Morrisey Outlines 6 Steps To Improve Foster System

Coinciding with the naming of a new director for state social services, Gov. Patrick Morrisey is pushing for more transparency in the state’s foster care system. 

At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, the governor opened by discussing the Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Community Listening Sessions across the state.

“I heard some of the attendees talk about a broken system, that they were disjointed, siloed, frustrated, a lot of words that we don’t want to stand for any program in the state, let alone something that affects so many of our kids,” Morrisey said. “Quite frankly, it’s tough to sit and listen to all those negative experiences about what many of the folks went through.”

Morrisey then laid out six reforms to the state’s child welfare system aimed at beginning a new era of transparency.

First is fully complying with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) and federal guidelines requiring public disclosure of key information in child abuse or neglect cases resulting in fatalities or near fatalities. The governor said local, state and federal law make it clear that certain information must be disclosed in case of child fatalities or near fatalities resulting from abuse or neglect, including the cause and circumstances surrounding the fatality or near fatality and information describing previous reports or investigations relevant to the abuse or neglect.

“Going forward, the department will be complying with these disclosure requirements, and we’re working to promote transparency and accountability in the work of child welfare, it’s critical for the kids of our state,” Morrisey said.

As part of that renewed commitment to transparency, the governor announced he was complying with a Freedom of Information Act request for information about fatalities and near fatalities of children in West Virginia’s child welfare system that had been stonewalled by the previous administration.

“There was no excuse, let me repeat, there was no excuse to keep this information shielded from the public. No excuse,” Morrisey said. “We are going to be different. We’re going to be upfront with the people of West Virginia, and we’re going to be as transparent as the law possibly allows.”

The state foster care system has come under increased scrutiny in recent years after the fatal neglect of a child in Boone County last year, as well as the conviction in March of a couple for abuse and neglect of their foster care children.

The second reform announced Wednesday was an overhauling of the state Child Welfare Dashboard to make it simpler to use and easier to interpret the data. Morrisey said the public deserves clear data and easier access to information on key performance indicators, service outcomes and workforce metrics. 

“The new dashboards can allow for a deeper review and analysis, and it’s going to include month over month and year over year trends to help us identify and fix any specific areas of concern,” he said.

The dashboard was launched three years ago after a foster care reform bill failed in the legislature, and has allowed for greater public monitoring of the child welfare system.

Third in Morrisey’s list was a requirement for supervisors to conduct monthly reviews with their child welfare cases and work with the governor’s office to identify opportunities for improvement. 

“We’re going to have improved communications, going to have improved training going forward that’s central to the functionality of any governmental program,” Morrisey said.

That includes an agency-wide leadership education and development initiative that already launched in March to better prepare our supervisors.

The fourth point of reform tasks the state’s Critical Incident Review Team to conduct a deeper dive into every critical incident in the state. The review team is established in state code to review fatalities or near fatalities of children known to the child welfare system and release a critical incident report annually.

Signed into law in April, House Bill 2880 adds a parent resource navigator to the state’s existing review team process to assist parents through requirements to be unified or reunified with their children. Wednesday, Morrisey seemed to imply that the review team’s purview would be expanded beyond fatalities and near-fatalities to include non-life threatening incidents.

“The members of this team, they’re going to conduct a deeper dive in every critical incident to determine if there was anything that could be done differently that might have prevented the incident in question from actually occurring. That’s important,” Morrisey said.

Fifth, Morrisey said he wants to see a Comprehensive Practice Model introduced in the near future to provide a foundational framework that can be standardized across the state.

“This is something that’s designed to provide our team with better guidance, better policy and assess performance at the state and the local level,” he said. “We’ve seen similar practice models adopted with success in Illinois, Nebraska and also South Dakota. This is going to include changes to things such as intake investigation and services, and ultimately, it helps shape the decisions of the staff and the leadership involved.”

Finally, Morrisey said a new intake process would be implemented, allowing caseworkers to gather more comprehensive information on cases rather than relying solely on the referral.

“We need that extra input to make sure that the information is done correctly, at least it’s improved in terms of the referral sources,” he said. “What this means is that employees will now be able to gather information from relevant individuals involved in the case, rather than simply rely on exactly what’s in the referral.”

Morrisey acknowledged that no amount of changes would fix the system overnight, but what he outlined was merely a first step. 

“This is just the beginning. This is not a comprehensive solution. This is a down payment, a first step,” he said. “There’s a lot more work that has to be done.”

With roughly 6,000 children in the foster care system, West Virginia has the highest rate of children in foster care in the country.