Child Welfare Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Attorneys Seek Sanctions In Delayed Lawsuit Against DHHR

Recently, a class action lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Resources for children’s rights related to the foster care system has taken a turn as attorneys battle for sanctions against the agency.

Attorneys say they have new evidence that shows the now split West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) purposely deleted emails related to a class action lawsuit.

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 lawsuit alleges the DHHR failed to properly care for thousands of foster kids, putting some in dangerous and unsafe situations.

In the original court filing, the Plaintiffs allege, “Children in West Virginia’s foster care system have been abused and neglected, put in inadequate and dangerous placements, institutionalized and segregated from the outside world, left without necessary services, and forced to unnecessarily languish in foster care for years.”

The group filed a complaint in federal court in October 2019, denouncing the DHHR’s “over-reliance” on shelter care, shortages in case workers and a “failure to appropriately plan for the children in its custody.”

The following year, a motion for class action status was filed but left undecided when the case was dismissed in 2021. In 2022, that decision was reversed by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the class action motion was renewed in May 2023.

According to the DHHR Child Welfare Dashboard, on Jan. 16, 2024, there are 6,087

children in state care.

The Missing Emails

Recently, the case has taken a turn as attorneys battle for sanctions against the DHHR for failing to preserve emails from former top officials that were relevant to the case.

In an email, Wetzel said the DHHR instructed the West Virginia Office of Technology (WVOT) to preserve all emails relevant to the case.

“Unfortunately, a litigation hold was not placed by WVOT on certain email accounts, resulting in some emails not being preserved,” Wetzel said in an email. “Subsequently, Gov. Jim Justice has directed WVOT to develop an updated form and process for legal hold requests.”

Wetzel also said in an email that all emails of current employees, including all emails between current employees and former employees have been preserved.

“Therefore, the majority of relevant emails involving dozens of employees are available to be produced to plaintiffs in this case, as requested,” Wetzel said in an email. “Over the last four years, DoHS (West Virginia Department of Human Services) and its predecessor agency have preserved and produced to plaintiffs more than 1.2 million pages of documents, including hundreds of thousands of emails and attachments.”

The DHHR said the Office of Technology was responsible for the statewide policy of deleting the emails of people who left the state’s employment within 30 days.

However, relevant emails had a litigation hold placed on them, according to court documents.

In November, defendants in the case filed an opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions, apologizing to the court and the plaintiffs for the lost electronically stored information.

In the midst of an ongoing class action lawsuit and possible sanctions for lack of record keeping, the state health department’s top attorney retired at the beginning of 2024.

DHHR General Counsel April Robertson retired effective Jan. 2, 2024, said Jessica Holstein, a spokesperson for the DHHR, in an email.

The news of Robertson’s retirement comes after attorneys who brought the class action lawsuit announced in October that they were filing for sanctions, because the DHHR had failed to preserve about three years of requested emails.

Robertson gave a deposition on Nov. 21, 2023, stating that she had been General Counsel at the DHHR since May of 2019, the duration of the pendency of the class action litigation.

The lawyer questioning Robertson, J. Alexander Meade of Shaffer & Shaffer PLC, asked her if the General Counsel’s office had followed up with the Office of Technology to ensure that the electronically stored information of the named defendants or individuals within the matter was being preserved.

She responded that she did not follow up, and when asked why, she said, “I had no reason to assume that there would be any problem.” She later testified she had never needed to follow up on a litigation hold with the Office of Technology.

Robertson testified that she submitted the litigation hold in December 2019 via email. She said she received signed acknowledgments from the individuals who were subject to the litigation hold, but not from the Office of Technology.

“I can’t speak to what they may read or not read in their inboxes,” Robertson said in her deposition.

Meade asked Robertson about the purpose of the acknowledgment form if no signed acknowledgment was received from the Office of Technology.

“The purpose in my mind is primarily to make sure our DHHR folks are seeing it and making sure that they understand,” Robertson said.

Robertson also testified that, before September 2023, she was not aware of the Office of Technology’s policy regarding the deletion or purging of electronically stored information about staff who had separated from state employment.

“What we have learned is it seems that there’s a great deal of either incredible carelessness or willful destruction of documents,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, the lead plaintiff for the class and executive director of A Better Childhood (ABC).. “It’s very unclear what’s happening.”

In an affidavit, Michael Folio, legal director of Disability Rights of West Virginia (DRWV) and a previous attorney at the DHHR, testified that officials at the agency, namely Robertson and previous DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, knew about policies surrounding preserving documents.

“Well, I had conversations with each of April Robertson and Bill Crouch, that arose as a result of an employee’s emails not having been preserved who was going to be a witness in a pending civil action,” Folio said. “And I raised the issue at that time about the spoilation of evidence. And this was wholly unrelated to the foster care lawsuits.”

Lowry said in a lawsuit similar to this one, she has to show that not only were the children’s constitutional rights violated, but that it was done with deliberate indifference to the children’s rights.

“The way you usually do it is by getting emails from the key players,” Lowry said. “And showing that there’s a pattern of saying that they knew about it, they knew about the harm being put on children, etc. Because people don’t admit it.”

However, in this case, the emails and the evidence they contained have not been turned over to the Plaintiffs.

Lowry said the loss of that information brought her to ask the judge for sanctions against the DHHR.

“There seems to be some sort of a pattern here with the state, not just not keeping information that’s necessary to prove your case,” Lowry said. “And the rule is that if they have done it willfully, then there are influences that can be made in the plaintiff’s favor.”

Lowry called the case highly unusual and said defendants know that when they are being sued, or even about to be sued, they have to maintain documentation.

“Whether they didn’t do it because they were incompetent or willful or just happened, we don’t know,” Lowry said. “But we do think it’s a very serious issue, and it’s never happened in another case that I’ve been involved in.”

Lowry said settlement discussions were had years ago, at the beginning of the lawsuit in 2019, but that they were “not fruitful conversations,” so she decided to proceed to a trial. She said one of the best things about settlement is being able to discuss with defendants the best ways of fixing the system.

“We’re still fighting about whether the system violates the Constitution, and we think it clearly is, it’s got to be one of the very worst systems in the country,” Lowry said.

When asked whether the division of the original DHHR into three separate departments would have an impact on the case, Lowry said only if the new secretaries presented concrete plans for improvement.

“If they were to say that, we would be very, very happy to talk to them,” Lowry said. “But that’s not happened, and that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

Folio said the splitting of the DHHR into three agencies is a bold and symbolic gesture.

“To me, the split is not just coming up with a new organizational chart,” Folio said. “The split requires a cultural change. It requires a change of individuals in leadership who manage the day-to-day affairs, and admittedly, there are three new secretaries, but the people under them, by and large, are still the same individuals who were there that resulted in the criticism by the legislature that resulted in the split of DHHR into the three agencies.”

The trial date has recently been moved from June to September because the defendants have not produced the information the plaintiffs are seeking. The court has ordered them to give the plaintiff’s more information by the end of January.

“They haven’t given it to us yet,” Lowry said. “It’s not due till the end of this month. It is a real system in total disarray and children, but the bottom line here is his lives are being damaged by how poorly the system is run.”

All parties will go before a magistrate judge who will hear arguments on sanctions on Jan. 17, 2024.

Abuse And Neglect

Plaintiffs cite federal data and reports in claims that in 2017, the rate of child deaths related to abuse and neglect per 100,000 children in West Virginia was more than double the national average and allege the rate of child victims of maltreatment was double the national average.

Nationally, during the Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2017, an estimated 1,720 children died due to abuse or neglect. The overall rate of child fatalities was 2.32 deaths per 100,000 children in the national population.

This claim appears to be verified by a 2019 Bureau for Children and Families Critical Incident Report, citing the annual Child Maltreatment Report produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), in which West Virginia has a higher recorded rate of deaths per 100,000 children than the national average for eight of the 12 years studied.

That same audit found that information on child fatalities in West Virginia is “not well documented, hindering the ability to determine the state’s needs for training, policy or field improvements that could reduce future child fatalities and near fatalities.”

Plaintiffs also allege the rate of child abuse and neglect investigations or assessments was more than triple the national average and near fatalities of children known to DHHR due to abuse or neglect rose by more than 20 percent per year between 2014 and 2018.

According to the same report from the Bureau for Children and Families, in FFY 2015, seven children were seriously injured due to abuse and neglect known to the bureau. This is an increase of two children from FFY 2014 to FFY 2015.

In FFY 2016, nine children were seriously injured due to abuse and or neglect known to the bureau. FFY 2017 saw the first and only recent decrease in critical incidents with two children seriously injured due to abuse and neglect known to the bureau.

This is a decrease from all previous years of the critical incident review for near-fatal incidents.

In FFY 2018, there were five children who were seriously injured due to abuse and neglect known to the bureau. In FFY 2019, there were eight children who were seriously injured due to abuse and neglect known to the agency.

According to findings from the Child Welfare League of America, in 2020 West Virginia had 37,695 total referrals for child abuse and neglect. Of those, 26,572 were referred for investigation.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there were 6,116 child victims of abuse or neglect in West Virginia in 2020, at a rate of 17 children per 1,000.

Influx Of Children Entering The System

According to the plaintiffs, the number of youth entering the West Virginia foster care system has skyrocketed in recent years. They say in court filings that, “Between 2013 and 2017, the foster care population swelled by 67 percent — substantially higher than the national average increase of 11 percent during the same three years. A variety of factors played a role in causing this spike. For one, the opioid crisis disproportionately affected West Virginia, the 47th poorest state in the nation.”

West Virginia suffers from the highest age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving opioids in the nation. Plaintiffs claim caregiver addiction and deaths stemming from substance use disorder have driven more children into the system.

As of 2017, West Virginia had the highest rate of foster care entries for youth ages 14 to 17, at 14.2 per 1,000 children, as compared to the national average of 2.8 per 1,000 children.

The plaintiffs argue that the defendants fail to maintain an adequate number of appropriate placements for youth entering foster care in West Virginia. They allege that, as a result, the DHHR placed children in homes that have not been sufficiently vetted, supported or monitored to ensure children’s safety and well-being while in those homes, or institutionalizing them.

Plaintiffs argue that the DHHR increased their reliance upon kinship caregivers by more than 30 percentage points over the last five years.

They also argue that in West Virginia, a disproportionate number of adolescents in foster care are sent to residential facilities, citing that 71 percent of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 are institutionalized in West Virginia, and in out-of-state facilities.

Court filings claim that “as of June 2019, DHHR placed 327 foster children in out-of-state institutions. In-state, DHHR placed 588 youth in residential care and 83 in psychiatric facilities.”

In September 2023, there were 6,298 children in West Virginia state care and 31.79 percent of those children were between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. That means slightly more than 2,000 of them are teens.

According to West Virginia’s Child Welfare Dashboard, there are currently 488 West Virginia children in state-group residential care and 256 in out-of-state group residential care.

In an email response, Whitney Wetzel, a spokesperson for the West Virginia Department of Human Services (DoHS), formerly a part of the DHHR, said that DoHS continues to expand West Virginia’s children’s mental health system, “to ensure that children can receive appropriate mental health and social services in their homes, schools and communities through home and community-based services including West Virginia Wraparound and Children’s Mobile Crisis Response and Stabilization.”

“DoHS has implemented several initiatives including the Resource Rundown webinar to educate parents and caregivers about the Pathway to Children’s Mental Health Services (Assessment Pathway) to streamline access to mental and behavioral health services for children and families while quickly connecting them with a Wraparound Facilitator to help children and families navigate the process,” Wetzel said in an email.

Recently, DoHS published its semi-annual report outlining the expansion of children’s mental health system.

Staffing Shortages

Plaintiffs argue that West Virginia’s child welfare system is fraught with significant administrative problems that hinder its ability to operate effectively.

During the 2023 West Virginia 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 went into effect on Jan. 1.

There is now a Department of Human Services for programs like Child Protective Services, a Department of Health (DoH) and a Department of Health Facilities for facilities like state-run hospitals. Each agency has its own secretary to lead each agency.

In August 2023, Commissioner of the Bureau for Social Services Jeffrey Pack provided updates on hiring and retention initiatives in the department.

He said the bureau’s vacancy rate has been reduced from 31 percent in January to 19 percent as of June 2023.

Pack credits this reduction with pay increases for those who work multiple years of service in the department.

Another retention tool the department is using is trauma response for Child Protective Service (CPS) workers.

However, the 2019 lawsuit alleges that West Virginia fails to employ and retain a sufficient number of appropriately trained caseworkers and fills vacancies with unqualified applicants.

In an email response, Wetzel said the DoHS is committed to improving West Virginia’s child welfare system and children’s mental health system.

“Last year, with the assistance of the governor, DoHS markedly increased the salaries for all child welfare workers and provided additional positions to help support child welfare workers,” Wetzel said in an email. “DoHS’s Bureau for Social Services (BSS) implemented ChildStat, an accountability tool used by senior leadership to monitor and track progress on key performance indicators of child welfare.”

Clarity Provided On Foster Care Ombudsmen

Pamela Woodman-Kaehler, office director of the Foster Care Ombudsman, gave a presentation and answered questions about West Virginia’s Foster Care Ombudsman’s purposes and functions.

Lawmakers heard from the office of West Virginia’s Foster Care Ombudsman Monday during a Joint Standing Committee on Government Organization.

Pamela Woodman-Kaehler, office director of the Foster Care Ombudsman, gave a presentation and answered questions about West Virginia’s Foster Care Ombudsman’s purposes and functions.

“The foster care ombudsman investigates and resolves complaints that basically relate to the child welfare system,” Woodman-Kaehler said. “If there is an action or inaction or decision of any state agency that is involved with the foster care population, it is typically within our jurisdiction to help our public with that issue.”

Established by the West Virginia Legislature in 2019, the West Virginia foster care ombudsman’s team has received a total of 1,834 complaints. Woodman-Kaehler could not comment on which claims have been substantiated. There are currently 6,262 children in West Virginia state care.

“And we talked to hundreds and thousands of people, overall in meetings, and panels with relationships to investigating complaints, and helping people,” Woodman-Kaehler said. “A very important part of what we do is we substantiate or validate complaints that are validatable that come to our office, and we keep track of complaint validity by topic and by county and we are working hard to attempt to map that.”

Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, asked Woodman-Kaehler about the number of complaints and some issues surrounding vouchers not being accepted at certain stores. She said the department issued a variety of different changes.

“I stayed on top of those changes and how they were being implemented with leadership,” she said. “If there are complaints about vouchers only being accepted at a particular store, I would suspect it’s a communication error on the part of a well-intended, but inaccurate employee sharing information.”

Woodman-Kaehler reported that more than 10 people work in the foster care ombudsman’s unit, and due to anonymity procedures couldn’t elaborate further.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, asked Woodman-Kaehler if her office has enough staff, given nationwide workforce shortages.

“Our workforce is positioned all over the state, we are not Charleston-centric, we are throughout the state so that we can have that presence wherever we may be needed,” she said.

Woodman-Kaehler also said the office of the foster care ombudsman’s budget is $979,000, and as of the fiscal year to-date the office has spent just under $600,000 of that sum.

State Officials Work To Uplift The Foster Care System This Month

Gov. Jim Justice declared that May is Foster Care Month, an initiative to strengthen and uplift the children in the system and their case workers.

On Wednesday, Gov. Jim Justice declared that May is Foster Care Month.

“I have proclaimed the month of May as Foster Care Month in West Virginia,” Justice said. “Everyone knows the battle we have with our foster children and everything from the standpoint of trying to do more and more and more of the right stuff for them.”

He said the purpose is to strengthen and uplift the children in the system and their case workers.

Interim Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources, Dr. Jeff Coben said the Bureau for Social Services is working to become fully staffed, noting a new internship program that has 50 participants signed up for this summer.

“West Virginia DHHR and the Bureau for Social Services is committed to ensuring that all West Virginia children in and out of home care and their families receive adequate support and appropriate services to best meet their needs,” Coben said. “We really rely on the entire community, our families, volunteers, and other members of the community who helped children and youth in foster care, find permanent homes and connections.”

There are currently 6,262 children in West Virginia state custody. According to Justice, more than 55 percent of children in foster care are placed in a relative’s home.

According to the Child Welfare Dashboard, last updated on April 16th, 37 percent of foster children are placed in a certified kinship or relative home and 19 percent are placed in kinship or relatives homes.

Also, according to the dashboard, 26 percent of children are placed in private agency foster homes and 11 percent in group residential care.

These statistics are separate from the percentage of out-of-state child placements. There are currently 416 West Virginia children in out-of-state placements with 19 percent being placed in a certified kinship or relative’s home out of state and 7 percent placed with a kinship relative.

Fifty-eight percent of out-of-state placements were sent to group residential care facilities and 14 percent went to psychiatric residential treatment facilities.

West Virginia sends 25.2 percent of out-of-state placements to Virginia with Pennsylvania and Ohio following close behind at 22.1 percent and 11.5 percent of out-of-state placements relocating to those states.

Nearly 69 percent of all out-of-state placements are between the ages of 13 and 17, and 59 percent are male.

The department is 76 percent staffed with Child Welfare Positions with the most vacancies remaining for social service workers, with 39 vacant positions, and child protective service workers, with 130 vacant positions.

Senate Letter To DHHR Requests Child Welfare Policy Changes

The West Virginia Senate leadership has sent a seven page letter to Department of Health and Human Resources Interim Secretary Dr. Jeffrey Coben that details a number of short, intermediate and long-term policy change suggestions.

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said the initiatives outlined in the letter come from more than two months of research, data collection, counsel, citizen and specialist input. Blair said former DHHR Deputy Secretary Jeremiah Samples, now senior advisor for the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance, was a major contributor to the recommended policy changes.

“The more that we talk about this issue, the more people are sending me emails saying ‘this is wrong, that’s wrong, this is what needs to be done,’” Blair said. “We’re data collectors now piecing it all together to try to come up with short and long term solutions.”

For short-term policy changes, the group recommends increasing Child Protective Services (CPS) workers’ regional pay differential to properly compete with Virginia and Maryland in the Eastern Panhandle. Blair said an immediate 20 percent increase is warranted given the CPS crisis conditions there.

“You end up with two and three times the amount of the work that you do in other areas of the state, but your pay is exactly the same,” Blair said. “The cost of the housing, and the taxes associated with that housing can be double what it is, in say, in Webster County.”

Other short-term policy change suggestions call for transparency with child welfare issues, and reallocation of vacant personal service funding to starting salaries for CPS workers. The letter notes that the previous 15 percent increase, as directed by the governor, applied to only existing workers. Another 10-15 percent should be infused statewide and can come from existing personnel service funds at DHHR.

On an intermediate timeline, the letter asks DHHR to develop a CPS position reallocation plan to prevent underservice in certain counties. The letter notes “Total population can serve as a base level factor in allocations based on current number of CPS staff allocations. For counties that have extraordinary needs, a factor would be incorporated to enhance the base of CPS workers in that county. This proposal would not call for any county to receive less than they currently have without DHHR attesting that such a decrease would not impact services in that county. To make up the difference, additional CPS positions would be added to current totals.”

A recommended policy change would address CPS workers’ caseloads and workloads. Blair said streamlining those duties to individuals with the best ability in a specific area would create better child welfare outcomes.

“It’s no different from having a DMV office, you’ve got 10 windows, you’ve only got two people working those windows, and one of those people is infinitely slower than the other,” Blair said. “The person that you have left is working to the point of wanting to quit and not do their job. The only people that suffer are the ones that are out in the lobby waiting and that’s our children in this instance.”

One proposed policy change mandates a child trauma predictive model, trying to stem a problem before it happens.

“Good governments should be able to predict and anticipate, but you need to have that data, that feedback from where you’re at, and then somebody willing to look at it, and deploy solutions and change,” Blair said.

Other policy change recommendations focus on improving mental health accessibility.

The letter notes: “The West Virginia Legislature and Governor have allocated more funding to health and human resources generally, and child welfare specifically, over the past several years than at any point in West Virginia history. West Virginia must fully explore what funding can be redirected from current allocations to develop child acute mental health infrastructure in communities and sustain it. There must be a mixture of capitalization investment and commitment to the mental health infrastructure long term.”

Blair said there will be legislation introduced in the upcoming regular legislative session to address these needs. The letter notes: “West Virginia’s children and families have suffered from critical failures in the agency you now lead. A lot of work has gone into fixing these problems, but we must have outcomes. We are pleased the Administration has joined the Legislature in realizing the status quo cannot continue and we look forward to working collaboratively on solutions moving forward.”

In his response, DHHR Interim Secretary Coben said he is reviewing the suggestions outlined in the letter from Blair and his leadership team.

“I am deeply appreciative of their outreach and the many recommendations included therein, and will respond promptly,” Coben said. “Many of these recommendations are similar to what our team is reviewing and some are in the process of implementation. I look forward to working collaboratively with the West Virginia Legislature on these critically important issues facing our state.”

Outgoing Sen. Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, responded to the Senate letter with his own letter and a statement. He detailed to Coben the challenge and solution to the CPS staffing crisis in his section of the state.

“CPS vacancy rates in my district have ranged from 40-65 percent over the last couple of years,” Baldwin said. “Currently, we have 6 CPS workers on the job and 6 vacant positions. Summers County has 0 CPS workers.”

Coben responded to Baldwin by promising action.

“Having just received Sen. Stephen Baldwin’s letter, a review will be made followed with a prompt and appropriate response,” Coben said. “Our team has been actively working to address concerns related to the child welfare system and will continue to work collaboratively throughout the state to protect our most vulnerable populations.”

DHHR Restructuring Begins With Appointment of Deputy Secretary

Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch announced that Cammie Chapman will be his Deputy Secretary of Child and Adult Services.

West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) Secretary Bill Crouch announced that Cammie Chapman will be his Deputy Secretary of Child and Adult Services. In that position, Chapman will be involved in a number of departments that directly affect what Crouch said is his number one priority — creating better outcomes for child welfare.

Chapman is the first deputy secretary named following the $1 million organizational study of DHHR by the McChrystal Group, at the direction of Gov. Jim Justice.

Chapman will oversee DHHR’s Bureau for Child Support Enforcement and Bureau for Social Services. DHHR’s Bureau for Child Support Enforcement establishes paternity and child support, enforces support from a child’s parent, and enforces court orders for spousal support. DHHR’s Bureau for Social Services promotes the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and vulnerable adults, supporting individuals to succeed, and strengthening families.

Since 2018, Chapman has served as Associate General Counsel for DHHR and currently oversees all legal aspects of the Bureau for Family Assistance and the Bureau for Social Services. Additionally, Chapman has coordinated efforts across the Department to expand children’s mental health services and served as the point of contact with the U.S. Department of Justice in its partnership with DHHR regarding children’s mental health services. Chapman’s current salary is $93,415. Her new salary will be $122,584.

“I have relied on Cammie’s expertise in the child welfare field and look forward to utilizing her management and leadership skills in this new role, as well as her enthusiastic approach to solving problems,” Crouch said in a press release. “We have much work to do in this realm and I know Cammie is the right person to tackle those challenges head on.”

The McChrystal Group review of DHHR highlights a need for communication. The plan now is to set up agency leaders to facilitate coherent strategies and improved outcomes.

Crouch said that more appointments would be announced throughout the week. Those should include deputy secretaries for substance use disorders and access and eligibility. The study also recommends deputy secretaries for the State Health Officer and the director of the Center for Threat Preparedness.

W.Va. Kids Count Tallies Data On State Of Children

West Virginia ranked 42nd in the latest Kids Count Databook produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The databook tracks hard data on the challenges facing kids around the nation. This latest report has a particular focus on mental health and anxiety challenges facing kids after the pandemic.

News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Tricia Kingery, the executive director of West Virginia Kids Count to learn more about the program and how to improve the lives of West Virginia children.

The organization plans to release a county by county breakdown of the information in October.

Douglas: What is West Virginia Kids Count?

Courtesy image.

Tricia Kingery, executive director, WV Kids Count.

Kingery: West Virginia Kids Count is a private, nonprofit organization. We are one of the state’s oldest child advocacy organizations and we pride ourselves on providing the most trusted data about the well being of West Virginia’s children and we encourage others to use data to drive decisions that help kids have a better life.

Douglas: Rather than just saying, “Well, this is what I believe, you actually have the receipts to prove it.”

Kingery: The foundation of everything we do is data. And I think that’s what makes us a little bit different than other child advocacy organizations. We’ve got a 34 year track record on producing an annual data book on child well being. It is essentially the go to for all things children so that we can see how our children are faring. We recently released the national data book in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. I think it’s interesting to always point out that Kids Count is a network that’s throughout the country, and every state has their own Kids Count. And I’m honored to represent West Virginia Kids Count at a state level, but also at a national level. The Casey Foundation makes that possible. We’re part of a national network and a national movement to help advocate for what kids need most.

Douglas: The organization has been doing this for 34 years producing these kids count data books.

Kingery: Interestingly enough, during the Gaston Caperton administration, he established a task force of business leaders to get involved in child advocacy work. And that was the first Kids Count in the country. West Virginia is leading the way and counting our kids and making them important. His legacy continues with a business driven board of directors. And that’s why we’re a little bit different. We’re all about the data and making sure that we use data to drive decisions, just like a business would do.

Douglas: So this is a nationwide program, but it started right here in West Virginia?

Kingery: It did. It was called a task force. This one, thankfully, turned into West Virginia kids count.

Douglas: What are some of the things you track within the data book?

Kingery: The Casey Foundation reports on a national ranking. And so we’re compared to other states in terms of how our kids are faring. So this year, the report identified West Virginia as 42. So, we are 42nd overall in child well being in comparison to other states throughout the country, which is a slight improvement. We went from 44 to 42. We typically hover around the 40’s, but that’s why data is even more important. So we can use data to drive decisions and help kids.

Douglas: What are some of the things you track?

Kingery: There’s overall child well being but what makes that up is the whole child. There’s four of what we call domains, and those four domains are education, health, family and community, and economic well being. So there’s four buckets of data and each of those buckets have indicators in it.

Let me talk about economic wellbeing for a moment. That’s actually where we struggled the most. If you ask me what’s the biggest foundational concern or challenge for children, it’s poverty. This economic well being indicator, we actually ranked 47th in the country. In terms of overall economic well being, and that’s data points, such as children in poverty, children whose parents lack secure employment, children living in households with the high cost of housing, and teens not in school and not working.

Douglas: There were a couple of things that were up slightly, a couple things that were down slightly.

Kingery: Unfortunately, we do hover in those 40s; 42 is probably the best we’ve been in the last 10 years. So we are making progress. What I want to do is use that data and identify specifically what indicators could push that number down. I mean, let’s be 30 next year, and then 20, and then 10, and then one. Sometimes it’s low hanging fruit. What can we do that can make a big difference? And then sometimes identifying long term change requires step one, step two, step three to do this.

It’s all about using the data, getting the right people to use the data. Our other partner is the legislature. We want them to have access to this guidebook when they’re making decisions and voting, so that they make informed decisions. What the Casey Foundation does is produce the national data book that has West Virginia level data. And then in October, West Virginia Kids Count will publish the state data book which takes those same indicators and breaks them down by county. That allows the media and legislators to understand what’s happening in our own backyard.

Douglas: Give me an example of low hanging fruit; something simple that we could change that would improve the lives of our kids.

Kingery: The focus of this entire data book is on mental health. I think that’s where we can start in terms of low hanging fruit. In fact, the U.S. Surgeon General has recognized us as being in a youth mental health pandemic. Kids are struggling with anxiety and depression, which affects school absenteeism and academic success, and so many other things. Throw a COVID pandemic into the world of which our youth are living and they’re really struggling.

So we can’t ignore the mental health fallout, or what they call an echo pandemic. It does take shape in the form of anxiety and depression for many of our youth. In 2016, West Virginia children were struggling with anxiety and depression at a percentage of 11.7. And then in 2020, that number jumped to 14.6, which is a 24.8 percent increase. That number is the low hanging fruit because that’s the number of children that need mental health resources and support. That’s where we have to start; mental health awareness. We’ve come a long way even in the past 10 years, but it’s still something that folks don’t talk about. We have to make sure our schools are trauma informed, which means they understand that things that are happening at home, affect a child at school, and to make sure there’s acceptance of mental health issues, that there’s environments where kids feel comfortable talking about what’s going on, and then also the resources and support to give them.

Douglas: Does that run across all socioeconomic classes? Is it related to lower socio-economic children?

Kingery: It affects all kids, but research tells us that children living in poverty, and, or, children of various races, it does affect them more so. So children of color and poverty, really have a disadvantage right out of the box. So those are the kids that we really need to be watching out for a little bit more than the others, actually a lot more than the others, and making sure that they even have a level playing field, which they don’t.

I’m a firm believer that poverty is at the foundation, the root cause of all of all of our challenges in West Virginia. And that’s why we have to address the whole child and have to look at education, economics, their family situation, what resources are available in the community. Do you have a bed to sleep in at night? Do you have electricity in your home? Do you feel safe in the home? Do you have access to services and resources? Transportation is a huge issue. But that underlying issue is still economic well being and poverty.

Douglas: What would you like to see the legislature do to improve the mental health and overall health and well being of children in West Virginia?

Kingery: Year before last, we advocated for the passing of what we call the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) bill. And it did pass without funding, but it did create an exploratory task force that looks at the impact of trauma on kids. Recently there’s been a report submitted from that task force to the legislature. We want to make sure that the ACEs movement, that people understand what adverse childhood experiences are. And we want to make sure that we help children who are experiencing those events, overcome those issues, and most importantly, to prevent them from happening in the first place.

I’m hoping the legislature looks at the results of the report and advances the adverse childhood experiences effort. And what that means is funding schools to be trauma informed, making sure there’s access to mental health services in the community. It’s funding anything that puts resources in the hands of kids and families at a local level. We really support schools being the center of a community. So making sure schools have the resources.

Douglas: What’s the takeaway message from this?

Kingery: I think most of us who grew up in West Virginia chose to stay here or came back home. We want to make sure that West Virginia is a great place to be a kid and for all kids, not just our own. So that means honestly looking out for the kids in your life, and not just the ones under your roof. But making sure that you keep an eye out in our community because they need us. The problems are so big and so massive and so complex: COVID-19, depression, the opioid crisis, foster care, grandparents raising grandchildren. We have so many issues we have to come together, place mental health as a priority, talk about it, invest in it, make resources and services accessible to all and that’s it’s going to take all of us to make sure West Virginia is a great place to be a kid and for all kids.