In response to the ongoing national discussion about out-of-state placements, specifically within Sequel Youth and Family Services facilities, DCYF has prepared the attached update. For reasons outlined in the update, DCYF has made the decision to end new placement referrals to Sequel facilities as of September 2020. In addition to the update, DCYF would like to highlight the following information related to its ongoing work to bring youth home from out-of-state placements:

DCYF is excited to announce that Binti has been selected as the Apparent Successful Bidder (ASB) for the agency’s new Foster Parent Application Portal project.

Binti is a California-based company with an off-the-shelf product that will be developed to meet our agency needs. Binti applications are in use in 120 agencies and 18 states. DCYF will be one of the first entities to use Binti for Child Placing Agencies and Group Care Facility licenses, in addition to our existing work in kinship assessments and foster care licensing.

The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) operates eight community facilities for young adults across Washington State. Community facilities are less restrictive options where youth can serve the remainder of their sentence in a therapeutic setting. One of the many benefits of community facilities is the opportunity for youth to gain employment in the community and earn a living wage.

Despite the pandemic closing court rooms, DCYF will celebrated National Adoption Day today. 

National Adoption Day was founded in the United States in 2000 by a handful of courts, child welfare agencies and businesses to raise awareness of the thousands of foster children awaiting adoption. It is celebrated the Saturday before Thanksgiving.