Keeping Kids SAFE

10/11/2026

🚨 ONE MONTH OLD. BROKEN RIBS. METHAMPHETAMINE EXPOSURE.

A BABY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO SUFFER BROKEN RIBS TO PRPVE THEY ARE UNSAFE!

According to a news release from the Moxee Police Department, a one-month-old baby was hospitalized with multiple fractured ribs and tested positive for methamphetamine, amphetamine, and cannabis.

DCYF had reportedly placed this newborn in the father’s care approximately one month earlier.

That father, who police say had an outstanding arrest warrant, has now been arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault of a child and endangerment with a controlled substance.

We want answers.

What safety assessment was completed? What warning signs were identified? What oversight was in place?

And most importantly, why did this baby have to suffer severe injuries before the danger was stopped?

This is why Keeping Kids SAFE is demanding legislative reform.

⚖️ Change the threshold from imminent physical harm to substantial risk of serious harm.

⚖️ Recognize the serious dangers that illegal drug use can pose to children.

⚖️ Hold our child welfare system accountable for protecting children BEFORE they are harmed.

💙 Kids only get ONE childhood. It’s OUR job as the grown ups to protect it.

10/11/2026

A child's first day in foster care isn't Day 1 of their life.
It's also not necessarily Day 1 of their trauma.

Research published by the American Academy of Pediatrics found substantial ACE exposure among children entering foster care—and greater cumulative adversity was associated with greater subsequent placement instability.

That matters when we interpret outcomes.

If a child enters care after years of neglect and then struggles academically, emotionally, or behaviorally, simply recording that child as having a "history of foster care" doesn't establish what produced that outcome.

We should be measuring the child's experiences before, during, and after intervention.

Otherwise, we risk attributing everything that follows removal to foster care while failing to measure what happened before it.

10/10/2026

They only get one childhood. 💙

One chance to feel safe.
One chance to be protected.
One chance to grow up knowing the adults around them will put their safety first.

But too many children are still waiting for the changes they deserve.

Awareness is not enough. We need action.

On February 6, 2027, Keeping Kids SAFE is bringing voices from across Washington State together at our Capitol to demand meaningful child welfare reform.

We are calling for stronger protections for children facing serious harm, safer responses to illegal drug use in homes with children, manageable caseloads for frontline workers, and timelines that recognize children cannot wait indefinitely for safety and permanency.

📍 Washington State Capitol | Olympia
📅 February 6, 2027 | 1–3 PM

STAND TOGETHER. STAND UP FOR KIDS.

💙 Join us.
💙 Share this video.
💙 Invite your friends, family, and legislators.

Because children don’t get a second childhood.

🌐 keeping-kids-safe.org

10/10/2026

We frequently hear statistics comparing children who experienced foster care with children who never did.

Lower graduation rates. More mental-health challenges. Higher rates of homelessness, substance use, or justice-system involvement.

Those disparities matter enormously.

But they don't, by themselves, tell us what caused them.

Children don't randomly enter foster care.

They often arrive after abuse, neglect, caregiver substance use, domestic violence, instability, poverty-related stressors, or other adversity.

Research comparing foster children with other maltreated or at-risk children has found a much more complicated picture than comparisons with the general population suggest.

If we're going to evaluate child welfare policy, we need to ask a better question:

Compared with children facing similar risks and adversity, what interventions and permanency pathways produce better outcomes for children?

10/09/2026

Hearing every one of these panelists pledge to take steps within their cities to keep kids safe almost brought me to tears. We have been in this fight for almost 3 years. Never did we imagine this topic would be so controversial. However, it plays right in alignment with all of the other bad policies that have been killing our communities. It’s time to stand up, Washington. It doesn’t get better if we avoid the conversation. We don’t have to agree, but we do have to talk and find middle ground.

We can point fingers at one extreme or the other, or we can start where we agree and work from there. Lives matter. Families matter. Childhood matters. Let’s build up from there and believe better about what Washington can achieve, as well as its citizens.

At the Battlefield Addiction event tonight, a panel of 13 mayors from cities around the Puget Sound region spoke and took questions about the fentanyl scourge that continues to plague Washington.
My question:
There are 3 main policy points that contribute to the fentanyl and drug problems our communities face.
1) The effective decriminalization of hard drugs under the flawed "Blake fix" legislation.
2) The flawed "Housing First" preference for funding shelter projects in state bureaucratic code (not statutory law).
3) The flawed "Harm Reduction" strategy that's also bureaucratic code (not statutory law).
Which of these policy points is your most urgent problem?
The mayors were split between the flawed "Blake fix" and the flawed "Housing First" preference.
Travis Couture asked if each mayor would support a local ordinance protecting children from the fentanyl poisoning risks posed by the flawed "Keeping Families Together Act." They all said "Yes."
I think they liked his question better....
Great event!

10/09/2026

Tonight we attended the Hey Bob - Enough is Enough event sponsored by Battlefield Addiction.

This is an inspiring community to be a part of, and we are humbled to be in this space with so many people who have big hearts and a relentless commitment to truth.

These are complicated problems that span the generations in our state. No one is immune from the drug crisis.

We might not all agree on solutions, but we bet we do agree that the trajectory we are on is destroying lives. The solutions don’t evolve or come to fruition if we don’t have the conversation.

And that’s exactly what started tonight.

10/09/2026

We started this week with one question:
Are children safer?

And we’re ending with another:
How many times is too many?

In 2025, 19.3% of Washington children with a screened-in CPS referral had already had five or more prior screened-in referrals.

That’s nearly 1 in 5.
In 2019, it was 13%.
In just six years, that percentage increased by almost 50%.

Five previous screened-in referrals does not automatically tell us what happened in a family.

It does tell us something important:

There is a history. And history should matter.

At some point, repeated CPS involvement should trigger a deeper question than whether the newest allegation independently meets a threshold.

We should be asking:
What has this child experienced over time?
What interventions have already been tried?
Why hasn't the trajectory changed?
What does this child need now?

Keeping Kids SAFE believes child welfare policy should recognize cumulative risk and cumulative harm, not just danger at a single moment in time.

Because children only get one childhood.

Ask the questions with us.

💙 Awareness. Advocacy. Action.

It’s a grown-up’s job to keep kids safe.