Washington State is looking for workers to help care for children who are either COVID-19 positive or who may have been exposed to COVID-19 and the posting has got parents upset and misinformed. WA state currently has a center set up at Bethel Church in Richland but not for the reasons that you might think.

A job posting on the DCYF Social Services website has parents in an uproar thinking that if their kid gets COVID-19 or is exposed to COVID-19, that the child will be taken from them and placed in an emergency quarantine center without the consent of the parent.

The job posting reads as such:

DCYF is seeking current DCYF employees in King, Snohomish, and Benton counties to volunteer to supervise and support children and youth in Emergency Quarantine Centers. While this is a voluntary effort, you will be compensated four ranges (approximately 20%) above your current base salary while performing these duties and return to your normal position and salary once concluded.

We are looking for current DCYF Social Service Specialist 3's to care for children who are either COVID-19 positive or who may have been exposed to COVID-19. There are three locations:

  • Cedar Springs Camp, 4820 State Route 92, Lake Stevens, WA 98258
  • Visitation Center, 4045 Delridge Way SW, Seattle, WA 98106
  • Bethel Church, 600 Shockley Road, Richland, WA 99352

A lot of parents are seeing this online believing that their children will be taken from them involuntarily but it's not true.

Oregon has the same story circulating which you can read here.

The center(s) will be for kids already in the system...foster kids and kids that would be voluntarily put into foster care from parents with COVID-19.

If you are a foster kid, it's actually the state's responsibility to take care of you.

You might not realize this, but we currently have over 10,000 kids in foster care in the state of Washington with roughly 3,000 up for adoption

Parents or caregivers who do test positive for COVID-19 and want their kids to go to these centers can request it but it's on a voluntary basis, it's not a forced action as reputed on Facebook threads.

I know it can be confusing to those that have never been in the system but a kid in the system is a ward of the state and the state can place a child as they see fit.

If a foster child is exposed or has COVID-19, the state makes the decision on what is in the child's best interest.

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