Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, presents on the foster care system to the Joint Standing Committee on Health during legislative interims on Monday, Nov. 11, 2024 in Charleston, W.Va. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
West Virginia’s foster care system needs money and mandated changes to improve its outcomes for children, according to Republican lawmakers who on Monday laid out grim realities of the overburdened system.
The state leads the nation in the rate of children coming into foster care, and the child welfare system has struggled to keep up with the crisis.
“It’s almost four times higher than any other state,” said Del. Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, who is a foster parent. “That ought to get our attention as the Legislature.”
There are 6,008 children in state foster care; many are teenagers. There aren’t enough Child Protective Services workers, foster homes or services for kids.
“The system is much larger than that when you take in the consideration the families who need help to keep CPS from taking the child, kids aging out and kids who are adopted,” said Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis. He is also a foster parent. “You’re looking at a bigger need than 6,000.”
Department of Human Services leaders say they’ve made improvements to the foster care system, but lawmakers said there’s more that must be done for children. Republicans in the House and Senate have a laundry list of needs, and Burkhammer stressed that the state must prioritize beefing up prevention programs to keep additional kids from needing the system.
There are federal funds being left on the table that the DoHS hasn’t utilized, he noted. But, services for children — like substance use treatment for parents and behavioral therapy — will still need state funding.
“The funding never scares me,” said Senate Finance Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam. “It’s just a matter of when we appropriate the money, that we know it gets to what it’s supposed to. That’s always been a challenge with DoHS.”
He continued, “If it’s a caucus priority, then it will be in the budget.”
Nearly one in eight infants born in West Virginia between 2020 and 2022 had in utero exposure to opioids, stimulants and/or cannabis. Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, noted that many of those babies could end up in the foster care system without early intervention services.
“If we really don’t address preventative services, we’re going to keep beating our heads against the wall,” he said. “We need to address that in the budget bill when we’re prioritizing what needs to be cut and what needs to be funded … It’s going to keep getting worse.”
DoHS says they’ve improved foster care, lawmakers call for more
A 2019 class-action lawsuit alleged widespread problems in the system, including a lack of permanent homes for children, kids sent to unsafe institutions and overburdened CPS workers who couldn’t keep up with caseloads.
In July, DoHS requested a summary judgment in the lawsuit, saying they’d hired more CPS workers and recruited more foster families.
Senate and House Republicans in a work group focused on foster care reform said months of looking at the system showed continued inadequacies. Their findings showed a lack of urgency in serving children and that DoHS needed to be more transparent about how they’ve handled child abuse and neglect cases.
There still aren’t enough CPS workers, they said. “There are 79 openings out of 390 CPS workers,” Burkhammer said. “That leads to high caseloads … I believe it, ultimately, leads to poor quality and attention to our children.”
Funding continues to be a struggle, Burkhammer added.
“Sometimes the money is there and the bills are not being paid in a timely manner,” he said.
Burkhammer, Pinson and Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, presented foster care legislation they hope lawmakers will consider during the 2025 legislative session. Their ideas included improvements to a voucher program for foster parents that would ensure kids have enough clothes. Another bill would increase the pay rate for guardian ad litems, which are court-appointed attorneys who represent the best interests of the child.
“Every guardian ad litem has at least 41 active cases on top of their other legal work,” Pinson said. “If we’re going to retain excellent attorneys for the children we take custody of, we’re going to have to pay them.”
Lawmakers also drafted legislation focused on improving DoHS transparency in how it responds to abuse and neglect referrals. There would be new and more timely data requirements, including that audio files connected to referrals be kept for a year. The department would be required to quickly and publicly share some information in cases involving a child’s death.
DoHS faced backlash earlier this year for how it handled the apparent starvation death of 14 year old Kyneddi Miller. Reporters were denied records, and state leaders had conflicting, limited, and combative responses to questions about whether the state knew about Miller prior to her death.
“Everyone wants the best for our children, and I believe this bill will help us do that,” Deeds said.
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