West Virginia
West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee holds public hearing on child welfare system
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – The West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee held a listening session on the child welfare system’s challenges Monday morning, ahead of a week when the committee is set to focus on reforming it. The system currently has about 6,000 children, according to the Child Welfare Dashboard.
The committee heard from parents who have dealt with the state’s child welfare system, as well as those formerly inside the system, about what they believe needs to be changed.
“We want to hear your stories, and as we go through the bills this week on CPS and child welfare, what you share with us this morning is going to help us create better policy,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Willis (R-Berkeley) told attendees.
“After four and a half years of fighting, I lost my son,” Tanya Shresbury told the committee, saying CPS made false accusations against her. “I’ve missed birthdays, Christmases, everything. I’ve had six supervisors that have done visits with me. They all tell ‘em they’re great. Me and my little boy, we have a great connection. But when it comes to the judge seeing those reports … CPS no longer has them.”
Pat McKinney told the committee about his experience with CPS, in which he fought successfully to keep his daughter and son, calling it a “nightmare.”
McKinney told WSAZ he came to the meeting in hopes the agency will prioritize keeping children in family or close friends’ homes, rather than a new environment. That hope was echoed in several others’ addresses to the committee.
“If there’s an alternative, keep them in that family supportive environment,” McKinney said. “When you take a kid, you put them in an alien environment that they feel no support. My kids were so traumatized that if you walked up the sidewalk with a lanyard on, they hid. And we don’t need that. We need to stop taking kids.”
Some speakers were not parents, but advocates or former members of the system. Former state Sen. Mark Drennan, now the president of the West Virginia Behavioral Healthcare Providers Association, laid out what changes to CPS he would prioritize.
“If we want to fix the child welfare system in West Virginia, here’s what we need to look at,” Drennan told the committee. “No more children in hotels, fewer children being served out of state, more foster homes available for those children that need them, more children safely with their biological and kinship families, and more young, resilient adults aging with natural, lifelong connections. That’s what success looks like to me.”
After the hearing, Willis told WSAZ the committee will spend all week on reforms for the child welfare system, calling the current state of the system a “crisis.”
“At least from a legal perspective, we want to do everything we can to protect West Virginia kids and make sure they’ve got the best chance possible,” he said. “How can we set up systems so that the parents have a fair chance, and the children have a fair chance? Then we’ve got the most just system possible.”
Some of the reforms the committee is considering this week include: Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s “Bring Them Home” fund, a plan that aims to reduce the number of children within the child welfare system with behavioral or mental health needs that are sent to out-of-state facilities for care; working with more non-profits to ease the case management load; and implementing audio recording of CPS meetings with parents, children, and home visits.
“We’ve heard a lot of ‘he said, she said’ across the state, where we’ve heard parents would say what they heard in court wasn’t actually what happened, or what was said by the child or by the parent in the home or in a meeting,” Willis explained to WSAZ. “And so we’re looking at doing audio recordings with CPS workers to maintain accountability and transparency, especially for the court proceedings, because it’s such a critical issue, this removal decision.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet daily at 3 p.m. to discuss and move the bills, which Willis estimates to be “in the ballpark of 15” in total. Meetings are streamed online.
Copyright 2026 WSAZ. All rights reserved.
West Virginia
WestCare West Virginia opens male residential facility in Buckhannon
BUCKHANNON, W.Va (WDTV) – WestCare West Virginia cut the ribbon for its Hope in the Mountains complex on 22 N. Locust Street. The new facility will treat men with substance abuse issues with the hopes of fighting the drug epidemic in West Virginia.
Each room in the complex includes 56 beds, a television set and clean bathroom. Stephen Wright spoke ahead of the ribbon cutting along with Buckhannon officials. He said this facility differs from others on how they approach treatment.
“We really focus on the individual and the individual needs and focus on their progress in the program versus a number of days that a person is in treatment. So it’s really individualized,” said Stephen Wright, chief operating officer of WestCare Appalachia. “So we still need aftercare, outpatient counseling, and those things. But this really gives an opportunity for an intervention to break that cycle for individuals struggling with addiction. Because lots of times they must be separated from the living circumstances that they’re in at that time.”
Copyright 2026 WDTV. All rights reserved.
West Virginia
West Virginia Scores Rehearing Over Drug Discount Injunction
A federal appeals court agreed to rehear West Virginia’s request to lift an injunction barring enforcement of state restrictions against drugmakers seeking to limit discounts to pharmacies under a federal program.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted Thursday West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey’s request to rehear en banc arguments over a preliminary injunction. All active judges in the court will review the case after a three-judge panel in March ruled to keep the state’s SB 325 temporarily blocked while litigation plays out over the law.
The court said the case is scheduled for oral argument …
West Virginia
Heavy rain, flooding affect multiple north-central West Virginia counties – WV MetroNews
BARBOUR COUNTY, W.Va. –Rainy conditions in the Mountain State are expected to subside after six days of continuous rainfall across West Virginia.
On Wednesday, the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch and a flood watch for most of the state as rain continued moving across the region.
NWS Meteorologist Tom Mazza said north-central West Virginia counties—including Wirt, Calhoun, Lewis, and Barbour—were hit hardest by rain showers throughout the day.
“That whole stretch just south of Clarksburg, Clarksburg got a little flooding too, but that area did get hit with the flooding, along with tree damage, so severe thunderstorms there as well,” Mazza said.
In Jane Lew, located in Lewis County, West Virginia, the town hall posted on Facebook that the town park will be closed due to flooding. Officials said it will remain closed until they can assess the damage caused by the flooding.
In Harrison County, the town of Lost Creek also experienced heavy rain and flooding.
Barbour County Emergency Manager Corey Brandon said they received several rounds of heavy rain throughout the day Wednesday.
He said this caused flooding in areas that typically experience flooding during heavy rain events.
“Which resulted in a lot of water getting out of the ditch line, and also our streams and creeks getting out of their ditch lines and causing a lot of problems for a lot of low-lying areas,” Brandon said.
He said they saw a lot of rain in the Clemtown, Moatsville, and Nestorville areas, which they hadn’t seen since 2018.
Brandon said they also had to relocate an elderly woman because rising water was nearly blocking the only access road to her home.
“She had some mobility issues, so the fire department requested that we get her out of the house just in case something were to happen overnight and weren’t able to get to her after that point,” he said.
Brandon said emergency services and the Philippi Fire Department were able to reach her and relocate her to a hotel until the water recedes.
He said that while crews were assisting the woman at her home, areas they typically monitor were beginning to recede.
Brandon said officials are now monitoring local rivers to ensure they do not rise out of their banks.
“Now were anxiously awaiting for the streams and creeks to subside and now we’ll be watching the local rivers to make sure that they stay in their banks as well,” he said.
said that after the rain seen since last Thursday, the region should experience a brief dry spell.
“Leftover showers in the morning (Thursday), clouds and fog, with a gradual clearing during the day Thursday, then it looks like we have several days of nice weather, seasonal spring weather to allow us to dry out,” he said.
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