The Office of the Family and Children's Ombudsman was contacted by a DSHS caseworker of an 11 year-old dependent child with severe mental health problems. The child had been exhibiting psychotic episodes and had many problems that needed to be assessed by a child psychiatrist. The caseworker explained that he'd been trying to obtain a psychiatric evaluation for the child for the past year, and was extremely frustrated. He had made an initial referral to a mental health agency in the county in which the child was living, who told him a month later that they could not provide the evaluation, and referred him to another mental health agency serving that county. The second agency told the caseworker after another month had gone by, that they, too, could not provide this evaluation, and referred him to the nearest children's hospital. After some time, the hospital informed the caseworker that they did not have any child psychiatrists and could not provide this service either. The caseworker was referred back to the local regional service network (RSN). A full year later, the child still had no psychiatric evaluation, and was still exhibiting serious problems. The caseworker felt he had exhausted all of the avenues available to him to try and meet this child's needs. He had called the Ombudsman to see if there was anywhere else he might go to get services for this child.

An Ombudsman contacted the director of the RSN to find out why this child had been unable to receive needed services. Although the reasons for the delays were never clarified, the RSN director immediately arranged for an evaluation by a local private child psychiatrist. The Ombudsman is investigating possible systemic problems with obtaining mental health services for children in this and other areas of the State.

A child's birth mother contacted the Ombudsman to complain that the Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had failed to provide her with notice of proceedings to terminate her parental rights. The mother was living in Alaska, and her now 12-year-old child had been removed from her care in 1989 by Alaskan child welfare authorities when he was 14 months old, due to neglect and the mother's substance abuse. He had later been placed with his father in Seattle. Mother and child had no further contact. The mother had been contacted by Washington State DCFS in 1997, informing her that her son was in foster care. She then received a notice by certified mail of the dependency proceeding. DCFS later contacted the mother by phone and informed her that the department was considering returning the child to his father's care, or alternatively, placing him with a paternal relative. The mother expressed interest in having her son placed with her, and DCFS requested a home study through Alaska DYFS. The mother told the Ombudsman that she completed the home study, but did not hear anything further from DCFS. She subsequently discovered that her parental rights had been terminated.

The Ombudsman reviewed the DCFS and court files, and found that the DCFS social worker had spoken to the mother several times in 1997, and in January 1998 spoke with the social worker in Alaska who was doing the home study. In September 1998, DCFS filed a petition to terminate the mother's parental rights. The petition stated "the mother's whereabouts have been unknown since she abandoned the child at six months of age." Notice of the termination proceeding was published in an Alaska newspaper. There was no documentation of any attempt to notify the mother of this termination proceeding by phone or by letter. The Ombudsman notified DCFS, which agreed to investigate this matter further.