Every legislative session presents its own set of challenges and opportunities, but the 2026 session will be remembered to most as the year the Legislature passed a historic Millionaires Tax, and to others, the year when the Legislature failed to act on various pressing issues.
LCYC went into the 2026 legislative session with 3 main priorities:
Address the rise in critical incidents.
Pass SB 5837, which would have updated minor guardianship statutes to ensure access to justice and prevent unnecessary entry into the child welfare system or homelessness.
Pass HB 2389, which would have addressed overcrowding in Washington juvenile prisons by expanding local rehabilitative options and reforming the juvenile justice sentencing grid.
After 60 days of unexpected twists and turns, only one of our priorities made it through, but not in the way we originally envisioned.
Addressing the rise in critical incidents
When the session began, LCYC’s primary child welfare priority was to preserve the Keeping Families Together Act and legislatively address the rise in critical incidents. We affirmed then and continue to affirm now: families need financial and programmatic support, not to be separated from their loved ones. Our initial policy proposal, HB 2497, balanced the need for expanded services, including creating more options for family centered treatment and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), with strengthening coordination between the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) and community-based providers. Unfortunately, HB 2497 died very early on in the legislative process, but the budget pieces lived on. We were happy to see the following investments in the final supplemental budget:
$500,000 to expand pre-filing parent representation
$419,000 to expand the Parent Child Assistance Program (PCAP) by 32 slots in two high-need communities
$252,000 to refer high-needs families with children up to age 3 in five high-need communities to Plan of Safe Care
$876,000 to hire public health nurses to support parents of children under age 3 with an open CPS investigation, or family voluntary services cases in high-need communities
$188,000 to refer families with children over age 3 exiting the child welfare system to services through Family Resource Centers in five high-need communities
$100,000 for DCYF to contract with one or more community-based organizations to develop a service referral system to serve families exiting the child welfare system
Within funds allocated in support of the Washington Thriving Strategic Plan, directive for the Governor’s office to convene a workgroup of DCYF, Health Care Authority (HCA), Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), and Department of Health (DOH) to coordinate on available substance use (SUD) disorder treatment and establish a process for child welfare workers to identify unmet treatment needs
Despite these needed investments, we recognize that lawmakers and the public are still looking for other ways to address the critical incidents crisis. No one strategy is going to resolve the issue on its own; real impact will require various strategies working in conjunction with each other. Regardless of whatever solutions we land on, one thing that became clear this past session is the role Washington Tribes will play at helping us get there. We look forward to the interim conversations and work on this issue.
Updating Minor Guardianship
SB 5837 was supposed to be a technical “nothing to see here” bill. In fact, it had bi-partisan support and had been heavily worked over the past 2 years to ensure consensus across various stakeholders and to prevent surprises during session. Turns out, nothing is truly exempt from surprises in Olympia. After a successful initial hearing on the bill, advocates were informed that a conservative, parents’ rights group had made assertions that SB 5837 would gut parent rights – which was far from the truth! Because of this set back, all of the minor guardianship provisions LCYC championed were stripped from the bill and only the adult guardianship changes survived. LCYC will reconnect with guardianship reform advocates this interim to strategize on the legislative path ahead, including to correct the misinformation circulated this past legislative session and to build bridges with parents’ rights advocates.
Reforming Washington’s Juvenile Criminal Legal System
Of all the losses, the death of HB 2389 hit the hardest. When the House failed to act on juvenile justice for the second year in a row, it meant hundreds of youth incarcerated in local and state juvenile facilities statewide would have to face another year of not getting the developmentally appropriate interventions and responses they need, and for youth at the Green Hill School, another year of being incarcerated in an overcrowded facility.
HB 2389 was poised to be the “5 o’clock” bill on the House of Origin cutoff. Advocates worked tirelessly, lobbying lawmakers and compromising on language, despite our hesitance. The minority party introduced over 60 amendments in effort to kill HB 2389. In the end, we felt that getting something through was important – and as we approached the cutoff, the bill we were still advocating for looked very different from the one we originally introduced. Yes, compromise is a part of the legislative process, but this compromise felt guided by politics and feelings, not by what the research and evidence was pointing to. HB 2389 was read into the record; lawmakers went on a break (to gear up for the long night ahead) and then… never came back. Later, advocates learned that our bill had died because of 1 vote. We were crushed.
Since the Juvenile Justice Act initially passed in 1977, Washington and the United States have gained so much renowned research on youth brain development and the impact incarceration has on future success outcomes for youth and the community. Despite all the available information that points to the harms of incarceration, Washington state continues to fail its youth by refusing to reform its outdated and harmful system.
This interim, LCYC will be convening with other juvenile justice advocates to strategize on where we go from here. Taking tiny bites at the apple is not working -- we need to collectively get behind the next big reform, but that will require lots of time and coordination. LCYC looks forward to engaging in this difficult, but necessary work.
Notable mentions:
SB 5911 – Strengthening the financial stability of youth in Extended Foster Care
Thanks to the advocacy of our friends at Partners for our Children, Washington will now join the ranks of many other states in ensuring that foster youth ages 18-21 receive the supplemental security income and survivor/disability benefits they are entitled to – approximately $900 per month to help meet their basic needs and support their stability. DCYF has had a longtime policy of intercepting money from foster youth to fund itself for overseeing their care, and while SB 5911 changed that practice for EFC youth, under 18 youth will continue to get their benefits taken away. Thank you P4C – we look forward to supporting you in phase 2 of this effort.
SB 6239 – Tort Liability Reform
In response to Washington’s growing tort payouts, the Legislature proposed SB 6239, which would have initially required that all new tort claims against the state first go through a mandatory arbitration process. This bill was problematic in many ways. To LCYC, it meant that survivors of childhood sexual abuse in foster care and juvenile prisons– including our clients – would be limited in their ability to seek justice against the state for harm that occurred in their care. The bill as introduced would have also reduced the public’s ability to learn about ongoing systemic issues, shielding the government from accountability. This bill was not originally on LCYC’s priority list, but quickly became one due to its potential impact on our clients. Thanks to the leadership of the Washington State Association for Justice and the willingness of survivors to share their stories, SB 6239 died. We know that the pressing matter of tort reform is not going away. LCYC will continue to track this issue to ensure the final product does not infringe on the rights of youth to seek accountability and justice.
LCYC’s mission to protect the interests and safety of youth in Washington by advancing their legal rights, is important now more than ever. I’m proud of how we, in coordination with our community partners, demonstrated leadership despite the many challenges this legislative session presented.
The work will continue in 2027. Until then, we are resting, strategizing with our community partners and hearing from young people directly so we can push lawmakers to get the pressing job done.