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Even before the Senate Judiciary Committee began considering a host of child welfare bills on Monday, it heard from people impacted by that system.
“What you share with us this morning is going to help us create better policy for the state and for the welfare of our West Virginia children,” said committee chairman Sen. Tom Willis, R – Berkeley County, who hosted the event.
Speakers came to the Capitol from as far away as McDowell County, braving the wintry weather to tell their stories. Pat Caperton and her husband, C.I. Caperton, told the committee about the trauma that still affects their granddaughter.
“While she was under state supervision, she was sexually assaulted in multiple placements, including emergency placements, long term care and foster care in West Virginia.”
Sherman “Pat” McKinney said his family’s experience with Child Protective Services (CPS) had been “a nightmare.”
“I was 51 years old. They sent a 19 year old girl to teach me how to be a parent – who was childless,” he said. “They were going to remove my daughter and son from my home, because at age five, I let my daughter use the microwave oven.”
“It’s an ongoing battle in Mercer County with CPS. There have been, I know of, two kids that have committed suicide, and my oldest son was one of them,” Tanya Shrewsbury told the committee.
Other speakers were professionals tied to the system.
“We need a different structure, and that’s where community based care, or CBC, comes in,” said Mark Drennan, a former Republican member of the state Senate who now works with the National Youth Advocate Program, which advocates for children’s services and foster care.
“Right now, we have 6,000 children in custody of the state of West Virginia at times, 15 to 25 of those are sleeping in hotels because there’s nowhere for them to go,” Drennan said. “We have lost approximately 150 residential treatment beds over the last five years. And there are some beds that we say we have on paper that we’re not able to utilize because there’s not enough staff available to serve them.”
Suggestions ranged from more transparency, legislative oversight, fewer removals, more training and staffing, and no more housing kids in hotels, a last resort when no other placements are available for a teen who’s been removed from their home.
Anyone who’d like to weigh in can email their comments to Willis at Tom.Willis@wvsenate.org.