 DCYF Legislative Implementation Updates
With the conclusion of the 2022 Legislative Session, the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) Government Affairs team is excited to resume sharing legislative implementation updates with you. Following significant investments during the 2022 session, we have already held internal meetings on implementation of new bills and provisos covering:
- All of the agency’s proposed decision packages that were funded by the Legislature.
- DCYF agency request legislation repealing the Parent Pay Statute, which passed with overwhelming support. HB 2050 ends the requirement of payment for the cost of a child’s support, treatment, and confinement in DCYF’s Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) system.
- The implementation of many other bills and provisos affecting our work – from investment in our service providers to supporting youth exiting care, an internal workload study to new tools to prioritize children’s behavioral health!
For an overview of the 2022 Legislative Session’s impacts on DCYF, please access the Government Affairs End of Session Webinar:
Looking forward to the 2023-25 biennium, concept papers for agency request legislation and decision packages for the 2023 Legislative Session are currently under DCYF leadership review. We are excited to share our upcoming priorities with you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, implementation on work from last session has been in full swing, and we are thrilled to share the updates below!
Extended Foster Care Monthly Stipends
DCYF applauds legislators for funding $10.6 million in stipends for youth aging out of the agency’s Extended Foster Care (EFC) program. This funding was secured thanks to the incredible advocacy of foster care allies, alumni of care, and legislative champions.
In partnership with Treehouse – a nonprofit that supports foster care youths’ successful transitions to adulthood – DCYF will administer monthly stipends to young adults who:
- Were impacted by the federal moratorium that prohibited discharging them from EFC due to age through Sept. 30, 2021.
- Age out of extended foster care between Oct. 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023.
Foster youth exiting care often don’t have the full family support networks that many of us do, making the economic fallout of the pandemic even harder on this population. This critical funding helps transition them to successful adulthood by supporting housing stability and securing access to essential resources like food, transportation, utilities, and more.
Alongside our partners at Treehouse, DCYF caseworkers and Adolescent Programs staff are reaching out to eligible youth about the stipends and will begin disbursing payments this month.
We are grateful for the dedication of EFC advocates for making this possible for Washington’s youth and are excited to partner with Treehouse to bring this support to young adults aging out of our care.
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Organizational License Pilot
In 2021, the Legislature provided funding to DCYF to “establish a pilot project to determine the feasibility of a child care license category for multi-site programs operating under one owner or one entity.” DCYF has made great progress getting the Organizational License Pilot off the ground, including multiple stakeholder engagement efforts. These have included outreach to licensed child care providers via email and web postings, and live webinar events for providers and interested stakeholders.
Since the end of last year, providers and stakeholders have helped shape the design of the pilot. We currently have more than 25 different organizations joining us in this work. They will continue to attend monthly meetings with licensing staff to provide their input, ask questions, and identify any concerns to inform our pilot design.
The application for potential pilot participants is open. Between January and May 2022, DCYF is developing the pilot rules and pilot policy/procedures that will guide the pilot process, and full pilot implementation is on track to begin July 1, 2022. Pilot participants will be able to provide direct feedback throughout the pilot, while all stakeholders not directly participating in the pilot can stay involved by participating in workgroups throughout the project. By July 1, 2024, DCYF will submit a report to the Legislature detailing the pilot findings and recommendations on whether to permanently implement this license category and what, if any, law changes are needed to accomplish this.
Anyone interested in participating in the pilot can email Pilot Manager Michelle Balcom at michelle.balcom@dcyf.wa.gov.
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Implementing Behavioral Health & Reentry Decision Packages
During the 2021 Legislative Session, the Legislature funded two important decision packages for DCYF's JR service array. One helps us provide community-based reentry services to all young people releasing from care, and the other helps us expand behavioral health supports and treatment for youth. Since then, our teams have been diligently working to implement several quality services and supports:
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Community Support for All Youth (CSAY) provides young people in JR with individualized assistance through community-based services and least restrictive opportunities. These supports are based on eligibility and identified needs. By strengthening pathways toward community success using a Risk, Needs, Responsivity approach, therapeutic interventions and essential community reentry services are being prioritized and offered.
- The Behavioral Health Services decision package uses state investments to improve youth health status; lower economic and societal costs of substance use, mental illness, and trauma impacts; and create better outcomes for youth, families, and communities. Access to comprehensive, effective, and culturally relevant services is essential to support the wellbeing and community success of young people in JR. As part of the decision package, JR has hired a state-wide Youth Peer Support Program Specialist, many of the established Substance Use Dependence (SUD) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Specialists for institutions, and is pursuing contracts for Behavioral Health Liaisons for community facilities and regional offices. These changes provide a more focused and feasible scope of responsibility for residential counselors and ensure youth with higher behavioral health needs are getting the treatment they need to thrive.
You can learn more about this work by reading the Community Support for All Youth Fact Sheet and the Behavioral Health Services in JR Fact Sheet.
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