The timing was unrelated, but there was poignancy in the fact that Gov. Jay Inslee’s executive order to move toward breaking up the gargantuan Department of Social and Health Services and create a new child welfare agency, came just a week after the latest verdict against DSHS: $8 million for two Whatcom County girls placed in foster care with an accused child molester.
Simply put, DSHS is too big to ably perform all the tasks assigned it. In a state that has long marginalized children, and is paying a $100,000 daily fine for neglecting their education, the DSHS Children’s Administration division generates lurid headlines and huge settlements and verdicts.
Prior efforts to break up DSHS have floundered in the face of institutional inertia and legislative permanency. Yet Inslee may have lined up enough support to overcome that. The case could not be clearer than his order’s opening: “Creating a separate children and families department has the potential to promote greater accountability, heighten the visibility of children’s issues, and reduce barriers to improving service and outcomes for children and families. …”
In our aging society, I have long advocated for carving aging and disability services out of DSHS for reasons similar to those Inslee cites in his order. However, I think removing children’s services may have the same effect — by putting a greater focus upon what’s left at DSHS.
I would augment what Inslee is aiming for by also creating an office similar to one existing in Massachusetts: The Office of the Child Advocate. In Massachusetts, this independent office keeps an eye on the state’s Department of Children and Families and acts as an ombudsman for its wards. Connecticut has a similar office, which doesn’t administer programs, but, rather, monitors and evaluates public and private agencies charged with protecting kids, and reviews state policies and procedures to safeguard kids’ rights.
For all of its progressive reputation, and shiny branding of programs like Apple Health for Kids, Washington has long treated kids with special needs or disabilities like rotten apples:
The Kaiser Family Foundation found Washington ranked 29th in physician Medicaid rates in 2012 — trailing states like Mississippi and South Carolina. Washington pediatricians are especially unlikely to participate fully in Medicaid.
Medicaid rates for kids are so bad at enlisting dentist participation (even Alabama pays more) that children’s advocates have agitated for a new category of professionals who could do cheap dental work.
This past session a bipartisan bill to make Washington the 21st state to require that health insurance cover children’s hearing aids, and even hearing exams, was killed without a hearing (no pun intended) — keeping Washington far behind enlightened states like Arkansas in this regard.
These health inequities exacerbate the need for later, more-costly, child welfare intervention.
Gov. Inslee has a big legacy opportunity. The unconstitutional underfunding of K-12 education long-preceded his administration, yet can end under his watch. And if that were coupled with the long-overdue reform of our stagnant child welfare bureaucracy, the “state of the state” for our children will have improved markedly.
Olympia attorney Brendan Williams is a former state representative and advocate for those with disabilities.
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