Huntington Mayor Steve Williams says he’s ending his run for the U.S. House in West Virginia’s 3rd District.
Williams tells the Huntington Herald-Dispatch there are problems in the city that need his attention, including a drug epidemic and growing violence.
The Democrat is in his second mayoral term.
The House seat is being vacated by two-term Republican Congressman Evan Jenkins, who seeks the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Joe Manchin.
Announced Republican candidates include former West Virginia Republican Party Chairman Conrad Lucas; state delegates Marty Gearheart, Rupie Phillips and Carol Miller; former delegate Rick Snuffer; Dr. Ayne Amjad; and Charles “Chad” Shaffer of Kenova.
Announced Democrats include state Sen. Richard Ojeda, Delegate Shirley Love and Paul Davis, CEO of the Tri-State Transit Authority; and Edwin Ray Vanover of Bluefield.
Gov. Justice’s second State of the State made full use of several props, two whiteboards and his entire girls’ basketball team.
Justice also laid out what he thought was really important in his speech. Here are two themes I heard: finally turning the corner on the opioid epidemic, and helping young people find technical and vocational careers.
We must turn the corner on the opioid epidemic: “The first thing we got to do is just this. We have to stop this terrible drug epidemic. We have to. If we don’t, it will cannibalize us.”
Young people need to know there are great jobs that require specialized training, not a four-year bachelors’ degree: “If you’re a student that wants to go into the trades…other kids may look down on you a little bit. It’s not fair. It’s not right. Some way we have got to let those kids know that we got to have them.”
Here at WVPB, we’ve been talking about how we can educate West Virginians around these two issues: workforce development and fighting opioid addiction. The good news is, we’ve recently received a major grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for workforce development, called “American Graduate.” We’ll be working with partners to develop videos to educate young people, their parents, and educators about great careers that don’t require a four-year degree – and how to prepare for them.
And on the opioid epidemic, we’re working with experts to determine how we can help. What messages can WVPB create to educate the public and decrease the number of people dying from overdoses? Other states have turned the corner on this epidemic – WVPB wants to make 2018 the year West Virginia starts to improve.
If you have ideas for how we can prepare young people for careers, and how we can begin to win the fight against opioid addiction, let me know! I’m at sfinn@wvpublic.org.
A federal judge on Tuesday likened the nation’s opioid epidemic to the deadly 1918 flu pandemic while noting the drug crisis is “100 percent manmade.”
Judge Dan Polster urged participants on all sides of lawsuits against drugmakers and distributors to work toward a common goal of reducing overdose deaths. He said the issue has come to courts because “other branches of government have punted” it.
The judge is overseeing more than 180 lawsuits against drug companies brought by local communities across the country, including those in California, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Municipalities include San Joaquin County in California; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Huntington, West Virginia.
Polster said the goal must be reining in the amount of painkillers available.
“What we’ve got to do is dramatically reduce the number of pills that are out there, and make sure that the pills that are out there are being used properly,” Polster said during a hearing in his Cleveland courtroom. “Because we all know that a whole lot of them have gone walking, with devastating results.”
The judge said he believes everyone from drugmakers to doctors to individuals bear some responsibility for the crisis and haven’t done enough to stop it.
The government tallied 63,600 overdose drug deaths in 2016, another record. Most of the deaths involved prescription opioids such as OxyContin or Vicodin or related illicit drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. The epidemic is the most widespread and deadly drug crisis in the nation’s history.
Hundreds of lawsuits filed by municipal and county governments could end up as part of the consolidated federal case overseen by Polster, but others are not likely to.
Some government bodies, including Ohio and at least nine other states, are suing the industry in state courts. Additionally, most states have joined a multistate investigation of the industry that could end up sparking a settlement or yet more litigation against the industry.
Targets of the lawsuits include drugmakers such as Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Purdue Pharma, and the three large drug distribution companies, Amerisource Bergen, Ohio-based Cardinal Health and McKesson. Drug distributors and manufacturers named in these and other lawsuits have said they don’t believe litigation is the answer but have pledged to help solve the crisis.
Polster said the nation is running the risk of seeing average U.S. life expectancy diminish three years consecutively thanks to the epidemic, something that hasn’t happened since the 1918 flu killed thousands.
“This is 100 percent manmade,” Polster said. “I’m pretty ashamed that this has occurred while I’ve been around.”
Throughout the Ohio Valley and West Virginia, thousands of children are in foster care — and the opioid epidemic is sending thousands more to join them. In fact, in just the past year, West Virginia’s foster care system alone saw an increase of 1,000 children entering care.
In 2016, West Virginia Public Broadcasting spoke with the Holbens, a former-foster family in Kearneysville, Jefferson County, to shed light on the struggles the opioid epidemic brings on foster care. We now check back in with that family and explore what lies ahead in combating this crisis.
Be sure to tune in for more on this subject during our nightly television program, The Legislature Today beginning January 11, 2018.
The Holben’s Experience
Stay-at-home mom and daycare provider Jen Holben lives in Kearneysville with her six kids. They’re like any other family – they joke with each other, share meals, laugh, play, and watch movies together. They love church and they’re actively involved at school and within the community.
But Jen is also a former-foster parent, who, for 14 years, along with her ex-husband, fostered 27 children ranging in age from infant to 18.
“I had heard adoption stories, and I really started to think I would like to adopt,” Jen said, “and when I started to research, I really didn’t know much about the foster care system at all, but when I would type in adoption, foster care would come up, and I educated myself, and I thought, that’s what I want to do, I want to help children.”
Jen also has two biological sons who are in high school. Of the 27 children she’s fostered, she adopted four – three of whom were exposed to drugs or alcohol in utero.
“My youngest was born addicted to three different drugs, and he was in the hospital for three weeks, and when he came home from the hospital, he screamed for four months straight until he really got off the drugs,” she remembered, “Right now, he’s on target. He’s really excelling and doing really well.”
The two other children impacted by drugs or alcohol are biologically related sisters.
The 9-year-old was born while her mother was addicted to heroin. Jen says she’s doing well, but will likely need ongoing help in school.
Jen’s other daughter, who’s 11-years-old, struggles a bit more.
“She’s probably on a second or third grade level and should be in the sixth grade, and she has fetal alcohol syndrome. She suffers from epilepsy from the fetal alcohol syndrome and is severely delayed.”
Both girls also have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and take medication for it.
Jen says despite medical and academic struggles, she loves being a mom and watching her kids grow.
But there are other kids in the West Virginia foster care system who still need help. For Jen, the solution is making sure these kids are placed in a secure environment, early, and for the long term.
“We just need to get these kids in permanent homes as fast as we can, so that they can just heal,” she said, “I mean, if they’re drug addicted, then they need to overcome that. If they’ve been taken away because of neglect and abuse, then we need to get therapy, and let them do that, but they can’t do that if they’re jumping from placement to placement, or going home and coming back, I think we just really need to put the kids first.”
Credit Toby Talbot / AP Photo
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AP Photo
The Opioid Epidemic & Foster Care
But finding permanent homes is rarely easy.
The West Virginia Children’s Home Society, or CHS, is one of 10 agencies in the state that handle foster care referrals from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
The organization works to find the best matchups for children who need temporary or permanent placements – whether that’s in traditional foster homes like Jen’s, or in other placements, such as with a relative or in emergency shelters.
Chief Executive Officer of CHS Steve Tuck notes that in just the last few years, there’s been a dramatic spike in the number of children coming into care – this has made it harder to ensure these kids find adequate home environments.
He also says the opioid epidemic has played a major role in that rise.
“The need has only gone up,” Tuck explained, “The number in care had gone up close to 6,000 from what it had stabilized for many years at around 4,000 kids, state kids in-care; it’s even in these last few months, it’s gone up almost 100 a month.”
DHHR reported in November 2017 that nearly 6,400 West Virginia children are in foster care. That’s about 1,000 more kids in care than the previous year.
Tuck says it’s hard to pinpoint just how many of those children are coming into care as a direct result of substance abuse.
For example, if a child is pulled from a home because of some form of neglect, the role substance abuse played isn’t always clearly noted. Likewise, when children are born with drug related issues, there’s no consistent methods for determining the extent of parental substance abuse.
Tuck says to improve these situations, there needs to be more communication.
“We all need to get together from the medical, especially the hospitals serving those situations, and the ones that might need to take custody for children,” he noted.
Despite the difficulties, Tuck argues the general consensus regarding the number of children coming into care due to substance abuse is at least 50 percent.
“And I’ve seen numbers as high as 90 [percent], but that’s really probably people’s more anecdotal, you know, who’ve worked in this work a long-time, acknowledgement that it almost affects every placement of children coming into care.” – Steve Tuck
Tuck says one way to help limit the number of children needing to enter care is to start with the families.
CHS, Marshall University, DHHR, and the behavioral health and addiction treatment center Prestera are all working together on a pilot project to help addicted mothers get the care and therapy they need to get off drugs and keep their children.
The pilot project has been launched in Cabell, Lincoln, and Wayne counties first, but Tuck hopes if it’s successful, it will expand to all 55 counties.
Tuck asks state lawmakers to keep the foster care system in mind during the 2018 state Legislative session.
“My encouragement to them is really just to acknowledge that there’s a lot higher cost to taking care of these kids,” he said, “and they are our West Virginia children that we all are responsible for, so they really have to look at that one when most of the discussions are around budget cuts and reduced funding and things like that.”
Back at the Holben’s, Jen encourages more West Virginia families to think about becoming foster parents.
“You hear all this stuff, and it can scare you away, but is the most rewarding; every kid I’ve had has been a blessing to me, but definitely educate yourself, so you’re prepared for what you might deal with, and just always remember that a kid that comes to your house through foster care, through adoption, through anything; their story goes beyond the day you bring them home,” Jen explained, “And whether you bring them home as a baby, they still have biological parents that, it’s part of them, and it’s part of their story; their story isn’t just being in your home.”
Still, Jen’s biggest concern is ensuring the children who end up in West Virginia’s foster care system are placed in permanent homes as soon as possible.
According to the West Virginia DHHR, of the nearly 6,400 children in foster care, 51 are available for adoption.
The start of the 2018 state Legislative session is only one month away. Lawmakers in the Eastern Panhandle met in Martinsburg for a Legislative Outlook Breakfast hosted by the Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce to discuss several issues they hope to tackle at the statehouse this year.
One focus is creating more ways to combat West Virginia’s opioid epidemic — particularly how the crisis affects those in the state’s foster care system.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources reported in November that nearly 6,400 children are in some type of foster care – whether that’s in traditional foster homes or in other placements like emergency shelters. The West Virginia Children’s Home Society says at least 50 percent of kids in foster care are there due to drug related issues.
Senate Finance Chairman Craig Blair, a Republican from Berkeley County, suggested one way to tackle the problem would be to offer long term, reversible birth control to mothers who are addicted to drugs.
Blair said by providing easy access to things like IUDs, or intrauterine devices – would be more cost effective for the state than spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on special care for children born with drug related issues.
“You get this contraception out there,” Blair said, “You will see a significant reduction in the amount of children being born [with drug related issues] and the money that we have to spend weaning them off whatever their mother was addicted to.”
Blair says he’s pro-life but states he’s pro-contraception as well. He argues this option would be another way to combat the opioid epidemic and help keep more children from being born with drug related ailments.
The 2018 state Legislative session will begin on January 10.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources announced Thursday steps for an opioid response plan to combat the opioid epidemic. DHHR is asking West Virginians to help develop the plan through public comment and recommendations over the next 15 days.
DHHR said in a news release, the opioid response plan will be delivered to Governor Jim Justice and the West Virginia Legislature by mid-January.
Until then, however, DHHR’s new Office of Drug Control Policy has opened up a comment period to West Virginians, and is looking for suggestions on the best ways to address the opioid crisis.
The Office will also look to partnerships with regional and national experts as the plan is developed – coordinating with a panel of public health experts from West Virginia University, Marshall University and Johns Hopkins University.
The expert panel will include:
Dr. Sean Allen, Assistant Scientist in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Allen has advanced training in geospatial and longitudinal data analyses. He formerly served as a senior policy advisor in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Dr. Jeffrey Coben, Dean of the West Virginia University School of Public Health and Associate Vice President of Health Affairs. He has achieved international recognition for his accomplishments in the field of injury prevention and control.
Dr. Shannon Frattaroli, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at Johns Hopkins University. She is one of the lead authors of America’s Opioid Epidemic: From Evidence to Impact, a report released by Johns Hopkins University and the Clinton Foundation.
Jim Johnson, Director of the DHHR’s Office of Drug Control Policy. He has 29 years of law enforcement experience and has served as both a police chief and director of the Mayor’s Office of Drug Control Policy in Huntington.
Dr. Sean Loudin, Associate Professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. He specializes in neonatal-perinatal medicine with research and clinical interests that have focused on neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Participation of the Johns Hopkins University faculty is made possible with support from the Bloomberg American Health Initiative.
A public meeting will be held following the conclusion of the public comment period to include treatment providers, first responders, law enforcement, and several others.
A release of the draft plan for public comment is expected the first week of January.
