A Boone County teen was found deceased in her home earlier this month. Police say she was emaciated to a near skeletal state. It’s now come to light via a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by West Virginia Watch that the child was being homeschooled.
A Boone County teen was found deceased in her home earlier this month. Police say she was emaciated to a near skeletal state. It’s now come to light via a Freedom of Information Act Request filed by West Virginia Watch that the child was being homeschooled.
After a legislative session that swirled with debate around homeschooling and child welfare, some are left wondering what could have been done to avoid this.
Sen. Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell, said sources in Boone County have confirmed that the teen had not been in school since 2019. He says while he doesn’t want to name blame, the legislature should consider contributing factors.
“She was a living, breathing teenager. Like any other teenager that had a right to life, and that was she was deprived of that in a horrific way,” Woelfel said. “So it’s a wake up call for everybody in the legislature.”
Woelfel was the lead sponsor of a bill that would set up a critical review team tasked with discussing incidents involving deaths, and near deaths of children in the state. It passed unanimously in the Senate but was never voted on in the House of Delegates.
Woelfel has asked the governor to allow the bill to be considered in the upcoming special session.
The deadline to file a federal aid claim over personal property damaged in August 2023 flooding incidents is April 1. West Virginia residents of several counties can receive grants for damages not covered by insurance.
West Virginia residents have until April 1 to claim federal aid for property damages or losses resulting from flash flooding in August 2023.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced the deadline for filing claims Wednesday. It applies to residents of Boone, Calhoun, Clay, Harrison and Kanawha counties.
Last summer, flash flooding ravaged homes and businesses across southern and central West Virginia. In January, President Joe Biden declared the incident a major disaster, which allowed residents to claim federal disaster recovery funds through FEMA.
FEMA grants do not need to be repaid, and the organization encourages residents to apply for aid even if they have insurance. FEMA does not provide grants for damages covered by insurance, but will subsidize costs not covered through insurance claims.
Although most aid claims focus on structural damages, FEMA can also help cover some specific damages not included in insurance plans. This can include wells, furnaces, private roads, private bridges and septic systems.
For more information on how to file a claim, residents can contact FEMA’s Disaster Assistance Helpline at 1 (800) 621-3362, or visit disaster recovery centers in Boone, Clay, Harrison or Kanawha counties.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided guidance to residents seeking federal aid after floods ravaged several counties in southern and central West Virginia in August.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has distributed letters to some residents of Boone, Calhoun, Clay, Harrison and Kanawha counties affected by flooding in August 2023.
These letters were distributed to residents who applied for federal relief funds. They outline applicants’ eligibility for funds, and next steps to claim them.
Last summer, flash floods swept southern and central West Virginia, damaging homes and businesses across the counties.
On Jan. 30, President Joe Biden officially declared the flooding incident a major disaster, opening the region and its residents to federal recovery funds. The funds can be applied to home repairs, property loans and more.
Since the disaster declaration, FEMA has allocated more than $1 million to the West Virginia counties. FEMA supplied residents an additional $72,000 cumulatively for other disaster costs like childcare and medical expenses.
FEMA has encouraged individuals affected by the flooding to file insurance claims immediately. Costs not covered by insurance can be covered through FEMA funds, and an end date for the application period has not yet been announced.
For residents who have already submitted their applications, letters from FEMA regarding next steps should have already come, or soon be on their way.
The letters will state if residents need to submit supplemental information to complete their claims, like proof of insurance, proof of occupancy in a house affected by the flooding and proof of ownership of said property.
FEMA encouraged residents to promptly submit necessary supplemental materials and to follow guidance provided in the letters. FEMA also encouraged residents who have not yet filed a claim to do so as soon as possible.
For more information on the eligibility letters, residents can contact FEMA’s Disaster Assistance Helpline at (800) 621-3362, or visit disaster recovery centers in Boone, Clay, Harrison or Kanawha counties.
For more information on the disaster declaration and submitting a federal aid claim, residents can visit fema.gov/disaster/4756.
West Virginians are experiencing mental illness at rates higher than the national average, and it’s even worse in southern West Virginia.
According to multiple studies, Boone and Logan counties have the highest rates of depression in the nation.
Data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2020 more than 18 percent of U.S. adults reported having ever been diagnosed with depression. In that same period, 27.5 percent of West Virginians reported being diagnosed with depression, the highest in the nation.
The CDC analyzed 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to estimate the national, state-level, and county-level prevalence of U.S. adults aged older than 18 years self-reporting a lifetime diagnosis of depression.
In the report, the CDC found that most of the states with the highest prevalence of depression were in the Appalachian and Mississippi Valley regions.
Jessica Bradley is a psychologist at Marshall Health. She said the rates of depression revealed in the June 2023 CDC report were concerning to her as a mental health provider and a citizen.
“The data showed that an estimated 32 percent of adults in Logan County have been diagnosed with depression, which is the highest in the nation,” Bradley said. “And that number for West Virginia was 27.5 percent. But that’s opposed to, I believe,18 percent of adults nationwide. So clearly, we are at a much higher rate. That’s concerning as a provider. It’s also concerning as a citizen because these are, these are our family members. These are my friends. These are people that I care about. And it’s not just numbers, these are humans with stories.”
While the CDC report revealed Logan County as the most depressed county in West Virginia, and the nation, Christina Mullins, commissioner for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ Bureau for Behavioral Health, said the CDC’s data was compiled from 2014 to 2020 and cited the newly released West Virginia MATCH Survey as the research her department relies on.
“So what I think is happening, what I think has happened to some degree, is that we’ve all gotten a little worse through the pandemic and but I don’t know that Logan County has gotten as worse as some, as bad, you know, has worsened as much as other areas, because my data is right now is not supporting what’s shown in and that data is valid for the time period that it was collected,” Mullins said.
MATCH is a biennial survey – meaning data is collected every two years. One out of 14 adult West Virginians are randomly chosen to participate using a large database of West Virginia residential addresses. The first survey period was August 2021 to February 2022.
“The data indicators are not exactly the same,” Mullins said. “But I had Logan County as 12th, actually in the state for depression, anxiety or PTSD, PTSD in the last 12 months, at 27 percent. And the state average being 24.3. So they weren’t, they weren’t the worst when I was really looking at the stats.”
According to the West Virginia Match Survey, 27.4 percent of Logan County residents said they had experienced depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder in the past 12 months.
The highest rate, according to the West Virginia MATCH Survey, was in Boone County, just over the county line, with 32 percent of residents reporting experiencing depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder in the past 12 months.
Researchers for the CDC found that rates of depression in West Virginia might reflect the influence of social determinants of health or patterns of other chronic diseases.
“Social determinants are a really broad concept,” Bradley said. “And they start out as anything from food insecurity to parental involvement. Whenever you’re a kid, to job security, and family stressors. on a community level, it looks like the economy and what’s going on the world around you. And that can be extended to just nationwide. So, if you take all of that into consideration, everything is playing apart, and where you are, how you’re feeling about things.”
Boone and Logan counties were coal-producing powerhouses until the nation moved away from coal-powered electricity and the mines began to close.
“One of the symptoms of depression is hopelessness,” Bradley said. “And it’s so much easier to feel hopeless about things, whenever the voices that you hear are telling you that there’s no hope.”
In response to these challenges, Logan County residents are banding together for better health.
The Coalfield Health Center in Chapmanville is part of a group that hopes to address southern West Virginia’s health outcomes. Next to the clinic, Wild, Wonderful and Healthy Logan County (WWHLC) is developing a public greenspace for all Logan County residents.
“We have relationships across our state to try to meet the need in these rural populations because it’s so difficult for it’s so difficult for people to get access to quality services are really just to get access to services period, in the rural settings they have to travel or maybe they don’t have the finances to be able to travel to the big city,” Bradley said. “That’s one of the things that’s so difficult so telehealth has really helped improve that access. And then also people are just willing to do the work to get to these places. And I think that’s a really wonderful thing.”
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.
**Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly said Jessica Bradley is a physiatrist. She is a psychologist.
Kim Holstein is the lead for the Quick Response Team — an organization with Boone County Health — that follows up with people who are struggling with addiction in the community. A cardiac arrest call was dispatched, but since Narcan was given, they will follow up within 48 hours to see if the individual will consider going to a substance use treatment center.
Kimberly Holstein’s morning starts off by comparing charts turned in by first responders. Every day she arrives at the office, located in the Boone County Health Department, before anyone. She sips coffee, and compares two spreadsheets.
She looks for signs of a drug related call. She points to an EMS call dispatched for cardiac arrest, but then discovers that on the Narcan report, it shows Narcan was administered at that address shortly after the call.
She said this is common because people are too ashamed or afraid to admit that the call is for an overdose.
“I think it’s also just the stigma of being truthful with the situation in your home, especially for a parent,” Holstein said. “What parent wants to call 911 and say that their son is unconscious in the bathroom, and that they are using heroin in your home? That’s probably a really hard phone call for a mother to make.”
For Holstein, this work is personal. Her step-daughter and brother suffer from addiction to opioids.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Holstein is the lead for the Quick Response Team (QRT) — an organization with Boone County Health — that follows up with people who are struggling with addiction in the community. For the cardiac arrest call, since Narcan was given, they will follow up within 48 hours to see if the individual will consider going to a substance use treatment center.
They also receive recommendations to check on people from police officers or community members who witness signs of drug use.
The Team
At 8 a.m., the peer support team comes in and circles up for a morning meeting. Holstein tells them where and who they need to go check in on. Many of them are in recovery themselves, and they are all from Boone County.
Barry Stowers, one of the peer support specialists, is an animated guy, with glasses and a beard.
“I feel like we’re kind of like a middleman, we exist to help connect people to the type of treatment that they need,” Stowers said. “We follow up on these overdoses and they don’t always take us up on the first time around. But that’s why we meet with them multiple times.”
Casie Dillon (left) and Barry Stowers (right) both work on the quick response team. They are both in recovery from opioid addiction. They said this work takes a toll on them but is gratifying when they can help someone.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
He and the five-person team travel around the county handing out food, Narcan, hygiene supplies — and they talk to people about options for recovery.
“If they say that they’re fine with us coming back, we kind of put them in the driver’s seat. So we don’t force them to do anything that they don’t want to do. But we let them know there’s options,” Stowers said.
That day, they visit the man who overdosed the night before and received Narcan. Holstein knew him and calls to talk to him. The QRT had taken him to a treatment facility before. It wasn’t a good fit, he tells her, because it was a hospital and he had a lot of stress from being in the hospital before. But he said he was ready to try a new place, so she tells the QRT about their discussion in that morning’s meeting.
“Called him with no answer,” she explains to the team. “But it doesn’t mean he backed out because the last conversation I had with him on the phone was to go ahead and take a shower and start getting ready, because we’re gonna figure out a bed [for him] no matter what.”
The team heads out to talk to him, and possibly take him to a substance use facility. These things are tentative Holstein said, he could back out. Holstein opens his file and writes that, for future reference — he does not want to go to a hospital.
The team works with people’s preferences and takes them places they will feel comfortable. They never send someone to a place they have not checked out themselves.
“It’s really important we vet the facility before we take someone from our community there,” Holstein said.
Boone County has nearly 21,000 people and 508 square miles. These binders break it down to four zones. They keep track of who is where, and what they need. It’s where Kim writes down preferences of community members they have worked with.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Courts
Holstein then goes to the county courthouse. She works closely with the courts, advocating for, and weighing in on, court decisions for people the QRT is trying to help.
“So this last year the magistrate court here in Boone County, between Magistrate [Danny] Moore and Magistrate [Niel] Burnside, has allowed us to send 59 people to treatment through their courtroom,” Hostien said.
This morning she has a meeting with Moore. He said working with QRT has given him more options for rehabilitation for some of the people he sees in his courts – and has helped the community in doing so.
“Allowing them to step in and offer help has made a tremendous turnaround,” Moore said. “That’s the reason why you see some of the numbers going down in this county.”
In this meeting, Moore and Holstein figure out a plan for one of the people in the court system, to have charges dropped if she graduates from her rehabilitation facility.
“He told her that if she graduated with no issues that he would consider wiping that out because it was trespassing. She’s estimated to be [graduated by] Dec. 27,” Holstein said.
The Police
Holstein leaves the magistrate court and heads to the sheriff’s office for a meeting with Sheriff Chad Barker. They discuss different families and people in the area.
Barker said the QRT has worked with the police force and helped change attitudes about drug use in the area. He said at first officers were hesitant about the QRT, and it was hard to get every officer to carry Narcan with them. Now, officers are happy to work with QRT and reach out to them often.
This is one of the vehicles the team takes out.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
At the end of the meeting, Barker asks Holstein to check on a woman in the community he saw when responding to a call at a house down the street. Barker said the woman looks like she may be in crisis.
Holstein heads down there. The woman doesn’t answer, so they leave a note on her door handle. If she needs anything, she can call them.
The Money
The QRT team is entirely grant funded. Holstein found out earlier that day that the team received a grant to fund transportation for people coming out of recovery. Soon the QRT will be able to give rides to doctor’s appointments, prescription fills or jobs.
Holstein wants the QRT to be able to do more to help keep people off drugs and to help prevent drug use in the area through education. But they need more money to do it.
One option is the $1 billion opioid settlement money coming to the state. Boone County expects $2 million to $3 million, according to West Virginia First settlement documents.
A bulletin board featuring photographs of the many efforts of Boone County’s QRT workers.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“I hate how this money came about, and that so many people lost their lives for this money to be available,” Holstein said. “On the other hand, I have to look at how many lives can change because of that.”
Holstein said the next step for the QRT is to focus on more assistance for those coming out of rehab by strengthening programs that connect them to housing and jobs, and even access to mental health care.
“We’re gonna keep them in sobriety for X amount of time. But where are they gonna go past that? Once that court case is over? What options do we have?” She said, “Right now, our county has none.”
Many families in Boone County have been affected by the opioid epidemic. Holstein said it’s not uncommon for a child to be living in a home with a family member who is struggling with addiction.
“We also need to focus on just the mental health side. These kids, they have PTSD. They went through addiction with their family, sometimes multiple generations of addiction. They have experienced the worst of the worst,” Holstein said.
Boone County QRT won the West Virginia Exemplary Program of the year by West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
Credit: Briana Heaney/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Between 2014 and 2020, Boone County was at the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, with one in four residents holding an opioid prescription.
The West Virginia First Foundation, which is responsible for distributing the money from the opioid settlement, had its first meeting Nov. 6.
The Winding Road Back
On the drive back to the office, a little red Volkswagen bug stops in the middle of the street. Holstein stops, too.
Out of the Volkswagen came a tall young man, with dark blond hair. He looks back at Holstein, his arms open in an embrace.
“I’m headed down to the courthouse,” the man said. “I got to head down to the courthouse and get my dismissal papers.” This is Hunter Gillispie — he’s someone the QRT helped into recovery.
“Okay good deal, see you soon!” Holstein said as they exchanged a hug and held up traffic for a few seconds.
Both Gillispie’s parents were addicted to opioids. As a teenager, he had been shot in the face by his uncle in a dispute over drugs.
After their embrace, they both get back in their vehicles.
“Him and his sister went through recovery at the same time,” Holstein said. “They are the first ones in three generations who’ve made it.”
Now, Gillispie is a year sober and works on a river boat. Holstein said he is one of QRT’s success stories. She said people like him are why she works so hard everyday to expand her program.
On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia expects to receive about $1 billion of opioid settlement money. The money can go to programs to help abate the opioid crisis. Leaders of one recovery organization hope to use some of that money to help their rural community recover from the crisis.
On this West Virginia Morning, West Virginia expects to receive about $1 billion of opioid settlement money. The money can go to programs to help abate the opioid crisis. Leaders of one recovery organization hope to use some of that money to help their rural community recover from the crisis. Briana Heaney has the story.
Also, in this show, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced last week he won’t be running for reelection to the United States Senate. As Curtis Tate reports, he’s leaving the chamber on both low and high notes.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.
Caroline MacGregor produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
