To the Residents of Washington State

I am pleased to present the Year 2000 report of the Office of the Family and Children's Ombudsman.

The past year has been our busiest ever. We responded to a record number of citizen inquiries and complaints. Inquiries to our office increased by five percent, while the number of complaints we received increased by eight percent. For the first time ever, the issue most frequently identified in complaints to our office related to the safety of children.

It has also been a difficult year. The tragic death of three-year-old Zy'Nyia Nobles reminded us of the vulnerability of children that are served by the child protection system. At the time of her death, Zy'Nyia was dependent and living under state supervision with her mother. Her mother has been charged with homicide by abuse. Following her death, we reviewed her case and presented our findings to a community fatality review team convened by the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). We have included our findings in this report.

In light of our experience this year with child safety issues, we have developed several recommendations aimed at strengthening the state's protection of children. These include changes to state law, proposals to expand current resources, and suggestions for strengthening DSHS's administration of child protective services. These too are included in this report.

Finally, I want to share one of the year's most exciting projects: our Foster Youth Appreciative Interview Project. This project was designed to help us learn what's working best in the foster care system. We conducted individual interviews of 32 young people to elicit their stories about their best experiences in foster care. We were quite moved by the stories we heard. Our experience with this project, which is described in this report, has led us to conclude that this approach should be used by DSHS and other agencies as a means for improving the experience of young people while they are in foster care. We are extremely grateful to the young people who participated in these interviews, and to the foster parents and caseworkers who helped make them possible.

On behalf of all of us at the Office of the Family and Children's Ombudsman, I want to thank you for your interest in our work. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve the families and children of Washington State.

Sincerely,