Child Protective Services Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Us & Them: Our Foster Care Crisis

Across the nation, more than 390,000 children rely on foster care. However, a shortage of licensed foster homes is creating a national crisis. While official foster care cases are carefully tracked, many informal examples of kinship care aren’t part of the data. For this Us & Them episode, we hear the experiences of those who’ve been part of the foster care system.

There’s a foster care crisis in America. Nationally, more than 390,000 children are in foster care. In West Virginia, that’s just over 6,000 children who need a safe place to call home. Last year, more than half of all states saw their number of licensed homes drop, some as high as 60 percent. That challenge comes because new foster parents don’t stay in the system for long.

On this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay hears about the shortage of licensed foster homes. Foster care is most often needed because of parental substance use, mental health challenges, poverty and neglect.

While official foster care cases are tracked and overseen by state agencies and nonprofit organizations, there are many informal kinds of so-called kinship care that are not official or included in state data. Some experts say the number of those kinship cases drives the stakes of the challenge much higher.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council, CRC Foundation and Daywood Foundation. Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.

Dominic Snuffer was 5 when he and his four younger siblings went into the first of their foster care homes.

“I was in several foster care situations… I think three or four. It always seemed short and seemed as if we were getting bounced around. The hard part was probably just the beginning, how much I just always try to keep my siblings in check. I felt as if, if they behaved in a way, just like the other situations we might get taken away. It feels like yesterday that I got adopted. It went by fast. The things that make me smile was definitely adoption day. ‘Cause I knew, I finally found a family and I could try and live out the rest of my childhood.”

— Dominic Snuffer

*Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Larry Cooper is executive vice president of Innovation at The Children’s Home Network (CHN) of Tampa Bay, Florida. The agency works with kids in the foster care system and also provides services to prevent and support families from ever entering into the foster care system. Cooper has worked at CHN for more than 20 years, and he’s spent 8 years licensing foster homes while recruiting and training new foster parents. Cooper says some of the challenges bringing in new foster parents comes from an approval process that’s strict for a reason – but can take more than 12 months. A lot of people drop out along the way.

“You might fall off because of just life experiences that you may be going through. You might have a change in jobs. You might have an illness in your family. You might have a death in the family. And so I used to see for every 100 parents that I recruited, I might get only four to six families actually get a kid into their home for every hundred that would call me and be interested in becoming a foster parent.”

— Larry Cooper

*Photo Credit: The Children’s Home Network*

Marc and Brandi Wilson live in St. Clairsville, Ohio — just across the river from Wheeling, West Virginia. Brandi was a Child Protective Services worker in West Virginia for 20 years. One day back in 2014, her work at the Department of Health and Human Resources and her personal life collided when they became foster parents to a baby related to Marc.

“They both took the stand and said that they give up the rights to their child, I just started breaking down. [Brandi] was sitting beside me like this and she looked over at me. She said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘I can never imagine saying that about my own child.’ She was kind of numb to it because she’s worked in the field. It was hard to hear somebody say that.” — Marc Wilson

“It wasn’t until he was sitting next to me in the courtroom that I realized not everybody hears relinquishment. Not everybody hears abuse, neglect. Not everybody hears that – as CPS workers [this is] just everyday language. So once I was with him and realized, OK, this isn’t everybody’s life. They may have drug issues, domestic violence, gangs coming in and out of their home, but these words are not everyday life for a lot of people.” — Brandi Wilson

*Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Rachel Kinder supervises The Kinship Navigator Program with Mission West Virginia, a nonprofit that’s been around since 1997. Kinder has been working with the foster care system for more than two decades, and has seen lots of trends. In 2019, there was a record high of 7,200 children in West Virginia’s foster care system. She says, while it’s one thing to count the legal cases overseen by the Department of Human Services, there are many informal kinds of kinship care that are not official or included in state data.

“I can tell you the number of kids in formal care, so if there are 6,078 kids in foster care in West Virginia, right now 58 percent of those are in kinship relative placements. For kids in informal care, where grandma or an aunt or some type of relative or even what we call fictive* kin has stepped in, it’s almost impossible to get numbers on that.”

— Rachel Kinder

*Fictive care refers to placements where a foster parent knows the child but is not related to them. This could be a teacher, family friend or a neighbor.

*Photo Credit: Mission West Virginia*

There’s a clear need for foster families across the nation and in West Virginia. Nikki and Louisa Snuffer knew they would consider becoming foster parents when it came time for them to start a family. There’s a lot going on at their Sissonville home. The couple currently has 12 children, ranging from ages 10 months to 20 years old. Plus, they breed French Bulldogs.

“It actually was a pretty easy decision, because we were both on the same page almost always with helping people. I’ve known since probably my early high school years that I did want to do foster care. However, we really wanted no more than maybe three. And the way life and things happen, we got five at one time. I have two brothers who were put in foster care that I never knew and I still don’t know. So we made a commitment that when we got into it, that we would never split up families.” — Louisa Snuffer

“If they call us for a sibling group, we’re not going to say no to them because that was our number one belief. Like, ‘We need to do whatever we can to keep siblings together.’ When we were initially approved, we were approved for four children. So, DHHR told us we could have four children in the house, given the space. And that was kind of our cap. I said, ‘Maybe we’ll do three tops,’ you know, that seems like a manageable number. And the very first call we got for placement was a sibling group of five. Of course we said yes. We had to do a few things to get approved for a fifth child. They moved in with us. Things went great.” — Nikki Snuffer

*Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Nikki Snuffer is holding her granddaughter. Many of the children the Snuffers have cared for, they know through Nikki’s job at Winfield High School. She’s an instructor for the Future Leaders Program, which is the National Guard’s high school curriculum that’s taught by veterans. In the program, students learn leadership and life skills, science, career prep and other subjects.

“[For] my kids that have gone to Winfield, I make them go through the [Future Leaders] program. Not because I’m teaching it, but because even if it wasn’t me, I’d want them to get these skills. It’s the kind of things that are forgotten these days.”

— Nikki Snuffer

*Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Justice Calls For More CPS Reporting, Funding In Wake Of Child’s Death

Reports surfaced last week of the death of a 14-year-old girl leading to her mother’s arrest. Gov. Jim Justice said Tuesday that this was not a CPS case.

Reports surfaced last week of the death of a 14-year-old girl found emaciated, and of her mother’s subsequent arrest. Gov. Jim Justice said Tuesday that this was not a Child Protective Services (CPS) case.

According to reporting from Eyewitness News, Julie Anne Stone Miller, 49, of Morrisvale in Boone County was arrested and charged with child neglect causing death last week.

The girl’s grandmother told Chief Deputy Mark Abbott that the girl had not attended school since late 2019 or early 2020 and had barely been out of the house in years.

This detail prompted the media to ask Justice during his weekly media briefing if the girl had been homeschooled and if so, why an academic assessment hadn’t brought attention to her condition.

“I think the answer just got to be just one thing,” Justice said. “The CPS folks, from what I understand, [had] no idea about this, about this child, no idea whatsoever.”

Department of Human Services Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily released a statement Monday. The press release provided no further information on the minor who passed away, but in the headline, she called the incident a criminal case.

Justice also said more funding for staffing at Child Protective Services was necessary.

“The more money we have, the better we’ll do,” Justice said. “The more workers we’ll have, the absolute better we’ll do. You know, we have got to understand that we’ve got to step up in every way, and try to do more.”

According to the Child Welfare Dashboard, child welfare positions are 88 percent filled in the state. Most vacancies remain in the Child Protective Service Worker category with 78 vacant positions. Earlier this year, the Department of Human Services announced an easing of the staffing shortages.

Justice asked the public to speak up and speak out if they see something suspicious.

“This is a tragedy that, I mean, it’s unthinkable,” Justice said. “I mean, it’s totally unthinkable. But stuff like this happens. And really, and truly, we got a lot of people out there that may have known of this kid, or whatever, this child, and speak up. I mean, yeah, this, really and truly, this is no different than being diligent, you know, in every way, from the standpoint of, you see somebody that looks suspicious, something that may be possibly going on, speak up. Tell us about all this.”

House Members Advance Foster Care Parent Information System

Foster parents and kinship caregivers will have access to a new information portal if a House bill becomes law.

House Bill 4975 would incorporate a foster and kinship parent information system into the existing Child Welfare Information Technology System.

Many delegates rose on the House floor Wednesday to speak to the ongoing problems in West Virginia’s foster care system, insisting this bill does not do enough to help the state’s more than 6,000 children in foster care.

Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, spoke in support of the bill, but said it fell short by not helping families before children are removed from the home.

“This bill will help make sure that once a child is removed from the home, that the information is provided, and that services can be provided that are particular to the child,” Rowe said. “So the bill itself is very good. But it’s only one step. We need to take the other step and help these families before they’re split up in court and abuse and neglect proceedings.”

Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, agreed with Rowe and added that attorney’s costs for child abuse and neglect cases could be used in different ways to keep families together.

“If we’re going to see real change in CPS, we need to start doing exactly what the gentleman from the 52nd brought up pre-petition services,” Steele said. “Actually getting into the houses and helping folks out. You got a dirty house case, one hearing with seven private attorneys costs more money than it costs to call Serve Pro to go over and clean that house up and try to keep that family together.”

Del. Adam Vance, a R-Wyoming, shared his experience as a foster and adoptive parent and called the bill a step in the right direction.

“We’ve had placements, foster placements in my house from the state, and from one of the agencies,” Vance said. “And the agencies when they come in, they are very good. They give you all the information that you could ask for. Plus, they give it to you, they hand it to you. They’ll sit there and answer any questions and talk to you about it or anything. The state when they come in, they said here’s the kid, five minutes later, they’re outta there.”

Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, spoke in favor of the bill but cautioned his fellow lawmakers about making sure the law is enacted.

“I would ask that, should we enact this into law, that you take a close look at this fiscal note, and you see exactly what and why and how this is supposed to happen,” Linville said. “Supposedly, they’ve reached out to the vendor for the PATH system, you know, a system that’s been utilized, supposedly for eight years and never been fully implemented at a cost of $400 million.”

House Bill 4975 passed the House unanimously and will now be considered by the Senate.

DoHS Announces 47 Percent Vacancy Reduction In CPS

Child Protective Services, or CPS, vacancies have fallen 47 percent in West Virginia in the past year.

The West Virginia Department of Human Services (DoHS), formerly part of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR), announced there are fewer vacancies in the Child Protective Services (CPS) and Youth Services (YS) workforce within its Bureau for Social Services (BSS).

As of Nov. 30, 2023, there were 79 vacant CPS worker positions out of 458, marking a more than 47 percent vacancy reduction from the previous year, which saw 150 vacant positions, out of 455 in 2022.

Gov. Jim Justice praised the reductions in vacancies and congratulated Cabinet Secretary Cynthia Persily and Commissioner of the Bureau for Social Services Jeff Pack for their work on the department’s understaffing.

“These folks really need us and they need us really badly,” Justice said. “So congratulations, Cynthia, and congratulations, Jeff, and keep doing the good work for all of us.”

The Department of Human Services said it increased its workforce to better respond to an increasing number of child welfare abuse and neglect referrals. The Bureau for Social Service’s Central Intake reported 40,000 referrals in 2023.

“We had unbelievable vacancies of child protective services workers that we needed, we really needed really bad,” Justice said. “We have gone down from 458 positions that were unfilled, down to 79.”

W.Va. Democrats Ask For Investigation Of CPS

In response to the DHHR’s inability to produce Child Protective Service travel records, the West Virginia Democratic Party has asked for an investigation into the department.

On Tuesday, the West Virginia Democratic Party (WVDP) Chair Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha issued a letter to Gov. Jim Justice, urging him to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) handling of a particular child neglect case.

Earlier reporting by Eyewitness News revealed two children were found living in “devastating conditions” in a shed, with minimal facilities and inadequate care, leading to felony child neglect charges against Donald Ray Lantz and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather.

A recent Freedom of Information Act request by West Virginia Watch indicates that no travel records exist from Child Protective Service (CPS) workers confirming that they never visited the home despite multiple complaints from neighbors about the well-being of the children.

“The neighbors in this close-knit community out in Sissonville, the neighbors had been repeatedly calling CPS and at least we don’t see any kind of evidence that CPS responded to that,” Pushkin said. “To me, that’s very troubling and that warrants an investigation.”

In the letter, the WVDP states that they believe this CPS case is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger systematic issue within the state’s child welfare system.

“They can’t produce any documents to show that they actually responded, which would lead us to believe that they did not respond to these calls,” Pushkin said. “Is this an isolated incident? Or is this more part of just a culture of complacency or competency over there? And if so, is it possibly due to staffing shortages?”

Pushkin noted Justice’s “flat budget” as a possible reason behind CPS understaffing and shortcomings.

“Now the legislature and the governor can pat each other on the back for passing flat budgets and creating these artificial surpluses over the years,” Pushkin said. “But what does that really mean? It very well could possibly mean that we aren’t meeting essential services that need to be provided to the state, very least of which, would be taking care of children in the state’s custody. If we can’t do that, what can the state government do?”

Ongoing Litigation

DHHR employees and Justice are defendants in an ongoing class action lawsuit, originally filed in 2019, that alleged the state had violated the constitutional rights of more than 6,000 kids in the state foster system.

Allegations include the state failing to protect children, overburdened CPS workers, and leaving kids to languish in the system without any permanency plan.

Plaintiffs in the suit, A Better Childhood, a New York-based nonprofit, along with Shafer and Shafer and Disability Rights West Virginia, recently asked for sanctions in the case due to lack of evidence retention from the defendants.

The motion accuses the DHHR of “deliberate indifference” to due process claims brought by the attorneys representing foster children against DHHR.

Justice’s chief of staff, Brian Abraham, said in October, that the emails were deleted because of the Office of Technology’s protocol to delete the emails of employees who’d left their positions with the state.

“This administration was unaware that there was a policy in place at the Office of Technology to delete the emails of employees who left employment with the state of West Virginia,” Abraham said. “So there’s no basis whatsoever for any allegation that emails were intentionally deleted from any agency.”

Abraham added that the administration was not sure when the policy began or who enacted it, but said they are investigating this state-wide policy.

Marcia Robinson Lowry,the lead plaintiff in the case, said the defendants knew the emails she sought were evidence in the case.

“We don’t know whether anybody destroyed them willfully, or whether it was just more questions of competence and thoroughness on the part of the state, the state runs right now a very, very dysfunctional child welfare system,” Lowry said.

Dividing the DHHR

During the 2023 Legislative Session state lawmakers voted to divide the DHHR into three separate departments to increase transparency and improve outcomes in foster care. The new departments go into effect on Jan. 1.

There will now be a Department of Human Services for programs like Child Protective Services, a Department of Health and a Department of Health Facilities for facilities like state-run hospitals. Each agency will also have its own secretary to lead the agency.

The new secretaries are Dr. Sherri Young, incoming secretary of the Department of Health, Dr. Cynthia Persily, incoming secretary of the Department of Human Services and Michael Caruso, incoming secretary of the Department of Health Facilities.

Pushkin voted in favor of splitting the department but has voiced concerns about the efficacy of the split in improving health outcomes for West Virginia.

“Well, you know why I voted to split up the DHHR to three separate departments have often said, unless we really address the culture there,” Pushkin said. “Instead of having just one large dysfunctional department, we’re going to wind up with quite possibly three, slightly smaller, dysfunctional departments, until we really start prioritizing what’s important.”

Organization Seeks Volunteers To Help Foster Care Children Navigate Court

An organization that helps foster children navigate the legal system in 10 West Virginia counties needs volunteers.

Western Regional Court Appointed Special Advocates or, CASA helps children in Boone, Cabell, Calhoun, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Mason, Putnam, Roane and Wayne counties find someone to serve as the child’s voice throughout court proceedings.

Program Director, Kim Runyon Wilds said no that special experience is required and the organization provides training.

“We do not have enough advocates for every child, unfortunately,” Wilds said. “That’s why we are trying to get the word out about this program. We have almost 900 children that are waiting for one of our volunteers to be assigned to them just in our 10 county service area.”

Volunteers must be at least 21 years old and be able to pass a background check, including a child protective services check.

“After they get all of the background check stuff done, they’ve completed every chapter of training, then we swear them in with an oath of confidentiality with a circuit court judge,” Wilds said. “So once all of that is done, they’re ready to actually be an advocate for children who have experienced trauma.”

Wilds said each case is different. Some children who are involved in court because of abuse and neglect are assigned a Child Protective Service (CPS) social worker, and a guardian ad litem who is the attorney for the child.

Wilds said while CPS workers and guardians ad litem have large caseloads, CASA volunteers have one or two cases on average. The organization serves about 450 children each year.

“They have the ability, and frankly, the time to be able to do regular home visits, check in with the family and review records,” Wilds said. “Get a complete story of the family’s history, what’s going on, why is the family in court, and then they can then develop a relationship with the child. See what the child wants to happen in the case and see what the child’s best interests are, which will be the opinion of the advocate.”

According to Wilds, children with CASA volunteers spend less time in foster care on average and they’re half as likely to re-enter the foster care system.

“Long term outcomes for children who have been appointed a CASA volunteer are good, (they are) less likely to enter right back into foster care, less likely to drop out of school,” Wilds said. “Having the CASA volunteer, or even a consistent, caring and protective adult in a child’s life is enough to change their story. They’re changing a child’s story by helping a child advocating for a child just being a protective adult in a child’s life.”

Wilds said CASA’s ultimate goal is the reunification of the family, if at all possible.

“We want to get to know them and the environment they’re currently in along with where they came from, but our primary goal is reunification,” Wilds said. “If it can be safely achieved, we want the kids back with their parents, if that can happen.”

Interested individuals can contact CASA via their Facebook page, by calling 304-523-9587, ext. 307, or by emailing Wilds directly at kwilds@TEAMWV.org.