KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. –Kanawha County Delegate Andy Shamblin says West Virginia’s foster care system continues to undergo changes, and he wants additional reforms to better support foster families and children.

Andy Shamblin

More than 6,000 foster care placements are currently in the state, according to the state’s child welfare dashboard.

Shamblin, who also teaches at Nitro High School, said he sees the struggles families face.

“I’ve seen and dealt with so many grandparents who are raising there grandkids even great-grandparents, I’ve seen lots of folks in their 80s trying to raise high school children, it is an epidemic in West Virginia there’s no question about it,” Shamblin said recently on 580 Live with Dave Allen.

The foster care system faces several challenges, including a shortage of child protective services workers, overcrowding, limited support for families, unmet mental health care needs, kinship care difficulties, and broader systemic failures.

In May 2025, West Virginia Department of Human Services officials conducted a child welfare listening tour across the state over eight days. DoHS Secretary Alex Mayer and other officials gathered public input and answered questions about challenges facing the system.

They released a report of their main themes they discovered throughout the tour including:

– consistency needed across all counties and standardized practices statewide
– improved communication and transparency with families and caregivers
– expanded access to mental health and wraparound services
– inclusion of foster, kinship, and biological parents in decision-making
– support for the workforce, including training, resources, and culture change

Shamblin said he would like to see more transparency, noting the state’s child welfare dashboard as a positive step.

“One things that’s been worked on now it seems like it’s a continuous project is a foster care dashboard so that we can see and we can track the number of kids who are in foster care placements,” he said.

Shamblin also said he wants to bring children placed out of state, currently about 380, back to West Virginia because of the cost to the state.

“It is costing the state a tremendous amount of money to continue those placements and somehow we’ve got to figure out a way to house these children in-state closer to the resources that they need in order to be successful,” Shamblin said.

Shamblin said he applauded Gov. Patrick Morrisey after the governor announced a plan to bring those children back to West Virginia. Morrisey announced in December a new revolving investment fund aimed at expanding and improving in-state facilities. Children are often placed out of state because of a shortage of available foster homes or a lack of specialized facilities to meet behavioral, medical or therapeutic needs.

Shamblin also addressed challenges in recruiting child protective services workers, citing low pay and other factors.

“Pay for state workers is a problem, PEIA costs are a problem and we’ve got to put some more money into these agencies to raise pay so we can attract good quality workers to take these jobs,” he said.

He said the budget needs to reflect the importance of staffing and attracting workers for these positions.