This bill revises and adds to Washington’s child abuse and neglect reporting law in chapter 26.44 RCW. It expands who must report suspected child abuse or neglect (including supervisors in organizations over employees/volunteers with regular unsupervised access to children, certain higher education employees including student employees, guardians ad litem and court-appointed special advocates, department of corrections personnel, and an adult residing with a child when “severe abuse” is suspected). Privileged communications are not a reporting trigger. It sets reporting deadlines (reports at first opportunity but no later than 48 hours), requires the department to notify law enforcement within 24 hours for emergencies and 72 hours otherwise (and to follow up oral reports with written reports within five days), and requires law enforcement and prosecutors to notify the department and victims within specified timeframes. The bill makes substantial procedural changes by formally authorizing a family assessment response as an alternative to a full investigation, defining when an investigation must be used (for example, serious threats to health or safety, alleged criminal conduct, abandoned or adjudicated dependent children, or children in certain facilities), and setting time limits (investigations generally not to exceed 90 days unless extended by protocol; family assessments generally completed within 45 days with limited extensions). Family assessment responses are voluntary, do not result in findings or naming perpetrators in the child abuse database, and families may opt for an investigation. The bill also addresses interview procedures, access to mandated reporters’ records, background checks, recordkeeping, required posters for workplaces, notification to guardians ad litem and the family and children’s ombuds in certain cases, and a physician referral rule that can require the department to file a dependency petition under specified medical-opinion conditions. The measure creates a new statutory section establishing (subject to appropriations) a chronic neglect response team coordinated by an interagency group (the department, the department of social and health services, and the health care authority), requires the department to develop referral and initiation systems and to report to the Legislature by November 1, 2026 and annually thereafter, and lists data items to be collected about the team’s activity (e.g., number served, demographics, services provided, public assistance outcomes, barriers, and recommendations). It also includes civil-liability and penalty provisions: the department is not civilly liable for providing prevention or choosing a family assessment response except for reckless disregard, and unauthorized further dissemination of certain exchanged information is a misdemeanor. Important gaps in the provided text remain: the specific identity of “the department” is not stated here, several subsections are cut off so some criteria and report details are missing, and some cross-referenced definitions and procedural specifics from other statutes are not included.

If enacted, many more people and organizations—school and higher education staff (including student employees), a long list of health and social service workers, supervisors in nonprofit and for‑profit organizations, court-appointed guardians ad litem, corrections staff, and adults living with children in cases of “severe abuse”—will face clearer, faster reporting duties (reports at first opportunity but no later than 48 hours) and organizations must post a required notice about reporting. Agencies will have to move more cases into either a time‑limited investigation (usually within 90 days) or a shorter family assessment track (completed in 45 days unless extended), offer voluntary supports to families, and avoid making formal perpetrator findings or entering family assessment cases into the child abuse/neglect database; that will change front‑line practice, likely increasing training, recordkeeping, coordination with law enforcement and prosecutors, and referrals to family resource centers and public assistance while reducing formal findings for many families. The bill also creates a chronic neglect response team (to be set up only if funded) led by an interagency group including the unnamed “department,” DSHS, and the Health Care Authority; the department must develop referral systems and begin annual reporting to the Legislature starting November 1, 2026 that will include counts, demographics, numbers helped into public benefits and family resource centers, services needed, barriers, and recommendations. These mandates will likely raise coordination and reporting costs for the involved agencies and increase service referrals, but implementation details and the identity of “the department” and some procedural specifics are not provided in the extracted text, leaving certain operational impacts uncertain.