Deaths of children in WA welfare system share a common pattern

In Soo Jin Hahn’s short life, over a dozen reports were made to Washington’s Child Protective Services from people who were concerned about her family.

Doctors, a nurse, a dietitian, a school counselor, an aunt and her grandmother reported they were worried 5-year-old Soo Jin was medically neglected and that the family’s children were being abused.

In all, the Department of Children, Youth and Families received 20 reports about the family before and after Soo Jin’s death, spokesperson Nancy Gutierrez said in an email.

According to DCYF, 12 of those reports were deemed insufficient to warrant a response or were duplicated reports; two prompted investigations; three resulted in interventions by caseworkers, but not full investigations; and three more were received after Soo Jin died.

Her father, Woo Jin Hahn, allegedly tied the girl to a potty training toilet for hours and beat her one night in May, according to King County Superior Court documents. The medical examiner’s office determined Soo Jin died from circulatory collapse due to blunt force injuries and dehydration. Her father is charged with homicide by abuse and several counts of assaulting a child.

Deaths like Soo Jin’s are tragic, but rare. Few children die due to clear physical abuse. More often, children under the state’s watch die from neglect or other forms of maltreatment, including fentanyl ingestion.

But most fatalities have one thing in common: red flags.

Child fatality reviews, court documents and public records obtained by the Seattle Times reveal a troubling pattern of warnings about caregivers being raised to the department before a child’s death. Typically, there’s evidence of a parent’s irresponsible drug use, or a child seen with new wounds. Someone expresses concern to authorities, sometimes repeatedly, like in Soo Jin’s case.

Often, calls made to CPS with concerns about abuse are screened out – meaning the department decided the allegations don’t warrant an investigation – or are closed out months before a child dies.

Data from DCYF shows a concerning rise in serious incidents involving children that have been in contact with the department in the year prior, with 2025 expected to top the numbers recorded annually in the past decade. Through the end of September this year, 45 children died or nearly died in relation to maltreatment, compared with 49 total for all of last year.

We do anticipate that 2025 will be a record year,” Vickie Ybarra, DCYF assistant secretary for partnership, prevention and services said at a November news conference.

The surge is primarily driven by a sharp rise in near-deaths, the fentanyl epidemic and overdoses among infants. Child welfare experts and department employees point to a number of contributing factors: massive decreases in foster care placement statewide and nationally; a change in state law heightening the standard for removing a child from a family; and social workers taking on what they describe as increasingly unmanageable caseloads.

“What’s going on here, now, in this state, is really kind of a child welfare emergency,” said Dee Wilson, a three-decade CPS worker who trained department staffers up until last year. “There is an urgency to get past the denial here.”

Fentanyl deaths

Tana Senn, who began leading DCYF in January, disagreed with Wilson’s conclusion that there is a “child welfare emergency.” She said things have stabilized some this year, pointing to less turnover among caseworkers and a reduction in the number of kids in out-of-home care.

Rather, she said, “I think our state is in a fentanyl emergency.”

Last year there were 61 accidental ingestions and drug overdoses, accounting for about a quarter of fatalities and 66% of near-fatalities, according to data collected by the office of the family and children’s ombuds. The ombuds includes cases not due to maltreatment and tracks a wider range of cases than the department.

In 2018, there was just one critical incident involving fentanyl.

Fentanyl exposure cases follow a similar pattern: A child is in a home with drug paraphernalia or pills within reach and puts something in their mouth. Sometimes, swift medical attention and naloxone can save them. Sometimes not.

In one case from March, a 15-month-old died from fentanyl toxicity after being hospitalized. Bonney Lake police officers found the infant surrounded by drug paraphernalia on the parents’ bed, where he had been sleeping. The boy’s parents were arrested and charged with manslaughter.

DCYF examines annually the cases of deaths and near deaths related to maltreatment where the family had received services from DCYF in the year before – what the state coins “critical incidents.” That doesn’t include all children in the state who have died from maltreatment, or all children who have been involved with the department at some point. CPS, tasked with investigating allegations of child abuse, is overseen by DCYF.

Critical incidents account for only 0.2% of all children involved with the department. Gregor Thomas, principal data scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for Social Sector Analytics and Technology, said because critical incidents are so rare, there tends to be statistical volatility and it’s difficult to establish a trend.

Over the past four years, DCYF has seen an increase in the portion of families who are reported and categorized as “high-need” and then are credibly reported again within another six months. Critical incidents largely occur in that group, according to DCYF.

Among families in which a child died or nearly died, about 68% previously rejected voluntary services.

In response to the rise in critical incidents, the department has begun expanding services. But across the state, not just in child welfare, federal cuts have impacted services for people with substance use disorder and mental health issues.

The department’s practice centers on services; meeting parents’ needs, financially and otherwise, is the key to driving down fatalities.

“If this state is really strongly committed to reductions in foster care, it has to be equally committed to taking some of those savings (from foster care expenditures) and putting it into family support services that will protect children’s lives,” Wilson said.

To stem the tide of deaths related to drug exposure, Senn said the department began conducting safety consultations for all cases involving opioids and children up to 3 years old. For a consultation, a social worker, a CPS supervisor and a quality-assurance analyst go through aspects of the case.

Last year, the Legislature passed a law that requires courts to give “great weight” to the lethality of high-potency synthetic opioids, like fentanyl, when making decisions about removing and placing a child.

Senn said that law’s passage was “a recognition that (House Bill) 1227 maybe went too far.”

‘Imminent

physical harm’

House Bill 1227, dubbed the Keeping Families Together Act, has become a target of criticism since it passed in 2021 and took effect in 2023.

The law was designed to decrease the number of kids getting placed in foster care, to reduce racial disparities in the child welfare system and to prioritize protecting the rights of families responding to abuse or neglect allegations.

Under the law, children could be taken into custody under a court order or by a law enforcement officer or physician if necessary “to prevent imminent physical harm to the child” due to abuse or neglect, reducing the number of children eligible for removal. The previous standard, which was easier to meet, required a “serious threat of substantial harm to the child.”

Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, who introduced the bill, said it was intended to dissuade the state from inflicting the trauma of separating a child from a parent. Research shows separation has long-term emotional and psychological consequences for both parties, and the child welfare system has historically erred on the side of removal without considering the harm that could cause.

Thomas, the data scientist, said the “apparent trend” of an increase in critical incidents predated the Keeping Families Together Act going into effect. “I don’t think there’s really any pattern,” he said.

But it has also thrown up barriers that, some critics argue, have made it harder to help children.

Recent high-profile cases have intensified pressure for change.

In the case of Ariel Garcia – the 4-year-old boy who, police allege, was stabbed to death by his mother – a CPS caseworker had spoken with the boy’s brother the same day Ariel went missing.

CPS had opened and closed three cases related to one family before a suspected homicide-suicide in which a woman and two of her children were killed in a Wallingford home arson. Law enforcement officers suspect the children’s father set the home ablaze and killed himself.

And DCYF had received calls about a woman charged earlier this year with second-degree murder for allegedly beating her 14-year-old to death, according to records obtained through a public disclosure request.

A frequent critic, Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, has often demanded the repeal of the Keeping Families Together Act, calling the requirement to prove there is imminent physical harm an “impossible barrier.” Couture has attempted, with little success, to change the law.

“Olympia likes to live in this theoretical world,” Couture said. “We have to clearly step back out of our ideological bubble.”

Under the law, said Judge Cindy Larsen, president of the state Superior Court Judges Association, courts can only consider imminent physical harm when removing a child from the home. She explained there will be some variation in how the law is applied from court to court, since judges are elected and have broad discretion in these cases.

Jeanette Obelcz, chair of the Washington State Federation of Employees DCYF policy committee and CPS supervisor, said the law doesn’t account for chronic neglect and developmental harm. When cases do meet the standard for removal, she said, it’s often because a child has already been physically harmed in some way.

However, after reviewing cases in 2024 in which children died or nearly died, the state office of the family and children’s ombuds decided not to recommend that the Keeping Families Together Act be repealed, finding the department would not have handled most cases differently without the law.

When asked to quantify how many might have been handled differently, Patrick Dowd, who was the ombuds until October, said his office “doesn’t have the resources” to analyze cases on that level.

Dowd’s report on child fatalities and near fatalities stated the majority of critical incidents occurred when families were not involved in the court.

As a result of the rise, DCYF has also begun having discussions about whether more court involvement could benefit children.

“The law does need to be changed, but the main culprit here is not the law,” Wilson said. For his part, he believes the law should return to the previous “serious threat of substantial harm” standard for children 3 and younger.

‘Impossible’ workloads

In reports reviewing the circumstances of children’s deaths, ombuds staff and child welfare experts often dwell on the subject of caseloads.

“The (CPS) office shared they have struggled with hiring and retaining new staff, impacting workload needs of the entire office,” a DCYF fatality review of Soo Jin’s case states.

A former caseworker who quit DCYF in June after four years in the office said workloads have been “not even unreasonable, just impossible” under the new law. The Seattle Times is not using her name because she’s concerned about retaliation against her former co-workers, who she remains in contact with, and her new position within state government.

She said workers are screamed at and called names. “I’ve seen people have things thrown at them.”

After the Keeping Families Together Act passed, she said, social workers had to demonstrate that a specific condition in the home put a child in danger of imminent physical harm.

“We have to be pretty sure that they are going to die within a week,” she said.

Senn said the department has conducted a workload study and plans to ask the Legislature to fund putting in place a new workload model for caseworkers. The new workload model, which includes a $5 million request from the Legislature for staffing over the next biennium, proposes hiring an additional 426 child welfare staffers over the next decade.

“I do think there could definitely be changes in the (Keeping Families Together Act), but I think that the issue isn’t going to be fully resolved until they also … make a real investment in child welfare workers,” said Obelcz, the union representative.

‘I want you to hear me’

While there were many warning signs, it’s not clear what could have saved Soo Jin’s life. The department had received 14 reports alleging various claims of abuse or neglect starting in 2020, according to Federal Way police records and a DCYF fatality review published earlier this month.

She lived with her father, the father’s girlfriend and the girlfriend’s three children in Federal Way. Police and prosecutors allege Hahn “engaged in an egregious and systematic pattern of physical abuse” on his daughter with assistance from his girlfriend, Cierra Fisher. Fisher is also charged with assault of a child.

In 2020, a doctor told CPS they were concerned for Soo Jin’s well-being after the family repeatedly failed to seek care for the girl and said she believed Hahn was medically neglecting Soo Jin. CPS determined the allegations of neglect were unfounded. Days later, a dietitian called with similar concerns, and CPS closed the intake because it determined the allegations were previously reported by the doctor.

Less than a year after that, after the death of the girl’s mother, Soo Jin’s grandmother called CPS to report she believed Soo Jin was missing.

“I want you to hear me,” the grandmother told CPS.

More reports came in 2023 and 2025 from a school counselor and the Fisher children’s aunt, who were concerned about physical abuse.

Two separate cases were closed because social workers were “unable to locate the family,” according to a fatality review.

In January, the Department opened a case after a staffer at Fisher’s children’s school reported suspected physical abuse of her kids.

Then in March, a caseworker returned to the home and spoke with the eldest, who said they now had timeouts where they had to hold their arms up or hold themselves in a push-up.

The next month, the caseworker observed Soo Jin had a bruise on her face. Hahn told the caseworker that Soo Jin rolled over while sleeping, hitting her face on the wall heater.

During an interview with police after Soo Jin died, Fisher told police Hahn allegedly hit one of the children, bruising her. “He told the CPS worker that she like hit her head on the wall when she was sleeping or something along those lines. And they, uh, believed him, so …”

On April 29, the Department completed its assessment, stating the “parents were transparent about their actions and were cooperative in adjusting their disciplinary methods,” and the children were considered as safe.

Soo Jin died May 29.

The review stated the CPS office that handled Soo Jin’s case was experiencing “workload challenges” and that “the work with the family … did not seem continuous.” It seemed caseworkers responded to individual incidents without adequately considering the history of reports in order to understand the risk facing the children, the report stated.

During an October meeting held by the DCYF Oversight Board, an external monitor for the agency created by the Legislature, Senn described the department’s responsibility to children reported to CPS as “connecting the family” with resources they need.

DCYF, she said, “is the safety net for the safety net.”

“I think there’s a lot of impression in the public that … once we’ve closed a case, it’s closed because we have fixed the family,” Senn said during the meeting. “We don’t fix families. We help families get to a point where a child can be safe.