March 20, 2025
Partners for Our Children (P4C), a UW School of Social Work research and innovation center, works to transform the child welfare system by advancing research, evaluating caseworker and caregiver training, and supporting evidence-informed policy that promotes intergenerational family well-being.
Laurie Lippold was named the center’s first public policy director in 2012 and led efforts to advocate for equity-driven policy. Lippold held this position for the next 12 years, playing a pivotal role in shaping child welfare policy and contributing to numerous legislative victories as P4C’s public policy director.
In November 2024, P4C appointed Kim Justice as its new director of public policy, with Lippold staying on as a senior policy advisor to continue driving meaningful policy change for children and families. To celebrate Lippold’s contributions to P4C and policies affecting families across the state, we want to highlight Lippold’s journey and career at the School of Social Work.
Finding a career in advocacy
Lippold’s career in public policy began in the late 1980s when she worked at Children’s Home Society of Washington (CHSW). One of her community partners was advocating for an adoption-related bill that had stalled for years. She decided to join the group’s volunteer lobbyist and attend meetings with legislators as well as committee hearings, and she leveraged CHSW’s reputation to boost the credibility of the cause.
“At the time, I knew very little about how a bill becomes a law, what lobbyists did, or much about the legislative process,” says Lippold. “That experience piqued my interest and helped me understand the importance of being involved in policy work. So, in 1990, CHSW was receptive to me becoming our statewide advocacy coordinator, and the rest evolved from there.”
By the 2000s, Lippold was well-acquainted with P4C, working closely with the organization’s first executive director, Mark Courtney, even before the center’s official launch in 2007. A key moment component of their collaboration revolved around policies that were intended to impact service delivery, making it more outcome based and responsive to the needs of children and families.
Legislative victories
Throughout her career, Lippold and P4C have helped pass numerous legislative reforms, including:
- Adoption reforms – Transitioning from a closed system to one allowing adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.
- Creation of Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) – Establishing a standalone DCYF to improve child welfare administration.
- Open dependency court – Increasing accountability and transparency in child welfare by allowing greater public oversight of the DCYF.
- Family assessment response – Establishing an alternative pathway for child protective services that avoids findings of abuse or neglect in lower-risk cases while providing early intervention services to families.
- Certificate of parental improvement – Allowing parents with past findings of abuse or neglect to demonstrate rehabilitation and seek fair treatment in employment and volunteer opportunities.
- Family policy principles – Focusing on prevention, community involvement and culturally relevant services in child welfare reform, even after the dissolution of the Family Policy Council.
- Ending child support collection for foster care – Partnering with DCYF to eliminate the practice of collecting child support from parents with children in foster care, reducing financial burdens on families.
- Keeping Families Together Act – Passed in 2021 and implemented in 2023, this law reformed emergency child removals, prioritized relative placements and required courts to consider both the harm of removal and the harm of remaining in unsafe environments.
- Kinship care – Advancing policies that prioritize relative placements for children, both within and outside the formal child welfare system, and expanding support programs for kinship caregivers.
The work ahead
Despite these victories, significant challenges remain. Lippold highlights the deep connection between child welfare involvement and poverty, emphasizing that many children enter the system due to neglect rooted in financial instability.
“Addressing poverty reduction will significantly impact child welfare,” Lippold says. “The lack of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment is also a pressing concern, especially for families needing support to stay together—whether in outpatient programs or residential treatment. Access to medication for opioid use disorder and other effective SUD treatments must be available on demand when individuals are ready.”
Housing instability is a major factor pushing families into the child welfare system. Stable housing can prevent child removal and expedite reunification, yet resources for affordable housing and supportive services (such as parenting programs and visitation support) are dwindling.
“We know what needs to be done,” Lippold says. “But without adequate resources, more children will continue to enter the child welfare system unnecessarily.”
By working with students and professionals, Lippold hopes she has helped demystify the legislative process and inspired more people to take an active role in shaping public policy.
“I have learned a tremendous amount over the years of doing this job, and have had the great privilege of working with incredible advocates, legislators, staff, folks in the executive branch and people with lived experience. I hope I brought something to the table that has benefited others.”