.
It is obvious to us there needs to be an intense/non-partisan investigation about this circumstance, say over the past 20 years to determine:
Who has been impacted most negatively (i.e., age groups, income level, gender, etc.)?
What types of failures are there (e.g., laws/legal, employee competency/training, etc.)?
When have these failures occurred most frequently?
Where have these failures occurred most frequently?
How many state citizens have been negatively impacted by these failures?
How much has the state expended in settlements for these failures?
Why has this been allowed to occur for so long and at such a cost (i.e., lives and $)?
How can these failures be fixed (i.e., who are the experts; what are other states doing right)?
In our opinion, this situation has gone on for far too-long, and that a comprehensive analysis is absolutely essential to properly correct this criminal assault by a misnamed state “Services” agency on our most-vulnerable citizens.
Good afternoon I am hoping for some resolution on getting my family reunified – my wife and I live in Oregon- we have a 3 -year-old little girl who was visiting with her father who lives in Washington this summer and he abused her -DCYF in Centralia Washington removed her from his care and is refusing to give our daughter back to us and is refusing to transfer our daughter back to Oregon even though the father is now in jail in Washington and we have done no harm to our daughter- we own a lovely home in South Salem we attend church we had our daughter in Headstart in our family lives in Salem Oregon we even had a caseworker in Oregon named Rose Surkamp willing to take the transfer and Washington is refusing to reunify us please help 503-496-8228 I have attempted to reach out to James Schuttie Brooke Brooling and John Macejunas without any response or plan for reunifying our family- I’m even copying them on this email in hopes for resolution-we are devastated as is our little girl who is now amongst strangers out of her routine and has even contracted hand foot and mouth disease which is trivialized by the social workers in Centralia. Over a year ago my wife and I had a domestic violence incident which did not involve our child and we are both in counseling and Centralia is exaggerating this incident using it against us when it is irrelevant to our daughter being with one or both of us. I hope to hear from you soon about what to do to get our daughter back to us her family
sincerely AMY ZIMMERMAN 503-496-8228 thank you- we are willing to take this to the Supreme Court if necessary- this is causing major emotional trauma on our whole family.
Here’s a suggestion Amy. Contact Chris Branson, 832-794-3338, https://cpsdefense.com/attorney-profile/. You can also correspond on his contact page: https://cpsdefense.com/contact/
From his profile:
“Chris Branson is a Houston, Texas based attorney who fights Children’s Protective Services (CPS) in the trenches – and wins. He has a passion for protecting families from false child abuse or neglect allegations, and the trauma caused by needless government intrusion.
“And by fight he means just that. Many – if not most – attorneys think ‘you can’t fight the system.’ But Mr. Branson does it every day. He has dedicated his practice to providing aggressive, attentive, and personal service to families that have been targeted by this out-of-control agency.
“Mr. Branson uses the experience gained in those battles to teach other attorneys throughout the state to carry on the fight. As a lecturer at the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) ‘Defending the Family from CPS’ seminar, he has trained attorneys in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, and Lubbock.
“Mr. Branson is also THSC’s Special Counsel for CPS issues, advising that organization on specific legal matters regarding CPS, and on pending legislation while the Texas legislature is in session.
“Chris Branson is an unapologetic Christian, married to his high school sweetheart, and the father of two fine young men.”