On this episode of The Legislature Today, government reporter Randy Yohe sat down with Gov. Jim Justice to discuss a number of issues facing the state, including budget surpluses and tax reductions.
On this episode of The Legislature Today, government reporter Randy Yohe sat down with Gov. Jim Justice to discuss a number of issues facing the state, including budget surpluses and tax reductions.
Also, the Senate passed several bills Wednesday, including Senate Bill 426, which allows the state’s chief information security officer to establish standards for, and ultimately block or ban, access to technological services, apps, programs or products on government devices. One example that has been at the forefront of this debate is the popular app TikTok.
And the Senate Finance Committee spent an hour Tuesday on the budget for the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which oversees the state’s prisons and jails.
Finally, a bill concerning the authority of the Foster Care Ombudsman passed the House of Delegates unanimously.
The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.
Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Family Treatment Court is an innovative program that reunifies families amid the state’s foster care crisis and the drug epidemic.
The courtroom in Nicholas County was packed Thursday as 10 parents graduated from the county’s Family Treatment Court program.
Large, framed portraits of the graduates and their respective families lined the front of the courthouse — the parents’ and kids’ smiles on display to show the room that their families were now whole.
Family Treatment Court is an innovative program that reunifies families amid the state’s foster care crisis and drug epidemic, two problems that are interwoven in West Virginia.
Under the program, parents who have completed substance use disorder treatment, and other requirements, are reunited with their children after being involved in the child welfare system.
“It’s kind of the people who have that drug problem and come into these cases and make that admission, ‘Hey this is something that is not right, and I need to improve on it,’” said Stephanie Smith, family treatment court case coordinator. She said meth has been the most common drug in the county.
“They also have to be willing — that’s kind of the biggest part,” she added.
Nicholas County is the fifth county in the state selected by the state Supreme Court of Appeals to run a grant-funded Family Treatment Court Program.
Nearly 30 people are involved in running the program, including child protective services workers and employees from the local school system.
One of the program’s goals is to minimize the time kids spend in foster care as West Virginia has the highest rate in the country of kids coming into foster care.
Twenty children were reunified with their parents following Thursday’s graduation, and many of the kids were in the courtroom for the ceremony.
Summersville resident Ally Carpenter, 27, has been drug and alcohol free for 275 days with the program. After finding housing and a job, and completing the program’s other requirements, she was reunited with her 11-month-old son and graduated from Family Treatment Court.
“Everyone here was willing to work with you one on one and whatever it took to get your child back quicker,” Carpenter said. “It’s really done a lot of good and put a lot of children back in the homes of parents who wanted them.”
Judge Stephen Callaghan fought to bring the program to his county and, since its launch in 2020, it now has 39 graduates and has reunited 63 children with their parents.
“We do it because of what you just saw in the courtroom. I’m proud to say that we’re one county and one judge, and at times this fall, we’ve had the largest family treatment court in the state,” Callaghan said.
Former graduates attended the ceremony, cheering as men and women received their certificates. Callaghan explained that it’s a community-wide effort to run the program, including finding housing, furniture, treatment and jobs for participants. Smith noted that finding housing is often the biggest barrier in the rural county.
A local business owner who has employed several of the program participants attended the graduation, and Callaghan said the tight-knit community is more than willing to give.
“It’s so easy to get people involved because all you have to do is say, ‘Do you want to help people and families affected by drugs?’ Who would say no to that?” he said.
Carpenter had a big smile as she held her son in the courtroom during her graduation. She said the program has provided her with good friends and an ongoing support system as she begins community college next month.
“I’m going to be a vet tech and then eventually hopefully become a vet,” she said.
Compared to the national average, West Virginia has more children in the foster care system than any other state.
Compared to the national average, West Virginia has more children in the foster care system than any other state.
Jeff Pack, the commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Social Services, told the West Virginia Legislature’s Committee on Children and Families that almost 13 out of every 1,000 children in West Virginia are currently in the state’s foster care system. The positive to come out of the situation is that nearly half of those children are in kinship care.
Kinship care is when children are placed with someone they’re familiar with like family, a teacher or someone from church.
“As of the end of the month, we had over 6,600 kids in state custody,” Pack said. “Forty six percent of those — over 3,000 — were placed with kinship care.”
Pack also noted that West Virginia compares favorably when it comes to the stability for kids in foster care and the incidence of maltreatment while in care.
Teenagers at a Martinsburg-based residential treatment facility were removed after a Department of Health and Human Resources investigation Friday.
Teenagers at a Martinsburg-based residential treatment facility were removed after a Department of Health and Human Resources investigation Friday.
DHHR declined an interview but said the Bureau of Social Services has stopped placing children at the Board of Child Care as a result of the investigation.
A statement provided to West Virginia Public Broadcasting said, “Some children who were placed at the Board of Child Care have returned home or to other appropriate placements. As placements are being determined, those children who are still being cared for at the Board of Child Care-Falling Water campus are being provided additional support and supervision.”
The Board of Child Care of The United Methodist Church is a residential treatment facility for youth, age 12 to 21. According to its website, the agency helps support those coping with emotional and behavioral issues.
The investigation comes while DHHR is undergoing a federal lawsuit related to foster care, with advocates arguing that DHHR failed to appropriately plan for the minors in its custody.
The department previously investigated the Board of Child Care in 2014 and 2015 after complaints of it being unsafe for staff and youth and reports of residents running away, respectively.
An employee was also charged with child abuse in 2019.
The lawsuit was dismissed by the U.S. District Court of Southern West Virginia last year, deferring the case to the state courts.
A federal foster care lawsuit against West Virginia officials and the Department of Health and Human Resources reopened Monday after the previous decision to dismiss the case was overturned in an appellate court.
The case was originally filed in 2019 as a civil lawsuit on behalf of 12 children in foster care. A request was made in 2020 to expand the case to represent every child in the foster care system as part of a class action lawsuit.
Lawyers from New York City-based nonprofit A Better Childhood argued that DHHR failed to appropriately plan for the minors in its custody, citing over-reliance on shelter care and a shortage of case workers.
The lawsuit was dismissed by the U.S. District Court of Southern West Virginia last year, deferring the case to the state courts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the dismissal, arguing that because the plaintiffs are most interested in pursuing the case as a federal class action suit, they have a right to a decision at the federal level.
In the court’s opinion, senior judge Henry Floyd said “forcing plaintiffs to once more litigate their claims piecemeal would get federalism exactly backwards.”
The DHHR’s online Child Welfare Dashboard reports nearly 6,600 children are in foster care statewide and that 68 percent of Child Protective Service worker positions have been filled as of July 11.
The first commercial farm to be staffed and operated by foster care youth is being built at the Stepping Stones Residential Treatment Facility in Wayne County.
After loading up their crops and setting up a stand at the Ceredo Farmer’s Market, youth from the Stepping Stones Residential Treatment Facility sold their first $100 dollars of produce that they grew on their commercial farm, Growing Hope.
Stepping Stones Residential Treatment Facility
First dollar earned by Growing Hope
Located in Lavalette, West Virginia, Stepping Stones is a child welfare and behavioral health provider for Cabell and Wayne County. The program helps young adults in the foster care system transition into adulthood.
Many Appalachian youth who age out of the foster care system fall into homelessness or substance use disorders. According to Susan Fry, the director of Stepping Stones, transitioning from foster care is harder when the children don’t have trade skills or access to education.
“You can’t go out and be a productive member of society if you haven’t had the opportunity,” Fry said. “Whether it be through a university, a community college, or trade so that they can achieve employment that pays a livable wage.”
It doesn’t help that some of these youth are transitioning into a food insecure community. The closest grocery store for rural Lavalette is a 20 minute drive to Huntington.
The Growing Hope farm began in partnership with Green Bronx Machine, a New York City based nonprofit that teaches children about agriculture and science while creating sustainable sources of employment and nutrition for underdeveloped communities.
“The same economic hardships, the same lack of education opportunities, the same nutrition and health disparities that face the young men in Appalachia are precisely what are facing young men and young children here in the South Bronx,” the CEO of Green Bronx Machine, Stephen Ritz, said.
Growing Hope uses aeroponic tower gardens to grow plants like cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, and a wide variety of leafy greens and herbs. Aeroponics is a process of growing crops without soil, which allows plants to be grown year-round.
Stepping Stones Residential Treatment Facility
Growing Hope’s aeroponic farm
According to Ritz, the skill to operate an aeroponic farm is a trade skill that is uncommon throughout Appalachia.
“Growing food in Appalachia, as these young men are learning, is a license to print money,” Ritz said. “I’ve met a lot of kids who are allergic to vegetables, but I’ve never met a young man who’s allergic to money.”
Stepping Stones is also building a community of tiny houses for young adults from foster care to have a place to rent. The tiny homes will act as a place where foster youth can have a personal space, while still being part of a larger community.
“Young people in foster care, especially in residential treatment, they’ve never even had a room by themselves, let alone their own home,” Fry said. “To be able to have a home that is theirs, that they’re paying rent on, that they decide how they want to change the decorations and set it up, and not to have all those roommate issues.”
According to Fry, giving less restrictions and more opportunities to these young adults allow them more freedom to grow into themselves.
“We want to, at least by the time they’re age 17, be able to get them in a less restrictive living situation, and give them more control over their decisions. ”
Stepping Stones Residential Treatment Facility
Stepping Stone’s tiny homes
Stepping Stones is looking at their program as a model that can be adapted for other communities.
“We’re very rural, and what would work with us where we don’t have zoning may not work in Charleston, but the structure of the model; the community wrapping their arms around these kids in foster care, that can apply anywhere in the world,” Fry said.
The foster youth employees with Growing Hope are looking to expand from selling at the farmer’s market toward selling to individuals and restaurants.
