Gov. Patrick Morrisey pledged his administration will be more open about the challenges of West Virginia’s child welfare system.
The governor said the changes follow a series of listening sessions held across the state with key stakeholders and a thorough review of past child fatalities and near fatalities within the child welfare system.
“In previous years, the state stonewalled about the status of children in its care – and that changes now,” Morrisey said during a briefing with reporters.
More than 6,000 West Virginia children are in state custody, according to the state child welfare dashboard.
A foster care lawsuit, filed in 2019 and currently on appeal, alleged rampant issues with institutionalization, moves of children in state custody outside of West Virginia, lack of available community-based mental health services and overextended caseworkers.
Some harrowing child welfare cases have been in the public spotlight.
Questions swirled after 14-year-old Kynnedi Miller was found dead “emaciated to a skeletal state” on the bathroom floor of her Boone County home. According to investigators, the teen had not attended school since late 2019 or 2020 and hadn’t been outside the house more than a couple of times in the last four years.
In another high-profile case, a couple in West Virginia were convicted of child abuse, human trafficking and forced labor for mistreating their adopted children who were locked in a shed with no running water or proper bathroom facilities.
In both cases, the central question was the responsiveness of West Virginia’s child protective services agency.
“After conducting an internal review of circumstances of six fatalities or near fatalities that occurred between 2021 and 2024 the Department of Human Services will be implementing a new transparency policy that interprets the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act differently than the previous administration,” Morrisey said.
“You’re not going to have to chase people down the hall.”
Morrisey said the policy will mean requiring public disclosure of key information in child abuse or neglect cases resulting in fatalities or near fatalities.
“This is a major change from the failures of the past,” he said.
The governor announced several more initiatives, including:
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- overhauling the Child Welfare Dashboard to make it simpler to use and easier to interpret the data.
- requiring supervisors to conduct monthly reviews with their child welfare cases and work with the state office team to identify opportunities for improvement and launching a department-wide “Leadership Education and Development” initiative to better prepare supervisors.
- creating a Critical Incident Review Team to conduct a deeper dive into every critical incident.
- Introducing a Comprehensive Practice Model to provide a foundational framework that can be standardized across the state.
- Allowing caseworkers to gather more comprehensive information on cases rather than relying solely on the referral.
“We are rolling up our sleeves and getting to work,” Morrisey said. “West Virginians deserve a child welfare system that is transparent, accountable, and always puts the safety of children first.”