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Director: West Virginia Child Protective Services ‘at breaking point’

By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Child Protective Services division within the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources is facing multiple issues driven by the opioid crisis, including staff vacancies, an overflowing foster care system, drug addicted infants, and a slow-to-respond child abuse hotline that contributed to the deaths of five children last year.

“We’re already pretty much at our breaking point and I don’t know how much further that rubber band can stretch before it snaps,” said Jeff Pack, commissioner for DHHR’s Bureau for Social Services, to members of the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Committee on Children and Families on Tuesday afternoon during the last day of December interim meetings.

Pack, who joined DHHR in August and was previously a member of the House of Delegates and chairman of the House Health and Human Resources Committee, said he never realized how bad things were until he became commissioner.

“I didn’t understand how difficult my job would be when I left (the Legislature) and went to (DHHR),” Pack said…

To read more: https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/local-news/2021/12/director-child-protective-services-at-breaking-point/

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