Legislative Agenda

Youth experiencing foster care and/or homelessness achieve academic outcomes significantly below their peers due to trauma and loss and multiple placement changes in homes and schools. When youth fail to graduate from high school, they are much more likely to live in poverty, require public assistance and experience homelessness and incarceration.In 2019, a collaboration of five state agencies and five statewide nonprofit organizations known as Project Education Impact submitted a report to the Washington State Legislature. The report outlined the needed programs, policies and action to achieve educational parity for these young people from pre-k through post-secondary by 2027. In order to implement the plan and measure progress, the work group must continue its intentional cross-systems collaboration to realize these recommendations.

Our Ask
Pass the Achieving Educational Success for Foster and Homeless Student Act to:

• Continue Project Education Impact to lead the effort to achieve educational parity for children and youth experiencing foster care and/or homelessness by 2027.
• Require an updated report on educational outcomes annually.
• Require Project Education Impact to submit a biannual progress and recommendations to the legislature.

In partnership with Project Education Impact members Department of Children, Youth and Families; Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction; Washington Student Achievement Council; Office of Homeless Youth Prevention and Protection; Building Changes; College Success Foundation; Equity in Education Coalition; and The Mockingbird Society.

High caseloads for child welfare caseworkers lead to poor case management, high staff and foster parent turnover, lower rates of family reunification and increased length of stay in foster care. The Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has requested an additional 20 staff to help meet legally required caseload ratios and to reduce staff turnover.

Our Ask
Provide funding for an additional 20 child welfare caseworkers to:

• Increase caseworker capacity to address the educational needs of children and youth in foster care.
• Provide better service to youth and families.
• Reduce staff turnover.
• Shorten the length of time youth spend in foster care.

In partnership with the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Washington is facing a crisis for adolescents in foster care, particularly for youth with high behavioral and mental health needs. Due to lack of appropriate placements, youth are put in emergency night-to-night settings, stay overnight in hotels with caseworkers or sit in DCYF offices during the day. This level of placement disruption further traumatizes youth and results in an inability to consistently attend school or receive the benefits of needed therapeutic care. DCYF is proposing a number of measures to address these complex issues, including designing an intentional, coordinated service array that is responsive to the needs of youth.

Our Ask

• Increase safe and stable placements for youth with high mental, behavioral or developmental health needs.
• Increase the capacity of newly formed DCYF Adolescent Programs Division to design and implement a comprehensive service array for adolescents.
• Provide equitable access to extracurricular activities for 1,400 middle and high school students in foster care that correlate to prosocial behavior and educational outcomes.
• Support teen parents to meet housing, education or employment goals by providing subsidized child care.

In partnership with the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Every young person needs quality, individualized supports and regular guidance to stay on track in school and chart a course to launch successfully into adulthood. Forty percent of the youth Treehouse serves depend on special education services to get the support they need to succeed in school. Students deserve access to a full team of adults in school to support their well-being, individualized academic needs and to guide them in their next steps beyond graduation.

Our Ask

• Improve ECEAP early learning program to better support kids with high mental, behavioral and developmental health needs and become kindergarten ready.
• Ensure equitable and adequate funding for special education supports by updating the per student funding formula and lifting the district funding cap.
• Lower the student to school counselor caseload to a minimum of 250:1 for all schools.
• Fund required improvements to the mandatory High School and Beyond Plan.

In partnership with the Department of Children, Youth and Families; Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; Stand for Children; and the League of Education Voters.