A bill under review in the West Virginia House of Delegates would eliminate work permits for 14 and 15-year-olds, instead requiring the teenagers to receive a state-issued age certificate and parental consent.
The West Virginia House of Delegates is considering a bill that would eliminate work permits for 14 and 15-year-olds.
Currently, 14 and 15-year-olds must obtain a permit to work in West Virginia. These permits are ultimately under the purview of the state superintendent of schools.
But House Bill 5159 would eliminate these work permits, and instead require that 14- and 15-year-olds just receive proof of their age in the form of an age certificate.
Additionally, it would be up to the state Commissioner of Labor to distribute those certificates.
At a meeting of the House Committee on Government Organization Monday, Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, expressed concern that the bill would remove parental authority over youth employment.
During the meeting, members of the committee proposed an amendment that would require parental consent for an age certificate to be issued to a teenager.
The amendment passed, and Del. Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, said it “tightens up a loophole” in the pending legislation.
For the most part, members of the committee spoke favorably of the bill, citing drawn-out experiences of helping their own children secure employment.
Young, however, voiced concern that removing work permits would still place employers and teenagers at risk.
Young pointed to an incident in Alabama in which a 15-year-old fell off a ladder on his first day at a roofing company and died. Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor found that the company had violated child labor laws.
“The parental consent absolutely helps. However, I still just think this is too onerous, and repealing laws that I think are good laws to have,” she said.
The bill ultimately received majority support from members of the committee, with delegates voting to send it to the House floor with the recommendation that it pass.
Hundreds of middle and high school students gathered at the Raze Youth Summit to learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping.
Nearly 700 students from across West Virginia attended the Raze Youth Summit on Wednesday morning to learn about the dangers of e-cigarettes and vaping.
Raze is a youth-led movement against the tobacco industry. Attendees are between the ages of 11 and 18 years old.
The program is funded and facilitated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the Center for Disease Control Prevention and the American Lung Association (ALA).
Students and educators gathered at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center for activities and educational sessions aimed at curbing smoking rates among teens.
Participants had the opportunity to have special effects makeup show how smoking would affect their aging process. The session was called “The Unfiltered Truth: The Physical Toll of Nicotine,” and featured special effects makeup artist, RJ Haddy. Haddy was a finalist on the Syfy Network’s reality television game show, “Face Off.”
One of the hundreds of attendees was Indy Tupa, a Raze Ambassador from Mineral County. She said Raze taught her ways to help her father quit smoking.
“I offered my dad those like links and those resources from like, the RAZE website, and like, alternatives to smoking, like chewing gum, or just like snacking on stuff,” Tupa said. “And that really helped him quit.”
In West Virginia, 22 percent of adults smoke and nearly 41 percent of high school students use a tobacco product, according to the ALA’s 2023 State of Tobacco report.
Tupa also said her school did not have working vape detectors in the bathrooms for about three years.
“My crew really pushed to get those working again, because vaping is a huge problem in my school,” Tupa said. “Not vaping has like really like opened my eyes to like how bad it is for people who do vape because like their throat always hurts, and they’re always coughing, and I just hear them complaining about how like sick they feel all the time.”
Jaxson Walker is a State Ambassador for Raze. He joined his Wyoming County school’s Raze crew in middle school and quickly rose up through the ranks of ambassadors.
“My fifth grade year, they asked us like to sign up for Raze, so I signed up, and then I never really realized how deep I was gonna dive into Raze, becoming a junior ambassador my eighth grade year,” Walker said.
As a State Ambassador, Walker had responsibilities to fulfill during the Summit. He and other ambassadors have been planning the event since the beginning of the year.
“I have a couple like topics I think are big today, and I think that would be peer pressure,” Walker said. “Whenever someone’s peer pressuring you into vaping or something. And then the other is people need to learn the effect a secondhand smoker can have on someone.”
Walker said he feels judged by his peers sometimes, but he just wants them to stop using nicotine products.
“You feel judged sometimes I feel like there’s been people that have judged me but I really don’t care,” Walker said. “Most people that are in it (Raze), we really just want you to quit because by the time you get older, you don’t realize it now you think, ‘Oh it feels good,’ but it’s gonna affect you really badly. I know several people in my county who have died of lung cancer I know people in my school who have vaped and just want them to quit.”
Walker called Raze events a safe space for teens like him to foster community.
“We talk with each other,” Walker said. “It’s like a little community. We have ideas. It’s just a great place to be and it’s a great club to be in. I encourage everyone to get into it. Go to your local high school, go to whatever, just get involved.”
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Social Services is emphasizing the need for certified foster families for older youth.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Social Services is emphasizing the need for certified foster families for older youth.
In West Virginia, nearly half of youth entering foster care are 9 to 17 years old. Twenty-seven percent of those children are between the ages of 13 and 17 years old.
For the first quarter of 2023, there were on average 1,427 certified foster homes in West Virginia. Only 25 percent of these homes reported a willingness to accept youth ages 13 or older.
Mission West Virginia is the first point of contact for individuals interested in becoming a West Virginia foster parent, and also works with Child Placing Agencies to arrange matches between families and children in West Virginia. To learn more about foster care and relative/kinship care certification and resources, contact Mission West Virginia at www.missionwv.org or 1-866-CALL-MWV (1-866-225-5698). To view and apply for careers in the child welfare field, visit the DHHR website. Individuals currently enrolled in a bachelor’s or master’s social work program may receive tuition assistance. Email DHHREAP@wv.gov or call 304-558-6700 for more information.
Of the 718 public schools in West Virginia, 129 have school-based health centers (although note that some elementary/middle or middle/high schools share a center). Just over 30 percent of those, including Riverside High School in Belle, have mental health services.
“I think it’s [the mental health services] a good thing because a lot of teenagers struggle with depression or something wrong with them – they think that – especially in adolescence, the way the brain develops and all that stuff,” said Lillian Steel-Thomas, a senior at Riverside.
Steel-Thomas has had, as she calls it, “a tough life.” Over the past 18 years, she has lived with every relative who would take her in. She has also attended six or seven different schools. Steel-Thomas is currently living with her boyfriend’s parents – the most stable situation, she said, she has had in a while.
“Most of the problems they end up going away after you get older, but sometimes they don’t and getting help young helps you not have all kinds of horrible issues when you grow up,” she said.
Steel-Thomas has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. She is one of seven students I talked to from three schools who have similar challenges. Most said having a therapist available at school is invaluable. Two young women from Greenbrier East High School said they wish they had access to one (they actually do – they just didn’t know about it).
“For many, many years focus on academics – many school leaders didn’t see the relationship between mental health and academics,” said Barbara Brady, School Counseling Coordinator with the WV Department of Education. “There are many, many studies saying academics impact mental health and mental health impacts academics.”
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in five children ages 13-18 have or will have a serious mental health condition. West Virginia currently has very little data about the state’s childhood mental health and none that was publically available.
Riverside is Steel-Thomas’ second high school. The first did not have mental health services. I asked her if having mental health services available at school made any difference to her grades. The short answer? Absolutely.
“I have good grades now because I can study, but before I couldn’t because it wasn’t that great,” said Steel-Thomas. “Where I had bad grades they believed I wasn’t a good student or a good person and I told them I was having a horrible time, told them all kinds of personal things and they pretty much told me to my face that I was lying.”
0119MentalHealth.mp3
Full audio story as heard on West Virginia Morning
Steel-Thomas failed all her classes that first year of high school except for the two that were graded based on “participation.” She said she thinks she was truant about half the time.
“I just didn’t feel like going to school anymore,” she said. “What’s the point of going if nobody cares? And my grades are bad anyway and it sucks being home, but at least I can go jogging or something.”
Being at Riverside, she said, is a world of difference. She feels more supported by both teachers and administrators who in turn, she said, seem to feel more supported by having referral services available on site.
The on-site services also mean she doesn’t have to leave school for appointments or make up hours of work. She just shows a teacher her appointment card, then heads down the hall to the clinic waiting room. It’s an envelop of support that for most of her life she hasn’t gotten from home.
Cases like Steel-Thomas’ seem like a success. But administrators like Brady are quick to point out that if schools are not creating an overall better environment for students, placing therapists in school will not be enough.
“It’s critical to have those universal preventions, those universal supports. Teaching all students the skills they need to succeed, teaching all students anger management skills, teaching all students conflict resolution s
kills, social skills, so on and so forth.”
The idea is to slowly change the way schools think about mental health and behavioral support. It’s not a one size fits all prescription. Schools in Cabell County have very different challenges than schools in McDowell. These schools need to have programs available that they can pick and choose from that work for their school at this time.
A complementary story, on the programs currently available to schools, will air Monday during West Virginia Morning.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.
Over 300 teens will be at the Capitol this weekend for a mock legislative session. Teenagers from all over the state who are part of the Youth Leadership Association: Youth in Government will travel to Charleston to hold a student led, mock legislative session for three days.
All youth senators, delegates, and leadership seats were elected by their peers from all areas of the state over the course of the past few months.
“We have a mock legislature, a mock judicial branch, and a mock executive branch, and we debate and pass bills both in committee and on the floor,” said Youth Governor, Tyler Jenkins, a senior from Martinsburg High School, “The judicial section actually uses the actual chambers of the Supreme Court to run over cases. We use the actual chambers of the Senate and the House of Delegates and we debate the bills there and use the committee rooms to do the committees, and it’s really fantastic. And it’s empty at this time, so it’s basically like high school students are running the Capitol.”
The Youth Senate President and Youth House Speaker are also from Martinsburg High.
Jenkins says he and his peers plan to introduce 100 pieces of legislation, many of those inspired by the bills passed or rejected this past 2015 session; such as the abortion bill, the repeal of common core, legalizing cross-bow hunting, and others.
Texting while driving is illegal in West Virginia, but technology is being used to guarantee that you can’t text from behind the wheel.
Mobile Life Solutions of Louisville, Kentucky has developed an app called TextLimit. It makes a phone incapable of using once the vehicle gets to a certain speed. The app is available for free to West Virginia drivers.
“ This is a national epidemic,” says company president David Meers. “And distracted driving laws alone are not going to solve the problem. So this is a high tech solution that you can put in the hands of all West Virginians for free due to our partnership with the highway safety program there.”
The app works with GPS to determine how fast a vehicle is going. Beyond a certain speed, texting and most calling functions are deactivated on the phone. Emergency 911 call functions remain active. It can also provide a report on a vehicles speed and location. Meers says he invented it with teenagers in mind.
“I’m a parent of two teenage daughters myself . They were the impetus for me to develop this product. And now that we have finished development and the app in widespread use my kids joke and say ‘Dad you’ll be the most hated man in America by teens.’”
The app can only be programmed by the administrator, such as a parent or fleet supervisor.
