Child Death Review is a process to help us better understand why children in our community die and to help us identify how we can prevent deaths. The child death review program in Benton & Franklin Counties meets on an as-needed basis to review deaths to children, ages 0 to 19.
Local Health Jurisdictions like Benton-Franklin Health District are encouraged by the state legislature in Washington to conduct Child Death Reviews in order to identify common issues and find ways to prevent similar tragedies in the future. The authority to conduct these reviews is found in RCW 70.05.170.
Previous Child Death Reviews identified needs for more education on Safe Gun Storage and resulted in two lock box giveaway events in 2015 and 2018. Another focused on sleep deaths and found that none of the eight infants who died were sleeping in their own safe sleep environment such as a crib, bassinet, or Pack ‘n Play. This led to efforts to increase community awareness on both safe gun storage and safe sleep.
For more information, please contact us at [email protected] or at 509.460.4200.