West Virginia Republican lawmakers opened the legislative session in Charleston this week with 16 bills aimed at fixing the state’s troubled foster care system. Five child welfare researchers who reviewed the proposals said the package fails to address the roots of the crisis, will not prevent children from being removed from their families, and is unlikely to produce meaningful staffing improvements.
“I think these are somewhat incremental,” said Bethany R. Lee, professor of children’s services at the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work and one of the researchers consulted.
The critique highlights a persistent divide in child welfare policy: whether to manage the foster care system after children enter it, or invest earlier in the poverty, housing, and health care gaps that researchers say drive family separation in the first place.
What the bills propose
The legislative workgroup, co-led by Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, and Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, recommended requiring Child Protective Services workers to wear body cameras, equipping CPS workers in two counties with mobile devices to transmit real-time case data to supervisors, securing pay raises and assistants for guardians ad litem who represent children in court, and enlisting State Police to train workers.
One bill establishes a fund — contingent on appropriations — to expand in-state residential care for children who need psychiatric treatment and to train the workforce to treat them. Gov. Patrick Morrisey has also championed that proposal.
The package did not include any measure to hire additional CPS workers.
The staffing shortfall
The Child Welfare League of America, an advocacy group, recommends a maximum of 15 children per caseworker. Many West Virginia CPS workers have said their average caseload runs in the 30s; some have reported carrying as many as 50 cases at a time, according to Mountain State Spotlight.
Jessica Pac, assistant professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said trained workers who can make sound decisions are essential, and that higher pay would improve retention. But like the other researchers, she emphasized the long horizon.
“We should be thinking about what happens in 20 years,” Pac said. “And I think that it’s not very interesting to policy makers, because it means you don’t see the benefit of those dollars spent for 20 or 30 years. But ultimately, that’s what in my mind, a well-spent, well-funded and very intentional child welfare system would look like.”
Prevention over intervention
Lee said child welfare legislation should be paired with measures to make housing and health care affordable and to expand addiction treatment.
“That would be a reform effort that would change things dramatically,” she said. “Oftentimes, the child welfare system is more of a reflection of where the gaps are in the larger society.”
Kelley Fong, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, who studies families and state systems, said poverty is frequently misidentified as neglect, making anti-poverty investment inseparable from child protection.
“I think anti-poverty policy is child protection policy,” she said.
The workgroup produced one draft bill requiring the Department of Human Services to establish a prevention plan over the next year. Fong said lawmakers could be investing in prevention now rather than waiting for a plan to be written.
Out-of-state placements
West Virginia’s reliance on placing children in institutions outside the state has been a persistent problem. Cindy Largent-Hill, director at the Division of Children’s Services at the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, said the state has only a few beds for children who need short-term, high-level psychiatric treatment and no long-term in-state residential care beds.
Lonnie Berger, associate vice chancellor for research in the social sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Social Work, said proximity to supportive adults and family matters more than whether a facility is in state or out of state.
“Do they get to visit them?” Berger said. “That distance could be just as big within the state.”
Lee said stronger mental health resources in communities and schools can prevent children from ever reaching the level where inpatient care is needed. “It’s not like a kid wakes up one day and suddenly needs this level of care,” she said.
Lawmakers on the data
Burkhammer said he wants to proceed deliberately and from evidence rather than from complaints. He noted that in 2024, half of West Virginia’s foster care cases ended in reunification.
“So that tells me that with the proper oversight, resources and services, that families were able to stay together,” he said. “So the thought is, ‘how can we shift that to the front end?’”
Deeds said he supports connecting faith-based organizations and civic groups with schools and the Department of Human Services as part of prevention efforts.
“There’s a very strong desire with our faith-based communities and our civic organizations now to get engaged early on with our young people,” he said. “Let’s do what West Virginians do best.”
A prior Mountain State Spotlight investigation found that overburdened caseworkers left many children without services available to them in the system, and that West Virginia returned millions in federal dollars that could have provided tuition and rent assistance to youth aging out of foster care.
Reporting by Erin Beck, Mountain State Spotlight, distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.