Strategic Priority Balancing Indicator

Early Achievers is an easy-to-understand quality rating system for participating early care providers. DCYF monitors Early Achievers ratings as a balancing indicator for our priority to create a high-quality, integrated B-8 system. At the end of the 2023 state fiscal year, nearly 700 Early Achievers-enrolled providers were rated 3+ or higher, serving an estimate of over 32,000 non-school-age children.

View the Early Achievers Dashboard

Number and Percent of Early Achievers Enrolled Providers by Rating, SFY 2019-2023

 

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Number and Percent of Early Achievers Enrolled Providers by Rating, SFY 2019-2023

Source: DCYF. Early Achievers Dashboard appendices [2019-2023]. WACompass.
Notes: Point in time data, taken the last month of the state fiscal year. 2023 data taken from August EA Dashboard, as no dashboard was published in June.

One of DCYF’s strategic priorities is that we create successful transitions to adulthood for youth and young adults in our care. Graduation from high school is an outcome indicator for this priority. Statewide, the 2022 four year graduating cohort included 85,240 students, 82% of whom graduated on time. In most years, an additional 2-3 percent of the class have graduated by the end of their fifth year. Among that 2022 cohort, 623 youth were indicated as having been in foster care. Youth who have not been in foster care graduated at the rate of the overall class, whereas 53% of youth who had been in foster care graduated on time. In recent years, an additional 2-10% of those youth did graduate from high school after their fifth year.

VIEW THE 2021-22 GRADUATION REPORT CARD

Housing instability is a balancing indicator for our outcomes related to creating successful transitions to adulthood. Youth and young adults who exit the foster care system without being placed into a permanent family through reunification, adoption, or guardianship are often referred to as "aging out" of foster care. These youth are at higher risk of becoming homeless or unstably housed than those who have a family to support them at this critical life transition. Across the past five years, within 12 months of leaving care, about 20% of former foster youth experienced an episode of housing instability or homelessness.

Analysis has also been done about the housing instability of youth and young adults (ages 12 to 25) who are released from a Juvenile Rehabilitation institution. From 2018-2021, the rates of homelessness for youth and young adults leaving Juvenile Rehabilitation institutions has mirrored those of former foster youth. Across the past five years, 20 percent experienced an episode of housing instability or homelessness within 12 months of discharge.

VIEW THE REPORT FROM THE RESEARCH AND DATA ANALYSIS DIVISION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND HEALTH SERVICES

DCYF works to ensure the safety of children who are in the placement and care authority of DCYF, including children who are placed in licensed care, those placed with unlicensed kin, and those placed with their parents on a trial return home. We measure the number of founded reports of maltreatment for the total number of days children were in DCYF placement and care authority and display this as the rate of maltreatment per 100,000 care-days. In state fiscal year 2022, the rate was 7.9; the federal target is 6.8 or less.

DCYF attempts to place children and youth with relatives whenever it is safe and possible. To balance these efforts, we are monitoring the rates of maltreatment by placement setting. In most years, rates of maltreatment are lower in kinship care than in foster care.

DCYF is tracking the licensed capacity of Early Achievers enrolled providers as a driver for expanding preschool access and associated kindergarten readiness.

READ THE REPORT FROM CHILD CARE AWARE OF WASHINGTON

Total Licensed Capacity for Non-School-Age Children, by Early Achievers Enrolled Provider Type, SFY 2017-2023

 

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Total Licensed Capacity for Non-School-Age Children, by Early Achievers Enrolled Provider Type, SFY 2017-2023

Source: DCYF. (October 2023). Early Achievers monitoring reports [July 2016-June 2023]. WACompass.
Notes: Point in time data, taken the last month of the state fiscal year.

DCYF monitors quality ratings of Early Achievers providers as a balancing indicator for our priority to create a high-quality, integrated B-8 system. Early Achievers uses an easy-to-understand rating system to track quality improvement of participating early care providers. At the end of the 2023 state fiscal year, we estimate that over 29,000 non-school-age children were served in settings rated 3+ or higher.

When children must be removed from their families, DCYF strives to move them into permanent homes as quickly as is safely possible and to support reunification and other permanency goals so that children do not return to out-of-home care. In state fiscal year 2022, 4.7 percent of children who exited out-of-home care to permanency through reunification or guardianship re-entered care in the following 12 months. The national performance, which is the standard to which DCYF is held, is 5.6 percent or less. DCYF monitors re-entry into care as a balancing indicator for safely reducing the number of children and youth in out-of-home care.