Getting priorities right for WV's young people

“This could be a really beautiful state, if we fix it.”

Those words were spoken by a young man at a juvenile day report center in Southern West Virginia. They sum up the results of over 100 interviews and surveys of young people conducted over the past year about mental health issues.

They say a lot about how things are now and how they could be.

It’s never easy to come of age — and living in West Virginia has always had its challenges. But today, many young West Virginians are facing a toxic brew of obstacles, from the addiction crisis to the explosive growth of foster care placement to a changing economy to new technology and social media. Then there are the old problems of persistent poverty and misplaced priorities.

Over the past year or so, my co-workers and I conducted a statewide listening project on young people and mental health issues as part of our work with the American Friends Service Committee. We were motivated, in part, by disappointment at the lack of action of our Legislature to address these issues over the past several years. Some of those who helped conduct interviews were themselves high school students concerned about these issues and frustrated by inaction.

It wasn’t a randomized scientific survey, but we did try to interview young people who varied in age, geographic location, race, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation. We also spoke with adults who worked with them. The most surprising finding was strong agreement on several key points:

*Young people here face serious and multiple stressors, and many are dealing with undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues and trauma. “There’s no point trying to talk to somebody who doesn’t understand.”

*Things have gotten worse. Stressors identified included addiction, economic hard times, family stability, poverty, overexposure to social media, bullying and various types of discrimination. “It makes you give up hope. You feel like there is nothing in the world that can change the way things are.”

*Many young people with undiagnosed mental health and trauma issues might wind up facing disciplinary proceedings, such as suspension, out-of-home placement or confinement, or they might wind up engaging in destructive decisions. “We need to figure out the root of the problem, instead of shipping them away. Is it drugs? Bullying? Abuse?”

* Existing systems are not prepared to deal with the situation. “I think more money should be spent on counseling for young people. More community involvement would also be good. Instead of people thinking, ‘oh poor thing,’ people should be thinking ‘what can I do to help this person?’”

*Something needs to be done. “We need more people who care.”

Strange to say, nobody asked for charter schools or education savings accounts or the privatization of public education.

It’s no surprise to me that those same themes showed up in the education forums conducted around the state by the West Virginia Department of Education, in which nearly 2,000 stakeholders participated.

Early in April, state schools Superintendent Steven Paine told WV MetroNews, “Overwhelmingly, there was almost unanimous support for social, emotional supports for students. In other words, recognizing that kids are coming from some very, very difficult backgrounds and some of those needs need to be met before we can address their academic needs. That’s probably the one that stood out the most to me.”

There are several policies the Legislature could enact that might help with this situation. Obviously, one step would be to increase the number of mental health professionals who work in schools. With that investment, it would be easier to assess and address issues before a student is suspended or sent to court.

A worthy long-term goal for our state would be to ensure that students in danger of entering the juvenile justice system are assessed and referred to community-based programs whenever possible and appropriate.

Another could be creating a task force to address juvenile mental health and trauma-related issues. West Virginia has already created strategic plans to address chronic diseases, such as asthma and diabetes. These help stakeholders tackle issues by assessing needed services, setting goals, and assigning responsibilities.

Such a task force could not only identify unmet needs but also highlight success stories and best practices that could be replicated elsewhere.

To state the obvious, we’re losing a lot of young people in the state, but many of those who remain have serious, unmet needs. When the Legislature goes back into special session, I hope they don’t use kids as a political football, but, instead, deal with the real problems.

This really could be a beautiful state, if we fix it.

(This ran as an op-ed in last week's Charleston Gazette-Mail)

Unfinished business: addressing WV's youth mental health needs

The WV legislative session ended Saturday (thank God!), but Gov. Justice has called for a special session to address "education betterment." One thing we hope to address in improving mental health services for young people. Here below is an op-ed from the Beckley Register-Herald on the subject:

“This could be a really beautiful state if we fix it.”

Those words were spoken by a young man at a juvenile day report center in southern West Virginia. They sum up the results of over 100 interviews and surveys of young people conducted over the last year about mental health issues.

That sentence speaks to the great potential of the state to be a welcoming home for its children and young adults. It also speaks to a sense of brokenness that many young people expressed when they described things as they are.

Coming of age is never easy, even in good times. And living in West Virginia has always had its challenges. But the combination of a public health crisis in the form of the opioid epidemic, the explosive growth of foster care placement, a changing economy that has left many behind, new technology and social media, persistent poverty and misplaced priorities makes this a particularly difficult time to grow up.

My co-workers and I decided to conduct a statewide listening project on young people and mental health issues as part of our work with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). We were motivated in part by disappointment at the lack of action of our Legislature to address these issues over the last several years. Some of those who helped conduct interviews were themselves high school students concerned about these issues and frustrated by inaction.

We surveyed young people who varied in age, geographic location, race, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation. The most surprising finding was strong agreement on several key points:

● Young people here face serious and multiple stressors, and many are dealing with undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues and trauma. “There’s no point trying to talk to somebody who doesn’t understand.”

● Things have gotten worse. Stressors identified included addiction, economic hard times, family stability, poverty, overexposure to social media, bullying and various types of discrimination. “It makes you give up hope. You feel like there is nothing in the world that can change the way things are.”

● Many young people with undiagnosed mental health and trauma issues may wind up facing disciplinary proceedings such as suspension, out of home placement or confinement, or may wind up engaging in destructive decisions. “We need to figure out the root of the problem instead of shipping them away. Is it drugs? Bullying? Abuse?”

● Systems are not prepared to deal with the situation. “I think more money should be spent on counseling for young people. More community involvement would also be good. Instead of people thinking ‘oh poor thing,’ people should be thinking ‘what can I do to help this person?’ “

There are several policies the Legislature could enact that might help with this situation. One would be creating a task force to address juvenile mental health and trauma-related issues. West Virginia has already created strategic plans to address chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes. These help stakeholders tackle issues by assessing needed services, setting goals, and assigning responsibilities.

Such a task force could not only identify unmet needs but also highlight success stories and best practices that could be replicated elsewhere.

Another promising approach is to help public schools address mental health issues before a student is suspended or sent to court. Several interviewees pointed out that acting out is often a symptom of deeper problems, which often go undiagnosed and untreated. Increasing the number of mental health professionals who work with schools is an obvious step.

A worthy long-term goal for our state would be to ensure that students in danger of entering the juvenile justice system are assessed and referred to community-based programs whenever possible and appropriate.

It may be that there are some juveniles who constitute a major threat to the public and/or themselves. It only makes sense that out-of-home placement and treatment should be reserved for such people as a last and, one hopes, a temporary resort. The rest should be treated, whenever possible, in their homes and communities.

As state leaders, communities and families become more informed about why mental health matters and what can be done about it, West Virginians of all ages will be better able to draw upon our vast reserves of resiliency, caring and compassion.

Tough times to come of age

Growing up is never easy, but these are particularly tough times for young people in West Virginia, given the opioid crisis, the ballooning foster care population, hard economic times, trauma and all that. As we've argued many times in the past, state bureaucracies seem more comfortable disciplining or confining young people than finding out what's really going on.

That's one of the reasons the two American Friends Service Committee projects in WV teamed up to work on a listening project. Over the last year, we surveyed and interviewed over 100 high school students and people who work closely with them. The results are summarized in this report, including many quotes by those we interviewed.

Some themes were loud and clear (buy you'll have to click the link to see them).

The title came from a moving interview we did with some young men in a day report center in Boone County. One of them said "This could really be a beautiful state if we fix it." Can't sum it up any better than that.

A little background.... A couple years ago, the legislature considered passing a Mental Health Matters bill. The idea was to put together a task force on juvenile mental health to see what we have and, most importantly, what we don't.

It was a kittens, angels and puppies bill that would have cost the state little or nothing but might have eventually helped a lot of kids. Guess what? It died, probably because union busting seemed like more of a priority to the legislative majority.

As we argued in a report we released last fall, the next step in juvenile justice reform in WV would be assessing the mental health needs of young people facing suspension or out of home placement and whenever possible referring them to treatment rather than punishment.

More work to do

In recent years, WV has made progress in juvenile justice reform. We've take a few steps away from locking up kids at $100,000 or more per year for truancy...but there's still more to go. The missing piece is the mental health angle.

We as in AFSC  and the WV Center on Budget and Policy recently released a report on where things are and where we need to go. Here's a link to the full report.

And here's a summary of the key findings. We hope to work with folks in the coming year to move things along:



Every year in West Virginia, around 4,000 juveniles will appear before a judge. Pending the judge’s decision, a juvenile may be given an improvement period to address the behavior, put on probation, referred to a special court, or committed to some form of out-of-home placement. However, the state’s juvenile justice system can be confusing and data is often difficult or impossible to obtain.

This report provides an overview of West Virginia’s juvenile justice system, including historical background, recent reforms, and recommendations for improvements. It also suggests looking at the system through a mental health lens could lead to more constructive solutions and positive outcomes for the state’s youth offenders.

“When West Virginia confines a young person for a minor, non-violent offense, too often it puts him or her at risk of being drawn more deeply into the criminal justice system,” said Sean O’Leary, West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy Interim Executive Director. “While the state has recently embarked on the path of juvenile justice reform, there is still more work to be done. A greater focus on juvenile mental health would help West Virginia build on its recent progress.”

Key Findings

*West Virginia bucks the national trend with its high confinement rates. It was one of only five states where the rate of detention increased, despite a drop in both crime and population.

*In 2013, West Virginia confined juveniles at a rate of 510 per 10,000. By contrast, Massachusetts, with nearly four times the population of West Virginia, had just 393 youth in confinement.

*African American youth were nearly three times as likely to be confined as their white counterparts. West Virginia’s youth confinement rate for African Americans was 1.5 times higher than the national average.

*West Virginia was second only to Wyoming to confining young females. With a rate of 175 per 100,000, the Mountain State far exceeded the national rate of 47.

*Incarceration or other forms of detainment early in life are a major life disruption in the ordinary life course, which can have ripple effects into the future. Prior incarceration was a greater predictor of recidivism than carrying a weapon, gang membership, or poor parental relationships.

*In 2013, only one out of every eight committed youth in West Virginia was locked up based on a violent crime, such as homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, or sexual assault.

*Community-based programs were more cost-efficient and effective with recidivism rates than DJS facilities.

*In 2014, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin convened the West Virginia Intergovernmental Task Force on Juvenile Justice, which brought together legislative and judicial leaders as well as system experts to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the state’s system and to produce policy recommendations.
West Virginia’s juvenile justice system has made real progress, however, it continues to face significant problems, particularly in the area of juvenile mental health.

*Looking at the system through a mental health lens could lead to more constructive solutions and positive outcomes for youth offenders. Some next steps include: creating a task force to address juvenile mental health; build the infrastructure to help public schools address mental health issues before a student is suspended or sent to court; and a long-term goal should to build an infrastructure which would ensure that students in danger of entering the system are assessed and referred to appropriate community-based programs whenever possible and appropriate.

West Virginia’s communities, families, and youth will benefit if the only young people who are confined or detained in out-of-home facilities are those who constitute a threat to the public or themselves.

Strange bedfellows

This item from the NY Times caught my eye today. It looks like groups across the political spectrum--from Koch Industries and Freedom Works to the ACLU and Center for American Progress--are uniting to support policies to reduce the US prison population and recidivism.

One thing I'm hopeful about in the WV legislature is that there may be similar agreement about reducing the number of children in the juvenile justice system. I mean, really. If those guys can agree on the need to make the adult system a little less awful, one would think we could do something like that here for young people in the system.

IT'S NOT ALL LOVE-AND-HUGS. Here's an op-ed by a friend of mine on why right to work (for less) is a bad idea.

Room to improve

Back in 2013, West Virginia took a long overdue step towards addressing prison overcrowding--and it's paid off. The state's juvenile justice system, meanwhile, is a mess.

That's the bad news .The good news is that an intergovernmental task force has been studying the issue with the help of folks from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Their major findings were released today at a press conference chaired by Gov. Tomblin.

Legislation will be introduced in the 2015 session aimed at reducing the number of juveniles now placed in residential facilities, particularly those held for status offenses, which are actions only considered to be offenses  by non-adults.

This is one area child advocates will be pushing in the coming session. I'm hopeful we can make a dent in this problem.

A mess that needs fixing

It's no secret that West Virginia's juvenile justice system is a hot mess. It's even gotten national attention. The latest example of that is from PRI. The opening lines say it all:

The United States has been rethinking its juvenile justice system since the late 1990s. As a result, the national youth incarcreation rate has dropped dramatically in almost every state over the last 15 years--except in West Virginia.

While the US has cut its juvenile incarceration rate by half, West Virginia's rate is 42 percent higher than the rest of the country. The Mountain State has also seen the largest increase in youth incarceration since 2001.

 Fortunately, there is a good chance of things getting better on that front since Gov. Tomblin has convened a task force on the issue and solicited the help of folks from the Pew Charitable Trusts. It's gotten so bad that SOMETHING has to be done.

SPEAKING OF BAD WV SITUATIONS, here's another look at WV's economic future.

URGENT EXTINCT GIANT KANGAROO UPDATE here. Word is they didn't hop.

Good question

This Slate article asks a good question, to wit, why is West Virginia locking up so many juveniles?
The good news is that that is likely to change in the next year or so. Gov. Tomblin has appointed a task force to look at the problem that includes legislators, experts, community leaders and others to look at the system and recommend changes. They have also brought in folks from the Pew Charitable Trusts to help in the process. But it will take plenty of pushing by ordinary folks to make sure some real changes come out of it.

DO YOU EVER TALK TO YOURSELF? Apparently, how you do it matters.

GOT ART? Cave painting and other forms of art may be lots older than previously believed.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A little progress

In keeping with the occasional theme of positive things about West Virginia, today's Charleston Gazette included an article about a report on prisons given by Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein to an interim legislative committee. According to Rubenstein, the results of prison overcrowding legislation passed in 2013 are already promising, with a drop from 1,700 to 900 inmates who should be in state correctional institutions backlogged in regional jails.

The overall population has dropped by 3.5 percent between July 1 2013 and June 30 2014, even though the effects of the reforms would take a few years to start working. The Division of Corrections is also implementing other policies aimed at reducing recidivism.

Next stop: the juvenile justice system.

NOW, go take a walk.

More on a bright spot

Whenever possible, I've blogged here about good things that are happening or have happened in West Virginia (there really are some). One to watch is the new effort to reform the state's juvenile justice system, which is a hot mess.

With the help of the Pew Charitable Trusts, a state task force composed of people from many sectors will study the system and look for ways to reduce incarceration and recidivism and promote community corrections. Something like this has already been done with the adult prison system via legislation passed in 2013.

WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO? I was pleasantly surprised to read this editorial in the conservative Charleston Daily Mail last week calling on people to recognize that coal is declining for whatever reason and that we need to start talking seriously about West Virginia's future and working to diversity the economy.

Juvenile (in)justice

In case you missed it, here's my op-ed on the need for juvenile justice reform in today's Gazette.

MR. MOJO RISIN'. I have often been asked by out of state friends about WV Senator Joe Manchin. I usually say that some days are better than others (that's something the Spousal Unit frequently says of me). I'd  say that this was one of his good days. In a speech to Marine veterans, Manchin called for a cutback in US military adventures overseas.

INEQUALITY. What a drag.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Another good thing

As part of Goat Rope's continuing "It's not all bad" on again/off again series, here's another positive step for West Virginia these days. Gov. Tomblin recently announced the formation of a task force to deal with problems in the state's juvenile justice system, which are myriad. One of the major goals is to reduce the incarceration of youth and promote community-based corrections while also protecting public safety.

If that sounds familiar, Tomblin and the state legislature did something similar in 2012-2013 with the state's adult corrections system. That effort was assisted by the evidence-based research of the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments--and it's working. This one will be assisted by similar expertise from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Say what you want about Tomblin, and I often have, he's actually dealt with things like this that others kicked down the road. And he's also made some big positive decisions like the one to expand Medicaid. I wish this effort every success.

It's not all bad, continued

These days, I'm making a conscious effort to remind myself of things that my beloved state of West Virginia is doing right. And there are several. Last time around, I mentioned how WV is a leader in school/child nutrition. And my old sparring partner, the WV Department of Health and Human Resources, has done a stellar job of signing people up for the expanded Medicaid health coverage. And the decision to expand it was another good step taken by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin last year.

Something else that WV has started to get right is addressing prison overcrowding. Since passing legislation in 2013 along the lines recommended by the Justice Reinvestment project of the Council of State Governments, overcrowding in regional jails has dropped by half and the population in the state's prison system is below projections. Other steps along that line have been taken as well.

The latest positive sign is the involvement of state leaders with the Pew Charitable Trust in looking for ways of addressing problems in the juvenile justice system. I'm hoping we can take positive steps in that arena as well.

What he said

 From a recent address by Pope Francis to newly appointed ambassadors to the Vatican:

The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

...human beings themselves are nowadays considered as consumer goods which can be used and thrown away. We have started a throw-away culture. This tendency is seen on the level of individuals and whole societies; and it is being promoted! In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good. A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules. Moreover, indebtedness and credit distance countries from their real economy and citizens from their real buying power. Added to this, as if it were needed, is widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless.

Read the rest here.

WHAT A SURPRISE. Locking kids up in juvenile prisons doesn't do a whole lot of good.

BE THERE IF YOU CAN. Here are op-eds by the Rev. Ron English and the Rev. David Fryson about the upcoming celebrations of the African American contribution to WV's first 150 years that will take place June 16-19. Details are in the links. If you know WV's history it's hard to deny this basic statement: no black folks, no West Virginia.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED