Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute

Children Are Safer When Families Are Supported—Not Separated: Seattle Times Op-Ed

07/17/2025
New in the Seattle Times

ADAI’s Susan Stoner, PhD, director of the WA State Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP) and the UW Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit (FADU), co-authored a July 16, 2025 opinion piece in the Seattle Times with Jim Walsh, MD, Program Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Swedish.

In the piece, Drs. Stoner and Walsh note recent reporting on the rise of “critical incidents” involving children in Washington State and express concern that these incidents will only continue to increase in the wake of devastating state and federal budget cuts.

When critical incidents involving children happen, an “all-too-common response” is a narrow focus on family separation—removing children from their parents—but studies have consistently found that children are safer and have better outcomes when they remain safe at home or with a relative.

“[I]nstead of looking narrowly at this critical incident data as a call for more family separation, we hope it will spark a larger conversation about what it really means to protect children in our state and what role we all have to play in ensuring that no parent is pulled under by the crushing stress of unmet basic needs,” Drs. Stoner and Walsh conclude.

Read the complete piece at the Seattle Times

(Need help accessing the article? Contact Meg Brunner at meganw@uw.edu)