CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State officials provided state lawmakers with the progress that their departments have made in children services so far this year.
Jeffrey M. Pack, Commissioner of the Bureau for Social Services provided updates for members of the joint standing committee on health Tuesday, August 8.
SB273, which was signed during the regular session this year, changed the way CPS workers are allocated across the state of West Virginia.
“Allocations are based on case loads as well as the population based on the last census,” Pack said.
Previously, CPS workers were allocated only based on case load.
The amount of workers dispersed is figured by averaging the two numbers. Pack said the new legislation ended up adding about 100 additional positions across the state. It also led them to seeking more supervisor roles, case agents, and coordinators, who do more office-related work, to be added.
Some counties mentioned by Pack that are not gaining any new CPS workers or only adding one or two are Kanawha, Raleigh, and Roane. Meanwhile, the counties of Berkley, Brooke, Hancock, Jefferson, Morgan, and Ohio are some that are gaining 10 or more additional workers.
There is a distinction between CPS workers and Youth Service (YS) workers. Pack said CPS is involved in cases of abuse and neglect, while YS workers tend to be tasked with cases that involve the judicial system.
Pack said Youth Service workers were found to be under-allocated based on case loads they saw. YS cases are increasing rapidly, and only a few counties won’t need additional YS services, according to Pack.
“One thing we’re seeing incidentally is the number of youth service cases seems to be increasing pretty rapidly,” said Pack.
The Commissioner of the Bureau for Social Services also told lawmakers that a merit based pay system will take effect Jan 1, 2024. A change in that system was required in the signed legislation.
“This has been quite the heavy lift and it is ongoing,” Pack said last week.
The pay system involves compensation adjustment, retention incentives and hiring approval by the commissioner. The system is for new and existing employees who opt in, according to Pack.
Pack said a new initiative that they are working on is ChildStat, which examines child welfare outcomes through a management accountability and quality improvement process. He said it was just launched last week. Pack and his team discovered ChildStat through peer-to-peer discussions they had with others in child welfare programs across the state.
“It’s a method in which myself and my leadership team can develop accountability across the state,” said Pack.
Cammie Chapman, Deputy Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Resources. She works in Children and Adult Services and will soon be working the Department of Human Resources when DHHR splits into three separate agencies in 2024
Chapman spoke to state lawmakers of the committee after Pack. She talked about how they’re reducing the reliance for children to be in residential treatment facilities. She said the reduction of having children in mental health treatment facilities starts by developing their behavioral health services in the community.
“The next phase that we’re in the middle of is making sure that we have evidence-based assessments that will give us good recommendations as to whether the child can be served in the community, or does that child need that level of care from a residential treatment intervention,” Chapman said.
Chapman said they had goals with this process that began in 2019. They want the care to start at home.
“Our goal is to serve children with serious emotional disorders in their homes and community settings,” she said, claiming there’s evidence to back up this goal.
“Children do best in their homes.”
Chapman doesn’t just want to reduce the use of residential treatment facilities for children, but also reduce their reliance on these services from out-of-state facilities.
“We think that we have the ability to serve West Virginia children in West Virginia,” she said.
Chapman said there’s also been a rollout of a children’s crisis and referral line. The line can be used by anyone involved with child welfare or juvenile services at 844-Help4WV. Callers can be connected to members of the mobile crisis and response team.