Letter: ‘We can support families without sacrificing children’s safety’

🎧 HB 1227: Are Kids Safe Enough Before Harm Hits?

Sarah Akey says we can honor parental rights while acknowledging that children have rights, too — the right to stability, protection, nurturing, and a childhood free from preventable trauma

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and may not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

For more than 3 years, parents, grandparents, foster families, mandated reporters, and child advocates have been showing up in Olympia with one message:

Children deserve protection before tragedy strikes.

We should not have to keep saying it. Yet here we are.

Those of us who advocate for children are not doing this because we want more removals or greater government involvement in family life. In fact, most of us believe deeply in family preservation. We believe parents deserve support, treatment, resources, and every opportunity to raise their children safely. We believe poverty should never be mistaken for neglect, and that struggling families need compassion, not condemnation.

But we also believe that children cannot be an afterthought in the pursuit of those goals.

The language within HB 1227 established a standard that requires imminent physical harm before removing a child from an unsafe situation. While the intent behind the legislation was to keep families together and reduce unnecessary removals, many of us on the ground have witnessed the unintended consequences of setting that threshold so high that intervention often comes only after significant damage has already been done.

Children do not live their lives in legislative language.

They live in homes where addiction may be escalating, where violence may be increasing, where basic needs may go unmet, and where trauma compounds day after day. Harm does not suddenly appear the moment it becomes legally “imminent.” It builds. It accumulates. It leaves lifelong wounds long before a child reaches the point of immediate physical danger.

By the time a child meets the standard of imminent physical harm, we have already failed them in countless ways.

This is not simply an opinion formed from reading policy documents. It comes from standing shoulder to shoulder with families who have begged for help, with foster parents who have welcomed traumatized children into their homes, and with community members who have watched children fall through the cracks while professionals felt powerless to intervene.

It also comes from working alongside legislators who have dared to listen.

I am profoundly grateful for the representatives and senators who continue to stand with us, not above us, but beside us. They have amplified the voices of children, families, and advocates who often feel unheard. They have attended our events, listened to our testimony, and partnered with us to pursue a system that values both family preservation and child safety. Their willingness to engage in difficult conversations gives many of us hope that meaningful reform is still possible.

This work has never been about political victories or partisan talking points. It is about children. And children are not political.

It is about asking a simple question:

How much danger should a child be expected to endure before the adults responsible for protecting them are allowed to act?

The answer should never be, “Until the harm is imminent.”

Prevention means recognizing warning signs before they become emergencies. It means empowering social workers, educators, law enforcement, medical professionals, and courts to intervene when patterns of harm are evident—not waiting until a child is one crisis away from irreversible tragedy.

We can support families without sacrificing children’s safety.

We can honor parental rights while acknowledging that children have rights, too — the right to stability, protection, nurturing, and a childhood free from preventable trauma.

Those of us who continue to show up in Olympia, organize memorial marches, testify, and advocate are not doing so because we enjoy conflict or criticism. We do it because we believe that every child matters, even when their stories are uncomfortable to hear.

We will continue to show up because the children of Washington deserve a system that acts before harm becomes imminent, not after.

And we will continue to work with the lawmakers, families, and communities who share that vision, until protecting children once again means preventing tragedy rather than responding to it. Email sarah@keeping-kids-safe.org to find out how you can help!

Sarah Akey
Vancouver