In West Virginia, the bad bills keep on coming

First came the bill that would send caseloads skyrocketing. Now, there’s another well-intentioned bill that would produce horrible results.

ENTRIES INTO FOSTER CARE PER THOUSAND IMPOVERISHED CHILDREN, 2022

This is what we mean by "Child Rremoval Capital of America

Of all the options for placing children torn from their homes, among the very worst are so-called “shelters.” These are first-stop dumping grounds where children are parked while agencies that took too many children needlessly in the first place try to figure out where to put them all. 

Of course, that’s not how they are described by backers of such institutions and the “providers” who usually run them (and often are paid per day per child for every day they hold children in them). Nope. It’s always treacly rhetoric about how “loving, warm, inviting” they will be, and of course how “home-like.” 

After nearly 50 years of following these issues, I am so sick of people describing their institutions as “home-like.” I’ll bet not one of the people who casually call their institution “home-like” would tolerate having their own children dumped in such places for so much as a minute.  Children damn well know the difference between “home-like” and home. 

And no matter how “inviting” they seem at first, shelters have a horrendous history of deteriorating – as with this shelter and this one, and this one, and all of these. 

All of which brings us back to the Child Removal Capital of America, the state that tears apart families at a rate more than quadruple the national average:West Virginia. 

As in many states, West Virginia takes so many children it has no place to put them all.  So some wind up sleeping in hotel rooms or campgrounds.  According to West Virginia Watch, Jonathan Pinson, a member of the state House of Delegates who also is a foster parent, declared:  “I cannot fathom losing my child to a hotel room.” 

But apparently he can fathom institutionalizing them in shelters – because he’s introduced a bill to require the state family police agency (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agency) 

on its own or through a contract, a “central reception center” and emergency resource homes for foster children for up to 72 hours. 

And here comes that gooey rhetoric, about how, magically, this shelter is going to be different: 

“As s children are being taken into custody, there’s a loving, warm, inviting atmosphere for them to have as their first stop in this very emotional journey,” Pinson said while presenting the bill on Thursday in the House Committee on Health and Human Resources. 

A representative of an agency that says it will gladly run such a place did the rest: 

The space would be home-like, he explained, with medical staff and therapists on site. 

The West Virginia family police agency, which already runs emergency shelters warehousing 156 children, opposes adding another.  Again from the story:

Lorie Bragg, interim commissioner for the state Bureau of Social Services, told lawmakers this bill wasn’t addressing the overall lack of appropriate child placements, something she said the agency is currency working on. A center like the one outlined in the bill could put children at risk because the center may shelter in one room both a toddler and a teenager with an aggression issue, she said. 

“Making a temporary housing or shelter doesn’t really fix the problem of having a placement for these children,” she added. 

But neither does anything Bragg mentioned – which apparently consisted largely of telling the lawmakers that they’re holding lots and lots of planning meetings, with the idea being ultimately to create better institutions. 

As usual in West Virginia, no one is talking about the only thing that works: Stop taking so many children needlessly at the highest rate in America. Odds are West Virginia Watch is never going to tell readers about that, or about how it can be done, or about how other states do better – not in this story or any other – since it is wedded to the myth that West Virginia’s horrible distinction is mostly because of drug abuse.  It isn’t.  

And Pinson is quick to buy into and amplify vile smears about any parent who loses a child to foster care, telling MetroNews that when the West Virginia family police rip apart a family it’s

oftentimes for excellent reasons — these children are at risk of danger, they’re at risk of harm, they’ve already been harmed. 

So let me repeat a few things West Virginia lawmakers probably don’t know – because neither the family police agency nor media focusing on these issues is likely to tell them. 

● West Virginia takes away so many children that if all drug abuse disappeared in West Virginia, and only West Virginia, tomorrow, the number of children taken for reasons unrelated to drug abuse still would leave West Virginia tearing apart families at a rate double the national average. 

● 85% of children torn from their homes in West Virginia were taken in cases in which there was not even an allegation of sexual abuse or any form of sexual abuse. 

● 51% of children torn from their homes in West Virginia were taken in cases in which there was not even an allegation of any form of drug abuse. 

● Not all drug abuse compromises parenting.  Not every case of drug abuse involves a fentanyl overdose.  West Virginia even tears apart families when a parent is on medication-assisted treatment for drug abuse. 

● In 14% of cases, the family police agency admits it tore apart a family because of housing.

So now imagine what would happen if West Virginia stopped being worst in the nation.  If West
Virginia could reduce its rate of removal to only double the national average that would mean 2,235 fewer children taken in a typical year.  If West Virginia cut the number of children trapped in foster care on any given day in half, that would mean 3,450 fewer children in foster care. 

That would open up lots of spaces in family foster homes, so no child would need to be institutionalized anywhere, let alone parked in a shelter. 

But while West Virginia Watch and another online site, Mountain State Spotlight, stereotype the parents, Bragg, from the Bureau of Social Services, stereotypes the kids. Again from the story: 

“These kids are not the kids that foster parents are willing to take in,” Bragg said. “These are your autistic kids, nonverbal, [children with intellectual and development disabilities], physically aggressive teenagers, kids that may be doing self-harm, the kids that are difficult to place. That’s the kids [who] are ending up in a hotel.” 

That’s the standard party line from the shelter/group home/residential treatment industry.  And while it’s true the most difficult kids are likely to end up in a hotel, it’s not true that few families will take them.  Few families will take them without help. 

But if West Virginia actually focused on providing the help, that would change dramatically. 

● First, the family police agency could focus on intensive help to birth parents so the children never need to be taken. 

● When children really must be taken, they could provide that kind of help to extended families providing kinship foster care, so more of them can step forward. (West Virginia actually has a good record of finding such families but a lousy record of supporting them. Even Mountain State Spotlight, which seems to view all birth parents on a continuum from unperson to sick person to monster, is ok with extended families.) 

● When kin aren’t available provide the intensive help to stranger family foster homes. 

You do it with intensive Wraparound services.  Want to know how that works? Watch this short video of remarks by the father of wraparound, Karl Dennis: 

But in West Virginia, lawmakers don’t know it, most media don’t want to tell them, and the family police agency doesn’t seem interested. 

And don’t believe for a second that if West Virginia builds still another parking place shelter the children will be there for only 72 hours.  

Because here’s the first rule about what usually happens with a parking place shelter: If you build it they will come.  If you keep it open they will stay.  If it stays open long enough it will become a hellhole.