After Mountain State Spotlight reporting revealed gaps in how the state compensates kinship families and connects older foster youth to programs that help them succeed as adults, lawmakers have passed two bills addressing these issues. Both are awaiting Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s signature.
In December, Mountain State Spotlight reported that West Virginia had returned nearly $7 million to the federal government since 2010 — money granted through the federal Chafee program that’s meant to help older youth transition out of foster care. The money can pay for college, vocational training or subsidize housing that helps former foster kids live independently.
But in West Virginia, more than a fifth of that money was returned because it wasn’t used. Many former foster kids said they didn’t know about the opportunities, didn’t want to sign an agreement with the state to access the support, or, in some cases, were given incorrect information about what their options were.
Now lawmakers have approved a bill that will try to expand independent living options statewide.
The bill will expand a pilot program statewide that offers three transitional phases of independent living for former foster youth, paired with individualized support to help them find work, enroll in higher education or improve daily life skills.
In testimony to the House Health and Human Resources committee last month, bill sponsor Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis, told lawmakers that addressing these needs for the state’s most vulnerable young people is essential.
“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,” he said.
The bill also requires the West Virginia Department of Human Services to undertake more robust data collection to evaluate the independent living program’s effectiveness, and make necessary improvements. State child welfare officials will also have to submit annual reports to the Legislature on the data findings, recommendations for improvement and federal spending.
Lawmakers came close to passing another bill on a similar issue; this one would have required the state foster care agency to provide information to the state Department of Education and county boards of education about the opportunities that former foster kids can access under Chafee and other state and federal programs. Under the terms of the bill, county public schools would have had to discuss this information with students starting in eighth grade.
“Right away I thought, ‘well, this can be fixed, and it can be fixed easily,’” bill sponsor Del. Lori Dittman, R-Braxton, said last month of her thoughts after reading in the Mountain State Spotlight story that some foster youth weren’t aware of all of their options.
But in the final days of the session, the Senate amended the bill to contain the contents of another, unrelated measure dealing with vocational education agriculture programs. Because they had made changes to the bill, it had to go back to the House for approval. Delegates refused to concur with the changes, and the Senate did not take it back up before adjourning at midnight on Sunday.
Also last week, lawmakers completed action on a bill that would extend foster parent subsidies to kinship parents.
Increasingly, West Virginia regulators have relied on these kinship families to provide care to thousands of foster children in the system. These are often grandparents, though under state law “kinship” can also mean any family member, friend or even an acquaintance. But as a Mountain State Spotlight investigation in early 2025 found, often these kinship parents are stepping in to react to an emergency situation. Because of this, few have undergone official training and therefore, under current state law, aren’t eligible for the monthly subsidy the state pays certified foster parents.
Now, under the provision of a bill that passed earlier this week, kinship parents can get a temporary increase in their stipend within 30 days of taking in a foster child, as long as they undergo criminal background checks and have an initial home screening. They can get this payment for six months, a time in which they can get certified as a foster parent and get the foster parent subsidy as long as they continue to foster kids.
Morrisey has five days to sign the bills into law. If he doesn’t act in that time frame, they can become law without his signature.