We are currently in a mental health crisis both nationally and in West Virginia. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, youth across the country were experiencing mental health challenges, but during the pandemic there were steep increases in the number of youth experiencing anxiety and depression. The pandemic led to new stressors for youth, including school closures, isolation from peers, disruptions in schedules, economic insecurity, and the loss of parents, caregivers, and other loved ones. While the pandemic’s peak has passed, its impact on mental health can still be felt.
The mental health of young people is influenced by a number of factors, including societal, environmental, community, family, and individual factors, as well as biological factors including genes and brain chemistry. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, exposure to violence, and living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods can also shape mental health. ACEs undermine a child’s sense of safety, stability, bonding, and well-being, as well as lead to toxic stress.
Over the past decade, an increasing number of West Virginia high school students have reported symptoms of poor mental health, with the share of students reporting symptoms surpassing the national average in 2021. The share of high school students in West Virginia that 1) has seriously considered attempting suicide, 2) has made a plan about how they would attempt suicide, or 3) has actually attempted suicide have all increased over the past decade.
The prevalence of mental health challenges varies by demographic in West Virginia. For instance, high school girls in West Virginia are more likely to experience symptoms of depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts than high school boys. In West Virginia, lesbian, gay, and bisexual students (85.2 percent) and youth who identified as other or questioning (62.1 percent) were much more likely to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness than their heterosexual peers (40.8 percent).
Supporting the mental health of young people requires efforts from all of society to address longstanding challenges. That includes recognizing mental health as an essential part of overall health; empowering youth and their families to recognize, manage, and learn from difficult emotions; ensuring that every child has access to high quality, affordable mental health care; supporting mental health in educational, community, and child care settings; addressing economic and social barriers that contribute to poor mental health; and increasing timely data collection and research to identify and respond to youth mental health needs more rapidly. Our policy recommendations include:
Learn more in Sean’s full issue brief.
The WVCBP’s executive director, Kelly Allen, issued the following statement in response to Governor Patrick Morrisey’s February 12, 2025 State of the State address:
We applaud Governor Morrisey’s call to put our people’s interests over special interests, as well as the imperative he shared to prioritize the education and health of our population. But achieving those aims requires more than just words- they must be prioritized in his budget.
While during his speech, Morrisey called for increasing teacher pay and growing the Hope Scholarship, only one made it into his recommended budget. In it, funding for the Hope Scholarship is doubled compared with FY 2025, while funding for teacher and public employee pay raises is not included at all.
We urge our state lawmakers to work together to address the needs of the vast majority of children of our state who are served through the public school system before increasing spending on an unproven, unaccountable program pushed by corporate special interests.
After years of flat budgets and austerity, prioritizing the health and education of our children and families means securing the revenue needed to invest in the programs that serve them, rather than doubling down on the failed promises of deep tax cuts that undermine our shared goals of making our economy work for the families already here and the people and businesses we want to draw here.
Learn more about the state’s declining revenues and rising Hope Scholarship costs in this recent article, which features further insights from Kelly.
Learn more about how potential federal cuts to the Department of Education would negatively impact West Virginia public schools in Kelly’s recent interview.
The public school system is an essential resource for West Virginians, serving the majority of children in our state (about 90 percent). This resource is guaranteed to West Virginians through our state constitution which promises a thorough and efficient system of free schools. Public education at large and within West Virginia has faced several challenges in recent years including the COVID-19 pandemic, declining enrollment, and disinvestment of funding and resources.
There is growing consensus among state and local leaders in education that the current funding formula for our public schools no longer reflects the priorities of communities or the changing needs of students. More than 20 schools across the state have been proposed or approved to close this school year. Unless the school funding formula is updated, additional schools will close, resulting in wide-ranging impacts for students and their communities more broadly. Schools provide the essential service of education to students and serve as major employers and contributors to the local economy.
Legislators must modernize the school funding formula to ensure that West Virginia public schools are equipped with the necessary resources to meet the needs of our children and fulfill the state’s constitutional promise. Recommendations for modernization include:
Learn more in Tamaya’s full fact sheet.
The Hope Scholarship, West Virginia’s school vouchers’ program, is experiencing exponential growth in program costs. From FY 2024 to FY 2027, when the program is slated to become universal–meaning that public taxpayer dollars will go to families whose children are already in private school or being homeschooled–the cost is expected to increase more than ten-fold.
In recent years, there has been no similar commitment to increasing funding in West Virginia’s public education system, which educates the vast majority of the state’s school-aged children. Statewide, more than 20 schools could close over the next year due to school enrollment declines and funding challenges. The current school funding structure falls short of meeting the needs of our 241,000 public school students.
For the same cost as the Hope Scholarship in FY 2026 ($110 million), West Virginia lawmakers could fund raises for teachers, school nurses, and bus operators and hire more professional support personnel to support students and educators and improve outcomes.
Read Tamaya’s full blog post.
Federal policymakers are considering enacting work reporting requirements and other spending reductions for Medicaid in the new Congress. Cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs would have a disproportionately harmful impact in West Virginia, which funds a larger share of its budget through federal dollars than most states. Proposals to reduce federal funding for programs would shift significant costs onto the state budget just as West Virginia faces its own budget crisis.
Medicaid work reporting requirements brought disastrous consequences in Arkansas in 2018-19 until a federal judge blocked the program. Enacting an Arkansas-style work reporting requirement statewide would result in West Virginia’s health care system losing an estimated $270 million annually, 90 percent of which ($243 million) is federal Medicaid dollars, while uncompensated care costs would dramatically increase for providers and the state. Further, an estimated 40,779 residents could be expected to lose their health coverage. Nearly 4,500 job losses in the health care sector and indirectly related industries could be expected.
Our new analysis breaks down the impact by Congressional District.
The First Congressional District would lose an estimated $155 million in Medicaid funds annually, 90 percent of which ($140 million) is federal Medicaid dollars, while uncompensated care costs would dramatically increase for providers and the state. An estimated 23,409 residents in the district would be expected to lose their health coverage. An estimated 2,511 job losses in the health care sector and indirectly related industries could be expected.
Read the full analysis for West Virginia’s First Congressional District here.
The Second Congressional District would lose an estimated $115 million in Medicaid funds annually, 90 percent of which ($103 million) is federal Medicaid dollars, while uncompensated care costs would dramatically increase for providers and the state. An estimated 17,337 residents in the district would be expected to lose their health coverage. An estimated 1,846 job losses in the health care sector and indirectly related industries in the district could be expected.
Read the full analysis for West Virginia’s Second Congressional District here.
Take Action Today: Use our form to contact West Virginia’s congressional and Senate delegation and tell them to reject any budget proposal that cuts funding for Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal safety net programs.
West Virginia is facing an ongoing child care crisis, and while a number of child care-related bills were introduced during the 2024 legislative session, none of them were ultimately passed. Now as the 2025 legislative session gets underway, ongoing budget uncertainty may mean critical child care issues continue to go unaddressed. A recent article, including insight from WVCBP senior policy analyst Sean O’Leary, provides further details. Excerpt below:
Addressing a web of child care issues was a 2024 priority in the West Virginia House of Delegates, where members said the issue was key to improving the state’s abysmal workforce participation rate. A stack of child care related bills, including measures creating new spots, never made it to the governor’s desk largely due to their price tag.
This year, a House task force meant to tackle the issue isn’t meeting, and Republicans leaders, who oversee a supermajority, have so far publicly put their priorities elsewhere.
“We said this was a priority, and we didn’t get this done in the way we said we wanted to,” said Del. Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, a mother of two who has spearheaded child care reform legislation. “Now it’s just fallen off the radar. It’s no longer a priority.”
Gov. Patrick Morrisey made no mention of child care in his first State of the State address or, so far, put forth any bills on the issue. His proposed budget doesn’t increase money for child care.
In the last year, around 150 centers have closed, worsening the state’s child care access. Child care centers in West Virginia and across the country are struggling to retain staff and stay open while trying to keep prices reasonable for working families.
“A lot of lawmakers said they were going to make it a priority, and we believed them,” said Tiffany Gale, owner of Miss Tiffany’s Early Childhood Education House in Weirton. “When no bills got passed, it was really disheartening. We’re still in the same boat.”
This year, lawmakers are re-introducing similar child care measures, but another year of budget concerns — Morrisey says the state is facing a projected $400 million deficit — has some concerned that bills that require funding could struggle to get traction.
Del. Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam, said she will again sponsor a bill to create a “Tri-Share Program,” where the state, participating employers and their employees would contribute one-third of the total cost of child care. Crouse said that the program is currently being piloted in eight counties, including Putnam.
“I’m a mom, and I just want women to have those options, and I know there’s fathers out there too, but I know it’s primarily women that end up staying home with the kids,” she said. “So I want to make sure that women have those options, whether they want to stay home, whether they want to go to work, whatever it is … and on top of that, we need to work on our workforce.”
Crouse filed the measure last year, saying that she believed it was the biggest share of money she’d ever requested in legislation. The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which backed the bill, believes it allows the state to allocate a set amount of funding to prevent costs from rising indefinitely. The price could run around $10 million, but it’s up to the state what they want to invest.
“[House Finance Committee] is going through all the committee budget hearings, and hopefully we’ll have a little bit better knowledge of what’s going on after those are completed, and we’ll see where we’re at and what we can do,” Crouse said on Tuesday. “But I am really hoping that maybe we can at least get the Tri-Share through.”
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has said addressing the child care desert is pivotal in an effort to grow the state’s workforce.
“The budget situation is a real concern because you can’t fix this issue without putting a lot of resources in it,” said Brian Dayton, vice president of policy and advocacy for the chamber.
Most families are paying $600 to $700 a month for day care, and lawmakers last year did approve former Gov. Jim Justice’s proposed Child Care Tax Credit, available to families who already claim the federal child care tax credit. Child care providers said the measure did nothing to create new day care spots as it only helped families already receiving care.
Future of child care funding uncertain this summer
The state’s spending on child care has declined over the last decade, said Sean O’Leary, senior policy analyst for the state’s Center on Budget and Policy.
“What we’ve seen in the budget is that funding for child care is flat and it’s declined over the past decade. It’s not a penny different,” he said.
The Department of Human Services is currently using money from federal grants, state funds and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars to fund a state-run program that reimburses child care centers that serve low-income children.
The state’s Early Childhood Education program is serving 7,046 families and 11,537 children.
Pandemic-era funding allowed child care providers that serve families receiving state assistance to be paid based on enrollment in their programs rather than daily attendance so they could stabilize their income. The federal government recently mandated that change.
“DoHS has been paying by enrollment since March 2020. Monthly certificate expenditures for January 2025 were $7.75 million,” said DoHS spokesperson Angelica Hightower.
Young said there’s no single fix for child care but noted that adequately funding the program, which is reliant on temporary money, is the biggest issue to address.
“Right now, we’re using those excess TANF dollars, and [DoHS] has told providers that they’ll be available at the end of this fiscal year. So what happens on July 1?” Young said.
DoHS faced a similar funding cliff last year, telling lawmakers that it needed a long-term funding plan.
Melissa Colagrasso, director of A Place to Grow, a child care center in Oak Hill, estimated that 2,000 children could be removed from the state assistance program if funding issues aren’t addressed. She said that child care providers’ communication with DoHS had improved under Morssiey’s new agency Secretary Alex Mayer.
“It’s time for this to be a priority,” Colagrasso said.
Gale added that they’d like to see individuals working at child care centers to automatically qualify for the state assistance program.
Last year, lawmakers questioned why DoHS hadn’t used a $200 million surplus to adequately fund the child care assistance program.
Del. Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson, said the department’s failure to fund child care led him to introduce a bill, House Bill 2059, that would move child care and early childhood education from DoHS and under the oversight of the state Department of Education. Other states have done a similar change.
“If we take all that line item out of DoHS and put it under the [Department] of Education … we get a fresh start,” he said. “It’s a big lift. Would I love to see it get passed this year, absolutely. But, sometimes you gotta put these big changes in to open up eyes.”
Clark represents one of the few areas of the state experiencing population growth. He regularly hears from constituents about the child care desert.
“The last report that I saw, we have one space for every 51 eligible kids,” he said.
Increasing a child care tax credit for employers
Del. Bob Fehrenbacher, R-Wood, will again try to push a bill to increase the tax credit for employers providing child care for employees. Nonprofit businesses, like church-operated day care centers, would be eligible for a transferable credit where owners could recapture some of those dollars.
“This doesn’t cost the state anything because it’s a tax credit and I think it would have the most impact,” Young said.
She added that child care also provides early education for children as the state has some of the country’s lowest education outcomes. Additionally, the state’s substance abuse crisis, including babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, can mean children are in need of early interventions.
“As we are seeing countless headlines about school behavior and school readiness — especially at the kindergarten level — we know this is another way we can get our kids ready for school,” Young said.
Read the full article.
Our friends and neighbors in West Virginia’s Southern coalfield counties need our help after devastating flooding. If, like us, you’re looking for ways to support, please see the flyer below and check out these vetted resources.
Coalfield community residents had been preparing to hold a press conference at the WV State Capitol earlier this week to advocate for clean water for their communities. Read more about their continuing struggle to secure safe drinking water here.
Congress is moving fast on budget plans that could put critical safety net programs—Medicaid, SNAP, and other essential services—at risk. Right now, lawmakers in both the U.S. House and Senate are considering budget proposals that could lead to devastating cuts to the programs that thousands of West Virginians rely on for food, health care, and economic security.
These cuts would disproportionately impact families, seniors, and children in our state, threatening access to health care, food assistance, and other essential services—all to finance tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. We can’t let this happen.
Take Action Today: Use our form to contact West Virginia’s congressional and Senate delegation and tell them to reject any budget proposal that cuts funding for Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal safety net programs. Our elected officials must prioritize the well-being of West Virginians, not corporate interests and tax breaks for billionaires.
The fourth annual Black Policy Day is scheduled for March 10, 2025 at the State Capitol in Charleston, West Virginia. Founded by Black Voter Impact Initiative and Black by God, Black Policy Day brings together hundreds of Black West Virginians from all over the state to advance civic engagement, raise collective understanding of the decisions made by state lawmakers, and advocate for policies from the community-sourced Black Policy Agenda.
You can register for the event free of charge or become a Black Policy Day sponsor here. Please see the yellow flyer below for further details.
You can register for the accompanying webinar series here.
You can share what you would like to see prioritized in the Black Policy Agenda by filling out this survey.
You can view the recording of Young, Gifted, and Black, a webinar highlighting emerging Black policymakers and advocates who are shaping the future of the Mountain State, here.
