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Focused On The Well-being of
Children and Families.
DCYF is committed to serving at-risk children and youth, with the goal of producing stronger families with better outcomes in all Washington communities.

Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families
On July 6, 2017, Governor Inslee signed House Bill 1661, creating DCYF. The new agency restructured the state's services for at-risk children and youth, and includes all Children's programs previously administered through DSHS. DCYF works to ensure that, "All Washington's children and youth grow up safe and healthy-thriving physically, emotionally, and educationally, nurtured by family and community."
Family Time Specialist
A Family Time Specialist provides parent-child, sibling, or transportation only
services for children, youth and families (DCYF). The Family Time Specialist will serve and support clients in the following manners:
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Develop transportation schedules to transport client(s) to and from family time/sibling visits.
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Ensure and maintain the safety and well-being of program participants during visits.
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Facilitate engagement between parent(s), and sibling(s) with an atmosphere that supports the parent-child, or relationship between siblings.
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Supervise/monitor the family time/sibling visit with the professional working with the family.


Family Preservation Services (FPS)
Family Preservation Services provides family-focused, behavior-oriented, in-home counseling, and support to youth who are at substantial, risk of placement or for children returning to the home from out-of-home care. Services provided include:
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Crisis Stabilization –services delivered by Professional Staff that are short-term, acute, and use an active and systematic approach to stabilization.
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Engagement – activates aligned with the principles and skills associated with Motivational Interviewing.
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Parenting Strategies –helping and teaching parents and caregivers to learn and use the skills they specifically need to safely parent their children.
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Family Resources - Engaging families to strengthen parent advocacy, identify personal growth opportunities, and identify accessible and supportive natural supports and community resources that directly support child safety in the home.
Positive Parenting Program
The Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) provides professional level services to improve family functioning to promote the child’s or adolescent’s health, safety, well-being, and welfare, supporting the family to remain intact and allow children to remain or return home. The benefits of this program include:
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Increased appropriate parenting skills.
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Increased appropriate parental discipline and behavior management.
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Improved parent-child relationship.
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Decreased child behavior problems.


PFR (Promoting First Relationships)
This evidence based program is provided in the family's home or office based for families with children 0-3. PFR addresses concerns about quality of parent-child relationships, a child is being reunified after being out of the parent's care for a period of time, parent needs information about infant and toddler social and emotional development, parent needs help developing and expressing empathy towards their young child. Sessions are approximately 60 minutes each week, 10-14 weekly sessions.
Expected Outcomes:
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Parent has increased understanding of infant and toddler social and emotional health and development
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Parent has increased capacity to reflect on their own feelings and their child's feeling in order to provide empathetic, compassionate care for their child
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Increased positive relationship between the parent and child
In-home Family Therapy and Counseling
Services
In-home Family Therapy and Counseling Services are services are performed by licensed professionals and are delivered consistent with cognitive behavioral treatment modalities. Therapy and counseling services are focused on the needs of the family as they directly relate to child safety. Benefits of these services include:
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Support for a family managing difficult child and teenage behaviors, including monitoring and safety concerns.
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Family discipline support for caregivers in monitoring pre/teenage youth.
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Support for moderate to high family conflict, youth is displaying some high risk behaviors.
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Support with adolescent behavior problems including self-destructive behavior and provoking dangerous reactions in caregiver.

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