Child Fatality Review program to launch in Island County
Published 1:30 am Friday, January 23, 2026
Island County Public Health is in the process of implementing a new program to understand how and why child fatalities occur.
During an Island County Board of Health meeting this week, Community Health Manager Megan Works explained that Public Health plans to launch the program this year, which will identify risk factors leading to fatalities and recommend strategies to prevent children’s deaths.
Other Child Fatality Review programs in the state have informed policies on safe sleep, drowning prevention and teen driving. There are currently 11 other local health jurisdictions with active programs.
Criteria for the Island County program will include infants up to 18 years of age and Island County residents who died within the county. Accidents, suicides, homicides and undetermined causes will all be reviewed. Death due to natural causes, however, will not be reviewed.
Over the past 10 years, Works said, there have been 22 child fatalities that meet this criteria for the program.
Starting in March, a review committee will be formed consisting of the coroner, entities from local public health, social and human services, health care and law enforcement. Prevention Services Supervisor Jen Krenz added that a representative from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families will be at the review meetings. An initial meeting in April will set expectations, including confidentiality requirements, and review historical data. Then in the summer, the committee will meet to discuss the first set of cases.
Dr. Howard Leibrand, the county’s health officer, said there is a perception that the review process is to help determine the cause of death in some way, but it’s really about prevention and a way to look at why kids are dying.
“There is no such thing as death from natural causes in a kid, in my mind,” he said. He pointed to seatbelt and helmet laws as things that stem from an analysis of what’s killing kids and how to keep that from happening.
According to data from the DCYF, child fatalities and near fatalities have been increasing since 2021. The DCYF attributes the rise to fentanyl, with over 50% of critical cases in 2025 being opioid-related. A number of bills are currently being introduced in the state legislature to combat these alarming statistics.
