A $2.5 million building will be constructed in Spokane’s Shiloh Hills neighborhood for the newly created Washington state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, according to city permit data.

The foster family of a 22-year-old man with disabilities has sued the state of Washington and a state-contracted company, claiming caretakers left the man strapped into his wheelchair at the end of a dock when he nearly drowned las year.

The woman who has been trying to keep Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital from failing has been appointed to run the state Department of Social and Health Services.

Much like the push to coordinate efforts under criminal justice reform, the case for consolidating children services is compelling.

After dropping sharply between 2005 and 2012, the number of children in the U.S. foster care system has increased for a third year in a row, according to new federal data released Thursday. A major factor: Worsening substance abuse by parents.

A federal grant aimed at stopping overdose deaths will expand access to naloxone.

A crackdown on patients leaving the grounds of state mental hospitals put in place after the high-profile escape from an outing to the Spokane County Fair in 2009 will be largely reversed, thanks to a settlement reached earlier this month with patients who contended the rules violated their civil rights. Six patients and Disability Rights Washington, an advocacy group, sued the state in 2014 alleging restrictions on access to hospital grounds and outside trips implemented after patient Phillip Paul walked away from his field trip group in 2009 violated patients’ constitutional rights.

A federal judge is holding Washington state’s mental health services agency in contempt for failing to comply with her order to provide competency services to mentally ill defendants in a timely fashion.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wants to create a new state agency to deliver services to vulnerable children and families.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has appointed an acting secretary for the Department of Social and Health Services while a national search begins for a permanent leader.

The number of U.S. children victimized by abuse and neglect increased by nearly 3 percent in the latest annual reporting period, according to new federal data.

The head of Washington’s Department of Social and Health Services has announced his resignation after three years at the state’s biggest agency.