WATCH: Child welfare supervisor: 'We can't always keep families together safely'

In a Thursday interview with The Center Square, Obelcz said she’s passionate about keeping families together, but said the current policy under KFTA doesn’t work unless you add “safe” to keeping families together.

“We can't always keep families together safely. And that is where Washington seems to be very challenged right now,” said Obelcz.

She explained that the "imminent physical harm" standard is being interpreted by judges too strictly, resulting in children being left in homes where they are at risk.

"It means that a child has to be at risk of bodily harm is the way that a lot of our courts are interpreting physical harm. They're not interpreting it as, your development is harmed, or if there's emotional harm that's so severe that a child could hurt themselves or something. It's really that physical bodily harm that a lot of our judges are sticking to,” said Obelcz.

As reported by The Center Square, the Office of Family and Children’s Ombuds, which investigates complaints about state agencies involved with children in need of protection, reported in the first six months of 2025, there were 92 critical incidents with children killed or nearly killed while under state supervision. Many of the incidents involved fentanyl and accidental ingestion.

There have been attempts since passage of the Keeping Families Together Act to amend the legislation to better protect children, but Obelcz says those attempts have repeatedly failed.

“I think that a lot of these laws are written with really good intentions ... but we see parents with really serious allegations against them. We see cases of sexual abuse. We see cases of torture,” she said.

Obelcz explained that another Washington state law requires DCYF to provide children removed from home, visitation with a parent within a day or two of removal, even if that parent is the one accused of abuse or neglect.

“It's really important for them to see their parents pretty quickly after removal because even if a kid is harmed by their parent, they still love them,” she said noting that in some cases the separation is the spark that can inspire a parent to get into services.

But she added that initial required visit isn’t always a good thing.

“I could have a child have a forensic interview where they disclose horrific abuse. And what the law says is that I have to have that child visit their parent, who they just made disclosures about,” said Obelcz.

The only situation where that visit is not required is in cases where there’s an emergency no contact order.

“However, we already established our courts don't have emergency hearings. So we can't even get an emergency no contact order,” Obelcz said.

“We lobbied so hard to try to explain [to lawmakers] that this is not how our courts work. This is not how our system works. We weren't listened to. I don’t think people want their public servants asking a 6-year-old to go visit their parent who sexually abused them.”

DCYF did support passage of a law aimed at giving judges the ability to consider the lethality of fentanyl and the dangers to children with parental use.

“We believe Senate Bill 6109 is having its intended effect of supporting caseworkers and judicial officers to assess child safety when a parent’s use of fentanyl is a factor in the case,” wrote Natalie Green, assistant secretary of child welfare in 2025. “We don’t support making additional changes to removal standards this Legislative session." 

DCYF credits that law with a dramatic drop in the number of critical incidents in the first quarter of 2026.

In late June, the agency reported three near fatalities and four fatalities between January and March. 

“The types of cases seen in Q1 2026 include opioid use, chronic medical neglect and safe sleep incidents. These 7 critical incidents are a sharp contrast from the 22 critical incidents in Q1 2025,” noted DCYF in a June 29 press release.

As critical incidents involving children under state supervision have climbed in recent years, lawsuit settlements have skyrocketed. 

As reported by The Center Square, the state paid out a record-breaking $500 million in claims in 2025, five times the amount in 2021.

This year, the payouts climbed to $537 million. Washington spent another $32.7 million on lawyers and staff in the attorney general’s office, and another $43.6 million on outside law firms.

Some of the cases being settled are decades-old failures.

"Taking fiscal year 2025 for example, that is July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, more than 74% of the claims filed against DCYF arose from events that allegedly occurred before 2010, with 55% of the claims filed alleging events that occurred before 2000. Decades old events drive most of the claims being filed against DCYF,” wrote Kortney Scroger, communications manager at DCYF in a July 29 email to The Center Square.

"We are participating in the state’s review of torts issues alongside our partners, and we are genuinely interested in what that work produces."

Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, who has offered legislation the last several sessions trying to fix issues with the Keeping Families Together Act, told The Center Square on July 23, he will soon announce next steps for bringing attention to the issue of the most vulnerable in our state not being protected, and taxpayers getting stuck with the bill to settle the resulting lawsuits.

“I’m starting to believe that if you dissolved the Department of Children, Youth and Families and moved its different functions into different state agencies, we’d have better outcomes,” said Couture.