A decade and more into a systemic failure to support vulnerable kids and families in West Virginia, some community solutions are making a real difference.
It starts with a call to Child Protective Services. A doctor, a coach, a neighbor is so concerned that a child is being neglected or abused that they pick up the phone. It’s more common than you might think: West Virginia CPS receives some 50,000 reports a year.
50,000.
All of the numbers here are staggering. But read on, because most of this story is uplifting.
A little under half of the reports lead to investigations, and some of those investigations land children in foster care. Almost 4,500 West Virginia children entered the foster system in 2021–22, the last year we have a robust set of data for. The average age of a kid in foster care in 2022 was just 7. A second-grader.
There’s one big number we always hear—these days, it’s that there are more than 6,000 kids in foster care. That number is important, but it’s just a snapshot in time of a child welfare system that’s scrambling all day every day to find places for children who need them.
At the start of the 2021-22 fiscal year, about 7,300 kids were in the state’s care, in foster or kinship homes or group residences. About 2,200 kids were reunited with their families over the following year, and about 1,800 were adopted. The average length of time in care was 16 months—but for some of the children, it turns out to be years. Some are moved from home to home to home. And dozens every year “age out” of foster care, never having had a permanent home again—an outcome associated with higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, and addiction in adulthood.
No one even knows how many West Virginia children are in informal kinship care, staying with grandparents or other relatives without having gone through the foster system at all. Some estimates are in the multiple tens of thousands.
And yes, these numbers are bad compared with other states.
So the grinding reality behind “more than 6,000 in the state’s care” is a treadmill of stressed and broken families—and many thousands of West Virginia children every year whose home lives and futures are insecure.
The state of West Virginia persists in failing to prioritize the welfare of its most vulnerable children. In 2015, the federal Department of Justice found that the state’s treatment of children with serious mental health challenges violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2019, so little progress had been made that the DOJ imposed a detailed list of compliance provisions, with oversight. Compliance still isn’t complete. Also in 2019, a class action suit was filed to improve the treatment of children in the state’s foster care system—that trial has been delayed for so long that it won’t be heard until May 2025. Solid journalism has detailed ongoing, systemic shortcomings for years.
And yet, change has been slow. There are still too few Child Protective Services workers to ensure that kids are safe at home—still more children being removed from their homes here than anywhere else—still faster termination of parental rights here than anywhere else—still fewer than the recommended number of mental health professionals supporting kids in the schools—still not enough foster and adoptive families for all of the children who need them.
If we can find any bright spot in this, it’s that it’s been going on for so long—at least a decade—that organizations are stepping in in creative and compassionate ways to help.
Help for Families
As the numbers of West Virginia kids in foster care rose alarmingly in the 2010s—nearly 5,000 in 2015, well over 6,000 in 2017, and topping 7,500 in 2019—Greg Clutter and Steve Finn felt called to help. Finn is the founder and executive director of the Chestnut Mountain Ranch residential school serving at-risk boys and their families in Morgantown, and Clutter was an active board member. “At some point we said, ‘What if we took what’s working so well at The Ranch—surrounding kids and families with Christ-centered, loving community—and trained churches on how to do something similar with foster and kinship families?’” Clutter remembers.
This isn’t just the government’s problem to solve, in his view.
“Look at what government does well. A lot of amazing people work for Child Protective Services and other parts of the government, and they’re there to handle the crisis moment: A call comes in, and they have to do a placement—they find a foster family or a kinship situation,” Clutter says. “‘Here’s a safe place to stay.’ ‘Here’s food.’ ‘Here are some benefits.’”
But then it’s time for that new family to get stable and grow, he says—and that can be a lonely struggle. “They have to take this child to appointments, there’s visitation with the parents, and maybe there are behavioral issues, too. It’s so hard. It’s overwhelming.” Incredible effort goes into recruiting foster families, he says, but then they’re pretty much on their own. Nationwide, only about half make it to a second year, a reality that’s damaging to children and creates a bottomless need to recruit new foster parents.
That’s on the community, Clutter says. Once the government has done its part, it becomes about relationships. “And the church and the faith community, relationship is what they do.”
Church leaders and their members know they’re supposed to care for the widow and the orphan, he says, but they don’t know where to start. So in 2022, Chestnut Mountain Ranch started Chestnut Mountain Village—because it takes a village—to show willing church communities across the state exactly where to start. As the West Virginia affiliate of Promise686, a Georgia-based organization that mobilizes church communities nationwide to care for vulnerable children, CMV trains and equips West Virginia churches to create Family Advocacy Ministries. It looks different in every church, says Clutter, who serves as CMV’s director of foster care initiatives. Some organize foster family days out. Some help transition-age youth. Some create Care Communities, volunteer networks that wrap around foster and kinship families with donations, meals, rides, and other assistance as needed.
Family Advocacy Ministries work. “When I hear a foster mother who says, ‘I decided to take a baby in that was suffering from neonatal abstinence syndrome because I knew my church would help me,’ that energizes me,” Clutter says.
In its three years, CMV has engaged 40 churches across 16 West Virginia counties and trained more than 500 volunteers. The churches have supported about 75 families so far. And CMV’s experience is in line with the national numbers: Rather than 50% of foster families quitting after their first year, when they receive the support of a Care Community, only 10% quit—90% are still fostering in their second year.
“We’re there every day, helping them feel they have someone in the school they can trust. Once you have that relationship with the kids, the changes are incredible.”
— Ashley Arthur, Bridge manager
Remember Clutter’s distinction between what the government can do and what is a community responsibility? In a recent effort, the state Department of Human Services (DoHS) and CMV are partnering to narrow the gap between the government side and the community side—sometimes even addressing families’ challenges before fostering becomes the solution.
DoHS and CMV are collaborating in a two-county pilot program of the Missouri-based organization CarePortal’s online clearinghouse. “This gives a frontline CPS worker at DoHS the ability to sit down at a portal and say, ‘I have this need for this family.’” Clutter gives the example of a grandmother who is trying to take her granddaughter in but doesn’t have a bed for her. Without a bed, CPS can’t do the placement. “The CPS worker enters into CarePortal, ‘I need a bed, 8-year-old girl, this is the location, trying to get placed with her grandmother.’ At the back end, we enroll churches into that, and they recruit volunteers to meet those needs.” Churches are loving the ability to help families in their communities in direct and impactful ways, he says.
The collaboration was just announced in November 2024, so it’s still pretty new. But the CarePortal experience in other places, Clutter says, is that the rate of children going into foster care drops, because problems are addressed up front. The pilot is in Monongalia and Preston counties so far, and the partners plan to take the program statewide.
Each year, CMV holds an All In Foster Care summit aimed at improving the state of foster care in West Virginia. In line with its own success in partnering with organizations outside the state on solutions that work, the summits are “nationally informed but locally driven,” Clutter says. “We’re bringing national leaders in this space in front of communities, child welfare workers, churches, and foster families and letting them teach and inspire our community.” The fourth annual summit takes place at River Ridge Church in Charleston May 7, 2025. cmvwv.org
Help in High School
Not surprisingly, kids in foster care graduate from high school at a much lower rate than any other demographic in West Virginia: only 71% in 2023–24, compared with 93% of seniors overall. Family instability is a huge set-up for academic failure.
The Bridge program at Mission West Virginia is turning that around.
Started in Clay County in 2017, The Bridge is based on a University of Minnesota dropout prevention program called Check & Connect that achieves remarkable improvements in attendance, behavior, and grades. In its first year, The Bridge worked with 33 students. This school year, it’s operating in five counties—Boone, Clay, Kanawha, Putnam, and Wood—and serving more than 400 kids.
Here’s how it works. A Bridge mentor—there are 15 this year—works full-time in a single high school to support 30 to 35 kids who are in foster or kinship care—formal or informal. The mentor is there to set goals and solve the wide range of problems that the biological family might typically solve, in collaboration with the kids’ families, and also to help kids handle the extra emotional challenges that can come with being a foster kid.
It can smooth out the school day. If a Bridge student is getting worked up in class, for example, the principal might send them to the mentor’s office to calm down. “I’ve seen a student many times being led to make a decision that will keep them out of trouble, keep them from a fight, keep them from detention,” says Bridge Program Manager Ashley Arthur. Foster kids sometimes fall so far behind in school that they begin to give up. A Bridge mentor can help lay out a step-by-step plan for making up missed assignments or recovering credits in order to graduate on time. The mentor uses that opportunity to teach organizational skills for managing any complex life task, because the goal is to prepare the students for success as independent adults.
Bridge mentors make sure the kids they work with enjoy the same high school experiences their peers do. Sometimes it’s a motivational reward. “We have a lot of kids who may want to increase their GPA so they can play sports, or maybe they want to be in a club, or if their behavior improves, they can attend prom,” Arthur says. “Once they work so hard for that, it would be typical for us to provide sporting equipment, for example. We’ve paid for homecoming tickets and provided tuxedos and dresses for prom.”
The mentors take their students on college campus field trips that are tailored to their situation. A lot of them would be the first in their families to go to college—this might be their first time on a college campus. So The Bridge sets up a mock college class with a real professor, and the students get to participate. That, more than anything else, helps them imagine themselves in college, and the post-trip feedback forms say they love it. “We get Starbucks for them and we give them T-shirts,” Arthur says, “but it’s the classes they like best.”
As graduation nears, the mentors help their students form practical plans for life after graduation. Where will they live? What transportation will they need? If they’re headed into the workforce, do they have the qualifications? And if they’re going to technical school or college, how will it be paid for? “We practice interview skills, get them the appropriate clothing, and make sure they’re as ready as possible on the day of graduation to go into that next phase of life,” Arthur says.
Birth certificates and photo IDs, work uniforms and standardized testing fees, cap and gown sets—in short, The Bridge is able to help a foster or kinship family with just about anything that ensures their children have high school experiences as rich and rewarding as any other student’s and move into young adulthood feeling prepared for what’s next.
These are the results: Graduation rates of foster and kinship kids working with Bridge mentors have been 100% every year, even as the program has scaled up, with the exception of one student who dropped out in 2023–24—for a 98.6% graduation rate in that year. Again, that’s compared with 71% for foster kids statewide and 93% for seniors overall.
“One word,” Arthur says: “Consistency. These kids are used to different people coming in and out of their lives. We are one consistent person in their lives. The change of behaviors and mindset is because we’re there every day, helping them feel they have someone in the school they can trust. Once you have that relationship with the kids, the changes are incredible.” missionwv.org/the-bridge
Help Transitioning into College
If less than three-quarters of West Virginia students who are in foster care in high school graduate, the odds get worse from there. Research is scarce, but studies of children in foster care in high school typically find that the percentage who ultimately earn bachelor’s degrees is in the single digits—in a nation where 36% of adults have four-year degrees. A college degree is not everyone’s best path, but that disparity is a measure of the barriers foster life creates—options denied or maybe not even imagined.
Enter Middle College at Fairmont State University.
First introduced in New York State in the 1970s, middle college programs allow high school students to take both high school and college courses for high school credit while building college transcripts. The programs are offered to students who aren’t thriving in a conventional high school setting but who show the potential and ambition to earn an associate or higher college degree.
Leaders at Fairmont State University and the child welfare and mental health care nonprofit KVC West Virginia wanted to improve the odds for the state’s foster kids. They teamed up with the West Virginia Schools of Diversion and Transition (WVSDT)—that’s the part of the state Department of Education that serves residents of state-operated facilities who need educational support. And in the fall semester of 2024, the partners welcomed their first students to Middle College at Fairmont State—as far as they’re aware, the first middle college created specifically for foster kids.
“Too many youth in foster care experience frequent disruptions in their education, and that makes it difficult to graduate from high school, let alone think about higher education,” says KVC West Virginia President Erin Keltner. “They may not have access to the same resources, information, and support that their peers have, and that makes their challenges even greater.” Middle College at Fairmont State surrounds them with caring adults who see them, believe in them, and help them think about their path forward, she says.
Middle College students are high school juniors and seniors from across the state who are in foster or kinship care. This school year, they live on campus at Fairmont State’s Prichard Hall and pursue their high school diplomas through the WVSDT’s Option Pathway program. During the week, the students take classes taught by two WVSDT teachers that count toward their high school graduation, and they take college courses that earn both high school and college credit. Evenings and weekends, they’re offered activities like yoga sessions and life skills group meetings. Local churches invite them once a month to Sunday suppers. Organized off-campus excursions have included pottery painting, ice skating, a trampoline park, and time at the mall. The students also have access to Fairmont State campus activities and facilities. And they make their own fun. “They love a spa night,” Keltner says. “I’ve been there when they’re doing each other’s nails or their hair, giving facials to one another—it’s really fun to see.”
Recognizing the particular challenges of youth in foster care, the Middle College program offers these students a lot of support. In addition to their WVSDT teachers and their college professors, the students are able to rely on KVC staff members who are on-site around the clock. KVC also handles case management and makes counseling available for both day-to-day support and any mental health challenges that might come up.
“Middle College at Fairmont State surrounds students with caring adults who see them, believe in them, and help them think about their path forward.” — KVC West Virginia President Erin Keltner
Following this inaugural year, Middle College students in the 2025–26 school year will live off campus, in foster or kinship care or in a setting managed by a Middle College partner. Program leaders also plan to expand services beyond those offered this year with tutoring, access to academic advisers, and a dedicated lounge on campus.
Middle College aims to see students earn their high school diplomas on time, along with associate degrees or credits toward four-year degrees. If it achieves that, it will have helped its students through the difficult transition into adulthood.
As they entered their second semester in January, some students were finding ways to express themselves artistically. Some were joining clubs on campus. One was training in mixed martial arts, and another was getting involved in stage design with a campus theater production.
“Middle College is giving these students the confidence and opportunities to have the future that they want and deserve to have,” Keltner says. Like Chestnut Mountain Village and The Bridge, Middle College at Fairmont State is finding that, when children and families get the resources they need, they thrive. Keltner sums it up: “It gives them the chance to dream.” fairmontstate.edu/middle-college
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