Governor Wants to ‘Bring Home’ Foster Kids

“Bring Them Home” is a priority for Gov. Patrick Morrisey, by which he means children sent out of state in the foster care system. West Virginia currently has approximately 300 children in the foster care system living out of state. 

“Bringing our kids home is one of my top priorities,” Morrisey said. “That’s why I was really excited last month to announce what I’m calling the ‘Bring Them Home Fund.’ We want to get them back home, right? I think all of us share that goal, and we thought long and hard about it, but we knew that we had to make some upfront investments to help make that happen.” 

Morrisey stressed helping children and teens earlier — before problems get out of hand and the system gets involved. 

“We have to stabilize situations sooner, and we have to prevent unnecessary involvement whenever possible,” he said. 

He noted he wants the education system to focus more on truancy diversion. 

“One of the things that I was struck with when I started learning more about the child welfare numbers is that we have a lot of kids that sometimes go through the court system, and sometimes kids get sent out of state,” Morrisey said. “They’re absentee and they’re truant from school, they’re not in the same condition as all the other kids. Better understanding the differences between the types of kids, so that it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation, I think, is really, really important.”

The governor said he wants to see more mentorship and working with the truancy courts. 

“I know we want to sit down with the Supreme Court and the courts to continue to talk about what they’re doing in terms of their court program so that everyone, including the courts, can be better educated,” Morrisey said. “We want to make sure we distinguish the kids that really have severe mental health issues from others. And I think if you can do that right and be more effective at truancy diversion, you actually can see significantly fewer CPS referrals tied to non-safety issues.”

The governor noted there are potential cost savings involved as the average CPS investigation runs between $3,000 to $8,000 and potentially another couple thousand for additional court costs. 

“But I think equally important, we want to keep more kids in school. When they’re in school, they’re learning, they’re growing, they’re not running around the streets, they’re not causing mischief,” he said. “Interesting statistics, if you end up staying in school and you graduate, that actually contributes an extra $200,000 to $250,000 in lifetime economic benefit for the state.” 

Morrisey laid out several legislative priorities aimed at revamping the child welfare system. The governor emphasized programs that would keep children out of the welfare system to begin with like the Star Academy programs. 

Star Academy programs allow middle school children with behavioral issues to learn in a separate space. Morrisey said four pilot programs in the state reduced behavioral incidents by 81% and increased attendance by 63%. 

“We think it’s important to intervene early and connect learning to opportunity,” he said. “The Star Academy system, I think it’s going to help keep kids engaged in school, and reduce some of the risks that lead to foster care involvement.”

The Star Academies are set up inside existing schools with a small pod of classrooms transformed into immersive learning environments where students can receive core academic instruction, and they can be paired with hands-on, career-connected, project-based learning. 

“It’s a great place to focus on STEM and real world skills in these places,” he said. “Each Star Academy serves up to 80 students per year, and generally operates on a three-year to five-year cycle. And that could mean that you could get up to 240 and 400 students per school in West Virginia.” 

There are four pilot programs in Philippi, Martinsburg, Logan and Charleston. 

Morrisey is proposing an expansion of the program using existing Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) monies. He noted he would have to work with the legislature to make that happen, along with finding funding for several other proposals.