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Academic Opportunity For Students In Foster Care Formally Launched

State leaders including Gov. Jim Justice and Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, attended a ribbon cutting Friday to celebrate the opening of The Middle College at Fairmont State University (FSU).

The program aims to provide youth in foster care a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in two years, plus guaranteed admission to FSU. Middle College students live on campus, attend classes, participate in on-campus activities, and receive services to support their success.

“What a wonderful opportunity. We’re taking the less than advantaged to being gainfully advantaged in the long run,” Blair said. “This may be the first one there is in the state of West Virginia, but mark my word. In 10 years, this will be replicated all over the country. The one thing that needs to be changed up, the federal government’s got to make the waivers in place or make the changes in the rules that allow the money to follow the child to be able to make this work properly.”

Diana Phillips, provost and vice president of academic affairs at FSU, said students in foster care have already been on campus for a month, attending classes and engaging in on-campus activities.

“We’re here to celebrate them and their work as well,” she said. “It’s historic, because middle colleges have existed in the United States since the late 60s. But this is the first one, the very first one, that has ever focused on youth in care, youth in foster care, and so here we are in the state of West Virginia, making historic inroads, not only at Fairmont State.”

The Middle College is a collaboration between FSU, KVC West Virginia – a nonprofit child welfare organization, Marion County Schools and the West Virginia Schools of Diversion and Transition.

Prichard Hall, the home of the Middle College program on Fairmont State University’s campus.
*Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Brent Lemon, executive vice president of the Middle College Program at KVC, said students in foster care often struggle in school because they lack support.

“We know we need to create a solution connecting foster youth in foster care to psychological, emotional, social and academic support that they deserve,” he said. “Middle College is more than just a program. It’s a link to a community, a pathway to opportunity, and a place where young people in foster care can find the connection they need to write their stories and begin to fulfill their individual dreams.”

The program has a lot of room for growth.

Sarah Marshall Roy, regional director for KVC at Middle College, said 18 students are currently enrolled in the program, with 25 more being actively recruited. She said the original goal was to enroll 50 students for the fall.

“In order to be admitted to Middle College, students have to go through a thorough evaluation of an interview, along with meeting with different academic folks from the Department of Education, and so it is a process,” Marshall Roy said. “All of the students walked through that process, they had to complete different academic requirements and so forth. Because of all of that, I think some of the students you know that maybe it wasn’t the best fit for them, decided to opt out of this type of program. We did connect those students with other opportunities.”

Lawmakers Hear Updates On DHHR Reorganization

The re-organization of the DHHR, as directed by lawmakers in 2023, is going well, with a few hiccups, Department of Health Secretary Sherri Young told a legislative committee on Tuesday.

One of the state’s top health officials updated lawmakers on the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources (LOCHHRA) Tuesday about the complex reorganization of West Virginia’s old Department of Health and Human Resources.

Secretary of the Department of Health Sherri Young presented an update to lawmakers who sit on the committee. The DHHR had long been troubled, but came under fire in recent years for staffing shortages and other problems, allegedly compromising the care provided to children in the foster care system or those living in state hospitals.

Following an investigation and the filing of a class action lawsuit, in 2023, the Legislature decided to divide the agency. House Bill 2006 was signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice on March 6, 2023.

The DHHR was split into three departments by an act of the Legislature in 2023. Those three departments are The Department of Human Services (DoHS), the Department of Health (DH) and the Department of Health Facilities (DHF).

The same legislative act directed the three departments to be overseen by the Office of Shared Administration (OSA) which consists of six offices: the Office of Finance, the Office of Human Resources Management, the Office of Constituent Services, the Office of Communications, the Office of Operations and the Office of Management Information Services.

In December 2023 lawmakers shared concerns about efficiency and fears of overlap in the restructuring process. Secretary of DH, Sherri Young told the committee following that December meeting that they could hold question-and-answer sessions with the heads of each of the six offices.

“We had a great discussion back in December, getting to know the directors of each of these offices…and it was felt at that time that this is where they rightly belonged and that they were able to serve all three departments as they continue to do,” Young said. “We had the office directors there, and sometimes it’s better to hear directly from the directors as to how are things going. It was a great meeting. I would put that up as an option again, if you’re interested in coming to talk to the directors and learning more about how OSA is going from an additional perspective.”

On Tuesday morning, during September interim meetings of the Legislature, Young told lawmakers about the ongoing development of the OSA, noting that officially, OSA has only been seated since July 1, 2024.

“But even with 70 days in, we’ve had a lot of wins and a lot of efficiencies and some heavy lifts in other places,” Young said. “If we had to give a percentage, we’re over 80 percent, but we still are committed to getting that work done.”

Young reported a small decrease in staffing in the OSA.

“We’ve had a net loss of a little bit more than five positions, some of those, they may have been open positions that may not have been renewed,” Young said. “I’ll give an example: in Operations where we had a retirement, we just eliminated that position and then moved his folks into other divisions, and [it] is actually working a little bit more efficiently, even.”

Individual Office Updates

During her December 2023 OSA presentation, Young described each of the six offices and their functions. During Tuesday’s testimony, she provided updates about the development of those offices.

“You’ve met with these directors,” Young said. “They do a fantastic job. They’re committed to making sure that the departments are up and running, and even though it’s been a heavy lift, we have an integrated support system. And with the three departments and the three department secretaries working directly with OSA, that has been a benefit because they also had that institutional knowledge.”

Young told lawmakers that institutional knowledge is vital to the future success of the DoHS, DH and DHF.

“They [OSA Directors] have been there far before the three secretaries came to be for the departments,” Young said. “So they are giving us that historical perspective of learning how to do budgets and learning how to manage HR, how to use communications, both internally and externally. So very important functions that they are doing to keep us going. So having that, as far as building out the departments, having that historical knowledge, has been very, very, very good.”

Young used the Office of Communications as an example of efficient downsizing done in the past year. She said when OSA started, the Office of Communications had five filled positions. Now they have four, but two are dedicated to DoHS, one to DH and one to DHF. According to Young, this new structure helps keep messaging consistent and allows for personal expertise.

“They do forward-facing communications,” Young said. “They do our social media, they do our press releases, they make announcements, but they do a lot of internal reviews as well. So any PowerPoint that goes out to for someone doing information at a conference, or any information that goes out to the public, it is vetted through communications for fact finding. It is vetted through communications to make sure everything is consistent, because we want to make sure that the message going out is consistent and that is appropriate for whoever is receiving that, whether it be press inquiries or anything that it does affect the public.”

Young also told lawmakers the Office of Finance has encountered the most obstacles in the transition because of the nature of their work.

“You’re not taking one big account and creating three separate accounts,” Young said. “You’re creating line items out of several little, little accounts that are directed towards offices. The great thing is, it gives more visibility, but that unwinding piece has taken a lot of time and a lot of effort.”

Young told lawmakers Finance also works to acquire funding from the federal government.

“It’s still a process just to get some of the paperwork changed to make sure we’re in compliance with federal government regulations to receive funds because their work was with DHHR previously,” Young said. “Now, their work is with the Department of Health.”

Young said the Office of Human Resources Management was “impacted” by the shift, because of the department’s work with the federal government.

“Benefits and everything change from one DHHR to again, going into the three different departments,” Young said. “Even how they list the open positions, has been a change. So all of that needed to be changed. The good thing is that those changes have been made. We’re doing good.”

Young also told lawmakers the OSA is continuing to work with the Department of Commerce on rebranding.

“We think that we have a good operational rhythm, and the three secretaries have respect of each other in respect of each other’s departments,” Young said.

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

Expert: W.Va.’s Drug Epidemic Is Holding Back Its Economy And Hurting Its Children

A senior policy advisor to the Legislature presented a sobering picture of West Virginia’s drug epidemic on Monday.

Despite the state’s billion dollar response, West Virginia has led the nation in overdose death rates since 2010, according to a senior policy advisor to the legislature.

Jeremiah Samples, former deputy secretary at the now reorganized Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and current senior policy advisor to the Legislature, presented an analysis of the state’s substance use disorder (SUD) crisis to the Joint Committee on Health on Monday.

“The bottom line is that we have not made enough progress on this crisis,” Samples said. “We’re nowhere near where we need to be, and our data relative to other states, and even our own expectations, has fallen far short. We need to reassess all of our SUD strategies and expenditures through the prism of what is impacting real people in our society.”

A survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimates that 208,000 people in West Virginia used illicit drugs in the last month.

“That’s an average,” Samples said of the number. “It’s a gut-wrenching number to hear, but that’s where we stand.”

Samples also cited a West Virginia University Match Survey that found 359,880 West Virginians used drugs in the past year.

“We can’t sustain that as a society,” Samples said. “That is, it’s crippling to the state.”

In 2010, West Virginia’s fatal overdose death rate per 100,000 people was 28.2. Even after the state spent millions combating the problem, in 2022, West Virginia’s fatal overdose death rate had grown to 80.9 per 100,000 people.

“Our overdose death rate since 2010 has increased by 135 percent,” Samples told the committee. “West Virginia’s overdose death rate is 151 percent higher than the best state in the country, 85.6 percent higher than the national average and 36.4 percent higher than the next worst state (Tennessee).”

Samples cautioned against taking overdose death reports out of context.

“Any downturn is positive,” Samples said. “Those are real lives that people, that are not dying. However, the trend, we’ve had a couple blips where we’ve gone down in the past, but the trends are really what matter, and from a trend perspective, we have increased exponentially since we started leading the nation in overdose deaths.”

According to CDC data, the nation saw a 6.7 percent decrease in overdoses from January 2023 to January 2024. During that same period, West Virginia saw a 1.92 percent increase in overdoses.

“West Virginia is not keeping pace with the decrease in other states,” Samples said. “Before the pandemic, we were at a plateau of sorts. The pandemic hits and fentanyl issues become exponentially worse. Overdose death rates across the country explode. They increased in West Virginia, more so than most states. I think we were perhaps third, we saw the third biggest increase during the pandemic. But the bottom line is, we’re not decreasing at the same rate as some of these other states. So we’re not coming back down to that plateau. We need to get to that plateau and then continue to go down.”

The Current System

Samples explained that West Virginia’s state government response involves “over a dozen agencies,” led by the Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse, founded in 2018, and the Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP), founded in 2017.

One of those agencies is the Bureau for Behavioral Health (BBH), the designated state mental health authority recognized by the federal government as the single state agency for substance abuse services.

The bureau receives federal block grant funding for substance abuse and prevention. It is responsible for SUD provider infrastructure and manages the state’s Crisis and Referral Line, 1-844-HELP4WV, contract.

“They (BBH) apply for these big federal grants,” Samples said. “They’re responsible for the infrastructure of the state for SUD and their annual budget is roughly $225 million.”

Samples said from 2017 to 2020, BBH was forced to send $34.2 million back to the federal government for funds that were not used from those grants.

“This came up in LOCHHRA (Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability) last year,” Samples said. “We’re unclear from 2021 forward, how much money has been sent back, but it is something that the legislature and the state should explore and investigate.”

In 2023, legislation was passed directing the ODCP to report to the governor’s office. In the DHHR reorganization, the ODCP was placed administratively within the Department of Human Services.

Samples said it is hard to track SUD spending in West Virginia, but the state fiscal year 2025 budget for the ODCP is $2.3 million.

“You can directly attribute hundreds of millions again, in direct expenditures on SUD, just in West Virginia, annually,” Samples said. “And then there’s hundreds of millions more we know that we’re spending that are indirect, for example, child protective services, the child welfare crisis, there are hundreds of millions in indirect costs in just child welfare alone.”

A 2021 study that includes the economic impacts of the crisis by the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy estimated that the drug crisis costs West Virginia $11.3 billion a year.

Samples also cited a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that found West Virginia experienced 1,335 known overdose deaths in 2022.

“Despite all the investment and expenditure, since 1999 we’ve seen a 1,680 percent increase in our overdose death rate,” Samples said. “Since 2010 which, again, 2010 is when we started leading the nation, [we’ve seen] a 135 percent increase. Since 2017, [we’ve seen] a 56 percent increase. So we have not been getting results. We’ve not been reversing the trend.”

According to Samples, Medicaid is the largest source of treatment funding for SUD in the state, serving approximately 50,000 members with an SUD diagnosis annually.

Medicaid is expected to spend about $140 million on SUD medical and behavioral health claims in West Virginia in 2025. In addition, Medicaid spends approximately $70 million on medication-assisted treatment (MAT) drugs.

“Medicaid’s annual expenditure, when you include MAT and the services, the claims are about $210 million,” Samples said. “Fatal overdoses have increased amongst the Medicaid population from 2018 to 2020, and so we’ve not seen appropriate progress there either.”

West Virginia Medicaid’s Substance Use Disorder Waiver

Since the launch of West Virginia’s Medicaid SUD Waiver, or 1115 Waiver, fatal overdose rates have continued to rise.

West Virginia Medicaid’s biggest SUD expenditure is the 1115 Waiver, which was developed to help increase the availability of SUD prevention and treatment services for Medicaid members.

The waiver was requested by the state and approved in 2017 by the federal government. It allows the state to provide additional services beyond what the federal government requires.

In 2018, the Bureau for Medical Services announced the expansion of services under the SUD Waiver, adding coverage of methadone as a withdrawal management strategy, a Naloxone distribution initiative, coverage of adult residential treatment, peer recovery support systems, withdrawal management services and the use of the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) tool to identify SUD treatment needs in the Medicaid community.

The SUD Waiver cost $12.2 million in 2019 and increased to $129.3 million by 2023. The Federal Reserve was responsible for $114 million of the 2023 total. West Virginia paid $15.3 million the same year.

Projected expenditures in 2027 are expected to grow to $161 million, according to Samples.

West Virginia Medicaid has proposed further expansion of the SUD waiver to the federal government. The application is under review with the expiration of the current waiver on September 30, 2024.

Proposed expansions include:

Expanding peer support to more settings
Sending quick response teams to clients who have overdosed or are experiencing a crisis
Providing Medicaid coverage to eligible individuals incarcerated in state prisons starting 30 days before their release
Offering involuntary secure withdrawal management and stabilization for individuals deemed to be a danger to themselves or others
Supporting a holistic and integrated approach to treatment
Education and outreach for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Hepatitis C (HCV) concerning substance use
Addressing social determinants of health to encourage self-reliance and support continued recovery housing offering clinical-level treatment services.
Supported house and supported employment
Offering the TRUST protocol for people with stimulant use disorders
Reimbursing short-term residential and inpatient treatment services in settings that qualify as an institution that treats mental diseases for Medicaid-eligible adults with serious mental illnesses.

West Virginia’s SUD Outcomes

Samples then shared some encouraging outcomes with the committee from this spending.

According to CDC provisional data, there was a decrease of 9.4 percent in overdose deaths nationally from March 2023 to March 2024. In West Virginia, that same data showed a decrease of 4.91 percent during the same time period.

Samples also cited a decrease in new HIV cases from 153 in 2021 to 100 in 2023.

“This was a really big deal a couple of years ago, Kanawha County alone, which was one of the worst hit counties, saw a 66 percent decrease from 2021 to 2023,” he said. “The 2024 data, which is available online, it’s looking really good. It’s actually even more positive than that. So kudos to everyone that’s worked on that.”

According to a 2022 report from the CDC, 2,400 people were living with HIV in West Virginia.

“Other positives, Medicaid, managed care organizations, providers, recovery homes, they’re starting to make a lot of progress in better measuring our outcomes, better measuring what’s actually happening in the state, so we can pivot and actually make progress on this crisis,” Samples said.

Samples also said he is hopeful about the West Virginia First Foundation, the organization formed by an act of the legislature that is responsible for dispersing West Virginia’s opioid settlement funds.

“The first foundation, this is a new development and something that I think we should have hope for. The foundation stems from efforts by the Attorney General Patrick Morrissey, securing an opioid settlement of approximately $1 billion,” Samples said. “This is the number one per capita opioid settlement in the United States.”

Drugs And Economics

While there are some positive indicators for the future of West Virginia’s drug epidemic, Samples said the state has not had any significant successes but has seen plenty of failure.

“The failures have consequences, the economic impact of the drug crisis,” Samples said. “One study said $8.8 billion a year in impact. Another study said $11.3 billion a year in impact, just on the economy, a 12 percent economic drag on our GDP (Gross Domestic Product), annually.”

Samples said the drug crisis costs West Virginia at least one-eighth of the state’s total economy based on spending on health care, substance use treatment, criminal justice costs, the societal burden of fatal overdoses and lost worker productivity.

The “drag” on West Virginia’s GDP is more than double that of the next highest state, Maryland where substance use disorder-related costs consumed 5.4 percent of its GDP.

Then, Samples addressed West Virginia’s labor workforce participation rate (LFPR), or, the number of people in the labor force (working or looking for work) as a percentage of the total population 16 years and older. West Virginia’s LFPR is at 55.1 percent in July 2024, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

“We’re no longer last, and I don’t say that in jest,” Samples said. “I mean, we were last place in labor force participation rate from 1976 to 2022, so progress is progress, and we are making some progress in that realm, but the drug crisis is holding us back.”

According to Samples, the economic impact of productivity loss for non-fatal substance use disorders has a reported cost of $316 million dollars and 1,206 jobs to the state, while the economic impact of productivity loss due to overdose fatalities carries an additional cost of $322 million and 5,905 jobs.

“When you look at the unemployment rate, which is at 4.2 percent right now, relative to our labor force participation rate, our labor force participation rate has pretty much been level, but our unemployment rate has gone down,” Samples said. “There’s just people not in the job market looking for work, and this is attributable to the drug crisis.”

West Virginia has the highest death rate for working-aged populations and the second lowest life expectancy in the U.S. at 72.8.

“Even going back to 1990 West Virginia has had a lower life expectancy than the national average, but there’s been a gap that’s built, and even as the national life expectancy has gone down, we’ve gone down more,” Samples said.

West Virginia’s Children Pay A Price

According to Samples’ report, 83 percent of child welfare removals were from homes with known drug use.

“West Virginia’s foster care rate grew 61 percent from 2010, to 2021,” Samples said. “It’s 23 percent higher than the next worst state, and 118 percent higher than the national average.”

Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that West Virginia leads the nation in its foster care entry rate.

“The difference between the entry rate and the foster care rate, entry foster care rate, is just kids in foster care,” Samples said. “The entry rate is kids coming in.”

Samples said West Virginia has led the nation in foster care entry rates since 2010.

“We are 131 percent worse than the national average, and 54.9 percent worse than the next worst state in foster care entry rates, and that’s Alaska,” Samples said.

In 2000, six out of every 1,000 West Virginia children entered foster care. In 2021, 13 out of every 1,000 West Virginia children entered foster care. West Virginia’s entry rate increased 117 percent from 2000 to 2021.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau, in 2020, West Virginia had the highest percentage of children nationally suffering from substantiated maltreatment with drug abuse by the caregiver.

2020 CDC data also showed West Virginia had the highest rate nationally of infants screened in by Child Protective Services (CPS) with prenatal substance exposure.

Also in 2020, there were 712 babies screened in by CPS in West Virginia with drug exposure, compared to 526 babies screened in California, which has a population of 39.5 million people. West Virginia has a population of 1.7 million people.

“We only have about 17,000 babies born in the state a year,” Samples said. “It’s not a lot. If you extrapolate from our birth score numbers, then you’re looking at and not just the difference between neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and in uterine substance exposure. NAS is worse. The babies basically full-blown addicted, is kind of the simple way to say it. we’re looking at around 2,500 babies every year that are exposed to drugs in the womb.”

The Future

In his final address to the legislature, Samples told lawmakers West Virginia’s drug epidemic response needs to be reevaluated.

“The most important thing we need to do, in my opinion, is we need to measure what matters so that we can then pivot and organically improve our response to this crisis,” Samples said. “We need to measure every aspect of our substance use disorder policies and expenditures, and we need to tie it back to a core societal measure.”

Samples left lawmakers with a list of proposed policy solutions including:

Mandatory Treatment (Casey’s Law)
SUD Transparency Act: SUD Outcome and Expenditure Dashboard
Save Babies from Drugs Act
Improve CPS Management of Cases with Drug Addiction
Measure Outcomes of Recovery Homes
Analysis of syringe exchange outcomes and criminal penalties for illegal needle distribution
Enhanced drug testing and SUD services for those on government benefits
SUD Relocation Supports
Public Reporting on SUD expenditures and program outcomes
Expenditure and Opportunities Audit:
Ending Addiction Amongst Inmate Population
Expand Inmate SUD Services via RSAT and GOALS programs
Develop a ratio of law enforcement needs across communities and increase funding for more officers

“Our economy still struggling, I would propose that really we look at 10 core measures and that we use a smarter approach, which is really just an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time, evaluated and resourced,” Samples said.

Samples said he is “leaving the legislature next month,” but offered no further information after thanking legislative staff and lawmakers.

“It’s been an honor,” Samples said. “The President and the Speaker have been great to me. You all have been great to me. You know you’re wonderful people, and I’ll just always be available to you, should you need anything. I believe in this body, and I believe what you do, and I believe in your hearts.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Attorneys Suing W.Va. Foster Care Oppose Summary Judgment

Attorneys suing West Virginia for its alleged treatment of children in foster care say the Department of Human Services should not be granted the summary judgment it requested.

Attorneys suing West Virginia for its alleged treatment of children in foster care said the Department of Human Services (DoHS) should not be granted summary judgment because, they argue, kids in state care are still at risk.

Last month DoHS asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia to make a final decision on the case based on statements and evidence without going to trial, otherwise known as a summary judgment.

The 2019 class action lawsuit alleges the department neglected the children in its care by placing them in unsafe or unstable environments and lacked the necessary staff to serve them.

In a July 10 press release, DoHS said a jury trial would be “costly and unnecessary,” claiming the more than 3.2 million pages of documents they’ve provided over the past five years prove that the plaintiffs could not win the case, based on “undisputed facts reflected in these documents and testimony.”

The plaintiffs filed a memorandum in opposition to summary judgment on July 27, 2024, arguing the defendants are inflating the success and improvements outlined in their filings.

“They might be having meetings, they might be planning this, and they might be planning that, but the basic facts of the system are still very much in dispute, like workers having caseloads that were very, very high, like children being maltreated, like children being sent out of state in large numbers,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, the lead plaintiff for the class and executive director of A Better Childhood (ABC), one of the groups suing the state.

ABC is counsel for the children, along with Shaffer & Shaffer, a West Virginia law firm and the nonprofit organization Disability Rights of West Virginia.

“We do think that there are a lot of facts that are in dispute, and we think that children are still being harmed, for sure,” Lowry said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

New Program Aims To Provide ‘Individualized’ Support To Youth In Foster Care

A new program from the West Virginia Department of Human Services aims to provide individualized care to youth in the foster care system by further addressing their clinical and placement needs.

A new program from the West Virginia Department of Human Services (DoHS) aims to provide additional care to youth in the foster care system on a personalized basis.

Announced earlier this week, The Promise Project is a DoHS program coordinated with Aetna Better Health of West Virginia. Through the program, Aetna will conduct assessments of each child’s clinical and placement needs.

It will also create a placement intervention team comprised of health care providers and DoHS employees that meets weekly to directly address “the needs of children without placement and those requiring new placements,” according to a Monday press release.

Since 2020, Aetna has served as the sole managed care provider for youth in the state’s foster care system. This role has meant overseeing “physical and behavioral health care services” for children in foster care, as well as those receiving adoption assistance or participating in the Children with Serious Emotional Disorders Waiver program.

DoHS Secretary Cynthia Persily said in the press release that The Promise Project marks an effort to provide “holistic, individualized care for children in the foster care system.”

“By taking a personalized approach, the project not only addresses immediate placement needs but also supports the long-term well-being and stability of children,” Persily said. “This collaborative effort ensures that youth receive the support they need to thrive and eventually reunite with their families and communities.”

Likewise, Aetna Executive Director Kathy Szafran said providing individualized care like this ensures children in the foster care system “receive the best possible support and opportunities for a brighter future.”

“By working together, we can provide tailored care that addresses the unique needs of each child,” she said.

Number Of Children In Foster Care At Lowest Level In 7 Years

State officials are reporting West Virginia has less than 6,000 kids in state care for the first time in seven years.

As of June 30, 2024, there are 5,991 children in state custody, marking the first time since March 2017 that number has dropped below 6,000, according to state officials and the state’s Child Welfare Dashboard.

The Department of Human Services (DoHS), Bureau for Social Services (BSS) and Gov. Jim Justice announced improvements to the state’s foster care system on Thursday. The number of children in state custody peaked in April 2020 at 7,433 children.

Gov. Jim Justice discussed the announcement during his regular briefing on Thursday, acknowledging that there is still work to be done to improve outcomes for children in state care.

“Now we got tons more to do, we all know that, and we have tragedies happen from time to time, and we need to try to prevent them in every single way,” Justice said. “But from a foster care standpoint, I’m happy to announce that the number of children in this state that are in state custody right now, is at the lowest that has been in the last seven years.”

According to the Child Welfare Dashboard and a DoHS press release, the vacancy rate for Child Protective Services (CPS) positions has fallen by 12 percent since Jan. 2023. There are 14 vacancies in Youth Services (YS) workers, a vacancy rate of 11 percent.

“Our focused efforts to recruit and retain qualified staff are showing significant progress,” said Jeff Pack, DoHS Bureau for Social Services commissioner. “Reducing our vacancy rates means we can better serve the children and families of West Virginia and ensure they receive the protection and support they need.”

As directed by Senate Bill 273, passed in March 2023, in 2024 BSS implemented a new classification and compensation system, aiming to help border counties and panhandle bureaus compete with salaries out of state and attract more workers. Five new CPS positions were added to the Berkeley and Jefferson counties district.

BSS said it increased its workforce to meet the needs of an increasing number of child welfare abuse and/or neglect referrals.

The Centralized Intake for Abuse and Neglect received 39,100 intakes with 24,085 accepted for referral in 2023. As of June 30, 2024, Centralized Intake received 20,179 intakes with 12,363 accepted for referral.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.