Two prominent child welfare advocates spoke out yesterday in an opinion piece for the Charleston Gazette on child care in WV. 

Kelli Caseman, is the director of Child Health at the non-profit organization, West Virginians for Affordable Healthcare, and Laure Marino is a nurse practitioner here in WV. 

In the piece they outlined some of the main issues for children in the state such as, limited resources, parental drug use and, overall, struggling with addiction in many shapes and forms. 

Here is a snippet from the piece:

“Statistics in the news tell a dark story: According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, there are over 7,000 kids in foster care in our state, over 10,000 of West Virginia’s public school students are homeless, and in 2018, 482 kids in state custody ran away — some of them, more than once. Since 2013, there has been a 67 percent increase in the number of children in state custody, compared to an 11 percent increase nationally.”

This piece really exemplifies all of the things that have been circulating lately– and was a refreshing, provocative take on the issue that reporters and journalists can’t get away with. We can only hope that this gain traction with the masses in West Virginia.

Regarding the 7,000 children in foster care in West Virginia, they also detailed in the piece that this number will only continue to grow unless the issues heavily impacting it are properly addressed and effective resources are provided.

Both Caseman and Marino have been very vocal on Twitter to issues surrounding child-welfare and the foster care system in WV. 

In #WV, the state hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, about 5% of all babies are born dependent on opioids.
“Given the developmental nature of their injuries, time is of the essence for these children,” Goodwin said in his motion. https://t.co/aozKbQdn3Z

— Kelli Caseman (@kkcaseman) October 12, 2019

“Truancy is our main issue. We’ve gone through situations where we have gone through the court system to make sure their students are coming to school and next thing you know they are wanting to homeschool their children to avoid that process."https://t.co/oqobUgiAK9

— Kelli Caseman (@kkcaseman) October 13, 2019

Amidst this opinion piece, West Virginia’s DHHR is still facing a lawsuit regarding the poor management of the foster care system, naming Gov. Jim Justice, DHHR Cabinet Secretary Bill Crouch, DHHR Deputy Secretary Jeremiah Samples, and DHHR Commissioner of the Bureau for Children and Families Linda Watts as defendants. It will be interesting to see how the community takes this information in the coming weeks.