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West Virginia lawmakers have approved bills aimed at closing gaps in how older foster youth and kinship caregivers access support, according to the state legislative action described in reporting by Mountain State Spotlight and distributed through The Associated Press. The bills are now headed to Gov. Patrick Morrisey, where lawmakers said the changes build on findings that some eligible people did not receive the assistance intended for them.
One of the bills approved by lawmakers would expand independent living options statewide for former foster youth. The legislation would expand a pilot program statewide with three transitional phases of independent living paired with individualized support designed to help young people find work, enroll in higher education, or improve daily life skills.
The AP report said Mountain State Spotlight’s earlier investigation found West Virginia had returned nearly $7 million to the federal government since 2010. That money came from the federal Chafee program, which is intended to help older youth transition out of foster care, and the reporting described that more than a fifth of the funding had been returned because it was not used.
In testimony to the House Health and Human Resources committee last month, bill sponsor Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, linked the state’s obligations to housing outcomes for young people leaving foster care. He said, “If we’re not going to support housing them here, there’s a high probability we’re going to be housing them in one of our jails or prisons.”
Beyond the independent living framework itself, the bill includes requirements for the West Virginia Department of Human Services to conduct more robust data collection to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. The reporting said state child welfare officials would also have to submit annual reports to the Legislature covering the data findings, recommendations for improvement, and federal spending.
Lawmakers came close to passing a separate measure with a similar goal of connecting former foster youth to available support, but it failed in the final days of the session. The AP report said the proposal would have required the foster care agency to provide information to the state Department of Education and county boards of education about opportunities available to former foster kids under Chafee and other state and federal programs, with school discussions beginning in eighth grade.
Del. Lori Dittman, R-Braxton, described her reaction after reading the Mountain State Spotlight reporting on foster youth not knowing about their options. She said last month, “Right away I thought, ‘well, this can be fixed, and it can be fixed easily,’” as lawmakers considered how to address the gap.
According to the AP report, the bill’s path changed late in the session after the Senate amended it to include the contents of another, unrelated measure dealing with vocational education agriculture programs. The reporting said that because the Senate made changes, the measure had to return to the House for approval, but delegates refused to concur with the amendments. The Senate did not take it back up before adjourning at midnight on Sunday.
In addition to the independent living bill, the reporting said lawmakers completed action on a separate measure that would extend foster parent subsidies to kinship parents. The AP report said regulators increasingly relied on kinship families to provide care for thousands of foster children, and that kinship caregivers can include grandparents as well as other family members, friends, or acquaintances under state law.
The bill responds to findings described in the Mountain State Spotlight investigation in early 2025, which the AP report said found kinship parents often step in to react to an emergency and therefore have not completed official training. Under current state law, the AP report said that meant some kinship caregivers were not eligible for the monthly subsidy available to certified foster parents.
Under the provision described in the AP report, kinship parents can receive a temporary increase in their stipend within 30 days of taking in a foster child. The payment would be available for six months, after the caregivers undergo criminal background checks and an initial home screening, and the AP report said they could pursue certification as a foster parent during that period to continue receiving the foster parent subsidy.
The reporting said Morrisey has five days to sign the bills. If he does not act within that time frame, the bills would become law without his signature.