Reporter’s notebook: looking into child welfare policies in Washington state

Washington state made two major changes to child welfare policy in the last several years to keep more babies and children with their families of origin. Almost a year ago, KUOW’s Eilís O’Neill set out to understand the effects of those changes. Was the state keeping more children with their families of origin — and if so, what did that look like and mean for those families? On the flip side, was the state still keeping children safe, and removing children from unsafe homes and situations?

You can read and listen to the story here.

Not everyone interviewed for this story made it into the final piece, but they all helped inform O’Neill’s understanding of this complicated topic.

To report this story, O’Neill did formal interviews with:

• Two social workers with the Department of Children, Youth, and Families who work with families and help determine when to remove children and when to reunify families;
• A foster mom and critic of the policy changes;
• A pediatrician at Swedish Hospital who cares for substance-exposed newborns;
• A doctor at Swedish Hospital who works with pregnant women struggling with substance use disorder;
• A lawyer who works with parents at risk of losing custody of their children;
• A former public defender for parents involved in the child welfare system;
• A mom who lost custody of her baby at the hospital and recovered custody two years later;
• A social worker and advocate for reform in the child welfare system;
• A mom who lost custody of her first three babies but who, under the new policies, was able to keep her fourth baby;
• And a grandmother whose toddler granddaughter died of fentanyl exposure after she called CPS and the social worker declined to intervene.

O’Neill had additional, unrecorded conversations with:

• An “auntie” whose former foster son died of fentanyl exposure,
• A social worker who works with parents struggling with substance use disorder,
• And a parent advocate who lost and recovered custody of her own children and now works with other parents at risk of losing custody.

O’Neill also reviewed all of the state’s reports on children and babies who died in the last three years after child welfare workers had investigated their families. The state investigates each of these deaths and publishes publicly accessible reports.

Eilís O'Neill reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Child Welfare Impact Reporting Fund, which provided training, mentoring, and funding to support this project.