photo by: W.Va. Legislative Photography

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, looks over bullet points for a draft bill Monday dealing with greater transparency on child welfare cases.

CHARLESTON — Members of the West Virginia Legislature are looking to the next session in 2025 to consider possible draft legislation to improve transparency involving certain child welfare cases.

The Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability received a briefing Tuesday afternoon on improving public disclosures of child welfare cases involving the death or near-fatality of a child.

The federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) requires states to provide public disclosure about cases of child abuse or neglect resulting in child fatalities or near-fatalities. Data that can be disclosed include the circumstances of the fatality or near-fatality, age and gender, and prior reports of abuse and neglect.

Officials with the state Department of Human Services believe they are already in compliance with CAPTA requirements by providing very basic child fatality data in an annual report.

DoHS officials cite State Code 49-5-101, which says that all records concerning children that DoHS maintains are confidential. CAPTA requires states to preserve the confidentiality of child abuse and neglect reports to preserve the rights of children and parents/guardians. But it does allow states to authorize limited access to information as long as state officials guarantee the safety and wellbeing of children and parents/guardians.

The proposed bill would require the disclosure of age, gender, and county of residence of a child fatality or near-fatality; whether the incident was the result of abuse and/or neglect; the name, age, and city/town of resident of the alleged perpetrator if known; a summary of the cause and circumstances; a summary of actions taken by DoHS in response; a summary of prior reports made to DoHS over a three-year period regarding the child or alleged perpetrator and actions taken; and the name of the child in the case of a fatality.

The bill is a response to the actions of DoHS regarding the death of 14-year-old Boone County girl Kyneddi Miller earlier this year. Law enforcement officers in Boone County found her in what they called a “skeletal state” due to years of malnutrition. Miller’s mother and grandparents are facing criminal charges.

Cynthia Persily, cabinet secretary of DoHS, issued a statement shortly after Miller’s death following media scrutiny expressing remorse for the death of the child, but stating that no information regarding the girl or any current of previous investigations would be released by the department. It was later reported that Miller’s name had appeared in two prior Child Protective Services cases involving her family in 2009 and 2017.

The West Virginia State Police had also conducted a welfare check on Miller in the spring of 2023, with one trooper stating in audio recordings that he was making a CPS referral and GPS data showing he went directly to the regional DoHS office to make the referral in person. However, an internal investigation by the Governor’s Office revealed that the trooper, who is now retired, did not follow proper procedures in place since 2015 to use the DoHS child abuse and neglect phone number, 1-800-352-6531.

The proposed draft bill would allow county prosecutors to prohibit the release of a child fatality/near-fatality preliminary report if release of the report would harm a criminal investigation. However, it would give DoHS the authority to release information, or to confirm, clarify or correct information concerning an allegation child abuse or neglect resulting in a fatality or near-fatality that has been made public by a source or sources outside the department.

On Monday, the Joint Standing Committee on Health heard a report on draft child welfare and foster care legislation from Del. Adam Burkhammer, R-Lewis; Del. Adam Pinson, R-Mason; and state Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier.

One of the bills proposed would update child abuse and neglect reporting procedures by allowing multiple forms of communication to DoHS other than phone calls. The draft bill would require additional data be collected by those manning the 24/7 centralized intake hotline and provide the person making the report a case number to use for follow-ups.

“Everyone wants the best for our children. I believe this one bill will help us get to that point as well,” Deeds told committee members Monday.

The proposed bill would also require all reports to be treated as though they were made through official centralized intake and prohibit DoHS from screening out calls from mandatory reporters. It would require the foster care ombudsman to review certain information in reported abuse/neglect cases. And it would also require more timely data entry for reporting child fatalities and near-fatalities on the state child welfare dashboard while also providing protections for individual identification.

“Oftentimes when there is a fatality or a near-fatality, there is no place for the public or for us as a legislative body to go and see if that has actually occurred,” Deeds said. “This would be in a very timely manner. It would give the (Bureau for Social Services) up to 48 hours to post it on the dashboard.

“I think sometimes old information is bad information,” Deeds continued. “It feels like when there is an incident that happens in our areas, we have a lot of public outcry for it. There’s a lot of misinformation that comes from that because of the delay in time. We don’t want to give out any investigative clues or anything like that. We don’t want to take away from a criminal or civil investigation. But we just want to be able to list that this happened in this area.”