MORGANTOWN — Leaders on both sides of the state Senate aisle want the Department of Health and Human Resources to take action to improve child welfare, and sent letters this week to DHHR’s new interim secretary outlining their goals and wishes.
The letters came as Interim Secretary Jeff Coben works to respond to the McChrystal report that recommended a reorganization of DHHR, and Senate leaders contemplate dividing DHHR into three departments.
On the GOP side, President Craig Blair, Majority Leader Tom Takubo, Finance chair Eric Tarr and Judiciary chair Charles Trump teamed on a seven-page letter.
They said the Senate is deeply concerned about the current state of numerous programs housed within DHHR and is committed to doing anything in its power to make and facilitate marked improvements, particularly in the area of child welfare.
They note that the Legislature has increased funding for child welfare and passed two major child welfare reform bills, along with several bills targeted at improving Child Protective Services. “Unfortunately, DHHR has not made adequate progress for our children and families. In some areas, we have even lost ground. Making matters worse, the Legislature has struggled to secure answers from DHHR on how to specifically solve these grave problems.”
They note that Coben, WVU’s Dr. Clay Marsh and Joint Interagency Task Force Director James Hoyer have teamed to make incremental improvements. What follows is six pages of policy options with the encouragement, “Let’s map it out and make it happen.”
They offer suggestions on three timelines: short, intermediate and long.
Short term, they suggest a locality pay raise for CPS workers to compete with Maryland and Virginia, better transparency regarding child welfare issues and reallocating funding for vacant positions to starting salaries for CPS workers.
Intermediate term, they suggest reallocating CPS positions to address population, because some areas are underserved; expanding the foster care ombudsman’s authority to apply to abuse and neglect investigations, as current authority only applies to children in custody; and instituting an annual stakeholder survey on CPS performance.
Long-term suggestions take up five pages, with 12 main items and many sub-items. Among them:
- Streamline CPS worker duties to essential functions and outsource the rest to other staff or private providers;
- Devise a new caseload formula to account for more complex cases and refurbish an inadequate 2021 workload study;
- Develop a child trauma predictive model;
- Create a foster parent portal to improve communication and drive accountability;
- Use providers, counselors or social workers in schools to identify abuse, neglect and trauma cases;
- Address out-of-state and inappropriate placements;
- Pursue regulatory reform;
- Analyze the current managed care policy, as the current and sole provider may be making decisions based on its own financial interests.
On the Democrat side, Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin also sent a letter to Coben and issued a statement on some of the politics behind a 2022 CPS and foster care reform bill.
In his statement, Baldwin said that last February the House passed a bipartisan omnibus reform bill, which he worked on with Senate Health members to strengthen and pass. But Senate Finance gutted most of the key child welfare provisions. The Senate passed the gutted version, which the House allowed to die.
In his statement, Baldwin points to what he believes is Senate GOP hypocrisy. The Senate letter says, “These are problems that must be solved. We have been stuck in neutral on the side of a hill. Doing nothing is causing us to go the opposite direction of where we want to be. We have to move past just talking about how broken CPS is and actually fix it. This is not something that can wait.”
Baldwin cites the gutted bill and says, “To be crystal clear, this situation was not for lack of effort; it was a deliberate choice by Senate leadership. The Senate put the truck in neutral last March, by killing the only child welfare bill we considered all year. We lost nine months in the meantime.”
And while Baldwin won’t serve in the coming session, he adds, “While I wish Senate Republicans would have listened last year, I am nonetheless glad they are listening now. They messed up last year, and they are working to make amends. Good for them.”
He opposes one of the Senate GOP suggestions. “The base problem is high caseloads, compounded by vacant positions. They advocate collapsing more vacant positions to fund pay raises. That did not work last year, and it will not work now. Collapsing vacancies to pay for raises means the vacancies continue.
“The state can absolutely afford to fill vacancies with qualified, fully resourced individuals,” he says. “Our surpluses are running in the billions. Will the Legislature put their money where their mouth is? I pray they will, and take today’s letter from President Blair as a positive sign of progress.”
In his letter to Coben, Baldwin offers several suggestions:
- Raise pay and fill vacant positions at the same time.
- Increase community-based resource providers. “Workers simply do not have enough resources to call upon for children in need.”
- Provide direct mental health support for CPS workers. They cannot use counselors in small towns who they work with professionally.
- Allow telework for certain job duties, to save workers wasting their time traveling for paperwork.
- Adopt a modern, applicable training regime for new workers. “Training right now is simply a months-long repeat of a social work degree. Waive general training for those who already have a social work degree.”
Baldwin also poses several questions and calls for answers by Jan. 9, two days before the 2023 session starts.
DHHR responds
Asked by The Dominion Post to comment on the letters, Coben sent the following responses.
“I have just received and am reviewing the suggestions outlined in the letter from Senate President Craig Blair and his leadership team. I am deeply appreciative of their outreach and the many recommendations included therein, and will respond promptly. Many of these recommendations are similar to what our team is reviewing and some are in the process of implementation. I look forward to working collaboratively with the West Virginia Legislature on these critically important issues facing our state.”
And, “Having just received Senator Stephen Baldwin’s letter, a review will be made followed with a prompt and appropriate response. Our team has been actively working to address concerns related to the child welfare system and will continue to work collaboratively throughout the state to protect our most vulnerable populations. I appreciate Senator Baldwin’s outreach, especially as he wraps up his service to West Virginia.”
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp
EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
