Foster Care Story Archives - Page 17 of 18 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Four Things To Know About W.Va.’s Shift To A Managed Care Foster System

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources has selected Aetna Better Health of West Virginia as the company to oversee their management of foster care in West Virginia.

A managed care model is essentially a privatized form of contracting out government services to a company in the private sector. In most states, including West Virginia, Medicaid is contracted out through a managed care model.

The shift to a managed care model for the state’s overwhelmed foster care system is a result of House Bill 2010, which was sponsored by Republicans and passed into law earlier this spring. The law says the Department of Health and Human Resources must shift its foster care system into a managed care model, overseen by an outside company, by January 2020.

The DHHR reviewed a number of companies. On Tuesday the agency annouced it was selecting Aetna Better Health of West Virginia. Aetna currently also manages the state’s Medicaid coverage.

According to a press release from the DHHR, the implementation of managed care services for the state’s child welfare population will “aim to streamline the administration of health services.” But what exactly does that mean?

A DHHR caseworker will continue to serve as a primary point of contact for the family and their case, but Aetna will now serve as an additional resource.
The Managed Care Organization (Aetna) will work to help foster families get information on the medical history of the child in their care, and help coordinate the medical and social services needs of the child.
Aetna will establish an advisory group with kinship families to understand needs related to the care their children are receiving.
Aetna will assist or amend current processes to better meet families’ needs.

The DHHR says these changes will help them better help foster children in a “holistic” way. “West Virginia is in the midst of a child welfare crisis, and DHHR believes the utilization of an MCO to help provide coordinated care to this vulnerable population will assist us in addressing this issue,” said Jeremiah Samples, deputy secretary for DHHR.
But some foster parents have questions about what all this will mean for them, and the children under their care, said Marissa Sanders, who runs the West Virginia Foster, Adoptive, & Kinship Parents Network.

“Just a lot of questions about what their relationship with the care coordinator would be,” Sanders said.

She said a lot of foster families also are concerned that they’ll need to change pediatricians, if their current doctor isn’t included in Aetna’s network.

Recently, groups involving 12 children in foster care filed a lawsuit against West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and officials with the state DHHR. That lawsuit alleges the government has violated the rights of nearly 6,800 children currently in the state’s foster care system.

W.Va. Foster Parents Say They Need More Support

Five out of every 100 babies born in West Virginia are born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, the physical effects experienced during withdrawal from drugs. Many of these babies are put into foster care.

There are a lot of families stepping up to take them in, but many in West Virginia — which has the highest rate of children taken into state care in the U.S. — say they feel unprepared for the task of taking care of the children with this group of conditions.

Scott and Donna Tiddle took their son home, as a foster baby, when he was just a few weeks old. It’s not exactly what they expected they’d be doing at that time.

“I mean, we’re 48 years old, we’re close to 50,” Scott Tiddle said. “You know, most of the people I work with are thinking about retirement and empty nest and traveling.”

Their toddler is now doing well, but has had health issues and developmental delays because of opioids he was exposed to before he was born.

“It’s hard to forget what happened to him, and what didn’t need to happen to him,” said Tiddle, holding his two-year-old son in his arms. His son still has yet to take his own steps.

Initially, he and his wife didn’t think they were ready to foster a child with a disability. They fostered their son not knowing what kind of health issues he might eventually encounter. After a year, they adopted him.

“I could not give him away,” Donna Tiddle said. “There was just no way. He was a part of this family, and no matter what obstacles come our way, he’s ours.”

But the Tiddles needed to learn how best to take care of a baby with NAS. In their training to become foster parents, the Tiddles said they didn’t get any guidance on how to take care of a baby with NAS symptoms.

Another foster mom, Kelly Crow, recalled a similar experience while taking care of a baby girl with NAS. She remembers a lot of intense crying, which was scary. But ultimately she found that what the baby needed was pretty simple: around the clock cuddling.

“The best thing you can give them is all the love you can give them so, physically, all the touch that you can, all the soft voices that you can,” Crow said.

Marissa Sanders, who runs the Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Parents Network, an advocacy group for foster families in West Virginia, said the people who often need the most support are those who’ve taken in a grandchild or a neighbor. These foster parents are called “kinship parents.”

“Those people often don’t get any training, they don’t have the same level of support and background, [or] access to workers that a certified foster parent has, Sanders said.

Sanders, a former foster mom herself, said she wants the state do more to help these grandparents, and other foster parents, learn how to cope with difficult behaviors.

“When you’re parenting a child who has experienced significant trauma, who is away from their birth family, there’s a whole lot of extra support needed,” Sanders said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.

Lawsuit Alleges Abuse, Shortcomings In West Virginia’s Foster Care System

Updated on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 at 4:42 p.m.

A lawsuit against West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and officials with the state Department of Health and Human Resources alleges the government has violated the rights of nearly 6,800 children currently in the state’s foster care system.

The 100-page-plus complaint alleges the state’s foster care system is failing to protect its most vulnerable and defenseless citizens. It says West Virginia’s foster children are housed in temporary shelters, hotels, institutions, or expensive out-of-state for-profit facilities where they never see a caseworker and are subjected to abuse.

Twelve children in West Virginia’s foster care system — ranging from ages 2 to 17 — are named as the initial plaintiffs. Advocacy groups A Better Childhood and Disability Rights West Virginia — and the law firm of Shaffer & Shaffer PLLC — are representing those children who are all currently under the legal guardianship of the state, according to the complaint.

An embargoed copy of the complaint — which seeks to represent all foster children under the state’s guardianship — and other related materials were provided to West Virginia Public Broadcasting before its official filing.

Attorneys involved in the case said the suit would be filed early Tuesday, October 1.

Groups representing the 12 children in the lawsuit provided basic information about each of the plaintiffs in the initial filing. With all of the plaintiffs being minors, they are identified — in the lawsuit and other associated materials — only by a first name and last initial. Many of the stories about the children allege abuse, multiple placements across the system and other shortcomings by the Department of Health and Human Resources.

Gov. Justice and state health officials, including DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, DHHR Deputy Secretary Jeremiah Samples and Bureau of Children and Families Commissioner Linda Watts are named as defendants.

West Virginia’s foster care system has been under scrutiny by state lawmakers and federal officials in recent years.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Legislature passed a bill to allow a private, managed care organization to run the state’s foster care system.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation state on its handling of mental health services within the state’s foster care system. In May 2019, the DOJ and the state officials entered into a settlement agreement to improve the system.

DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch said changes were made to the child welfare system starting in 2013 and efforts have increased every year since.

Crouch said the lawsuit will cost the state millions of dollars “and was filed by a company that has never contacted us to ask the question: ‘What are you doing to fix these problems?’ We welcome the opportunity to make our case in court.”

Gov. Jim Justice is also listed as a defendant in the lawsuit. A spokesman says the governor declined to comment on the suit.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

West Virginia Data: 651 Kids Have Run Away From Foster Care Since 2018

West Virginia's Health and Human Resources Department says 651 foster care children, mostly teen boys, have run away from group care settings or schools…

West Virginia’s Health and Human Resources Department says 651 foster care children, mostly teen boys, have run away from group care settings or schools in less than a year.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that as of Sept. 12, 72 children in state custody were still missing and classified as runaways. They’re just a fraction of the more than 500 others that’ve escaped from less-secure state care facilities or schools since December 2018.

Health Department official Jeremiah Samples told the legislature’s Joint Committee on Children and Families Tuesday that these numbers are on track to surpass last year’s.

The newspaper reports West Virginia has the country’s highest number of children in state custody per capita. Lawmakers have been assessing solutions to address what the outlet calls a “burdened” foster care system.

Facing Record Number of Children in System, Foster Care Families Share Experiences at Forum

Lawyers, lawmakers, about two dozen foster families, and others put their heads together Tuesday evening to discuss what’s working and what could be better inside West Virginia’s foster care system.

The forum is one of a series of listening sessions being hosted across the state by the non-profit child welfare organization, the Children’s Home Society of West Virginia.

The group, which helps certify foster families, is compiling policy suggestions ahead of next year’s legislative session, where foster care is once again expected to be a top issue.

The number of West Virginia children in foster and kinship care has doubled since 2015 largely due to the opioid epidemic.

Brandi Davis, regional director with the Children’s Home Society, said there are nearly 7,000 kids currently in the system.

“We wanted to hold this forum just to get everybody together to be able to talk about foster care and adoption and kinship care to make sure that we make sure that the people who put bills in place [sic] that could impact our foster care system later on really understand what these families need,” she said.

Participants generally praised the hard-working case workers and child advocates involved in the foster care system.

Many expressed concerns over the sometimes burdensome paperwork required from foster families and long wait times for approvals from West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources staff for things ranging from final home visits to approving babysitters.

“We’re eight months in and I might have one babysitter,” said Emily Tanner, whose almost 9-month-old foster daughter was bouncing on her lap. She said the requirements to babysit foster children can be onerous and includes state residency requirements as well as a background check and being fingerprinted.

Tanner is fostering with the hope of adopting, and said, for her, the uncertainty and drawn out process — both to get final approval to be a foster parent and now waiting to adopt — has been challenging.

One foster family said they submitted paperwork for a final home inspection in January, but didn’t receive it until June.

Dianna Dickins, regional supervisor for Child Protective Services in Monongalia County, said she understood frustrations with CPS. She said the agency in Monongalia County is fully-staffed for the first time in three years, however case workers still have, on average, 45 cases each at one time.

This was the Children’s Home Society’s second listening event. The first was held in Madison, Boone County, on August 15th. The next event is scheduled for Thursday, September 5th, from 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. at Ritchie County High School in Ellenboro, Ritchie County. Other events are in planning stages.

Federal Legislation Prompts DHHR to Move Youth in Residential Treatment Programs Back in State

West Virginia youth who need intensive non-family residential treatment have traditionally been served out of state. Now, the West Virginia Bureau for Children and Families will try and move some of those kids back in state to comply with new federal regulations.

In February, President Donald Trump signed the Family First Prevention Services Act, which included major reforms for child welfare. The legislation is essentially designed to help keep kids with their families or in a family-like setting.

Under the new legislation, states must take steps to reduce the use of group homes and other group care facilities. When children need residential services for “behavioral, intellectual, developmental and/or emotional” disorders, those must be provided in a child-care institution with no more than 25 children. The legislation lists a number of options the state must provide in order to qualify for federal funds including establishing Qualified Residential Treatment Programs.

According to a press release from the WV DHHR, the agency is seeking to establish these treatment programs for youth ages 12-21 by converting beds in existing residential treatment programs.

No new beds are to be created. Instead 100 beds – 25 in each of the bureaus four regions – are to be converted with the help of start-up funds from the state.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.