Latest / Commentary - TJ Meadows / Has Anything Changed Since Kyneddi Miller?

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Has Anything Changed Since Kyneddi Miller? · Commentary - TJ Meadows

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  Speaker 1: There are stories that pass in a day and stories
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  Speaker 1: that should stop a state in its tracks. This is
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  Speaker 1: such a story. West Virginia watch reporter Amelia Nicely has
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  Speaker 1: become one of the most important watchdogs in West Virginia
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to child welfare and foster care. She
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  Speaker 1: knows the system, follows the failures and asks the questions.
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  Speaker 1: Too many others don't, and her latest report should trouble
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  Speaker 1: every West Virginia. After the starvation death of fourteen year
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  Speaker 1: old Kennedy Miller, state leaders promised reform. A new referral
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  Speaker 1: system was announced, one meant to guide struggling families stwart
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  Speaker 1: help instead of pushing every case straight into child protective services,
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  Speaker 1: but nearly two years later it was never implemented. The
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  Speaker 1: state reportedly paid more than two hundred thousand dollars to
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  Speaker 1: begin the effort, then canceled it, changed direction, and left
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  Speaker 1: lawmakers asking who made the call. Senator Vince Deeds and
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  Speaker 1: Delegate Josh Holstein reportedly learned key details not through state
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  Speaker 1: leaders and briefings, but through the press. That is not transparency,
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  Speaker 1: that is drift, and when questions were asked about who
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  Speaker 1: canceled the contract, no clear answers came. Governor Patrick Morrissey
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  Speaker 1: promised openness, promised no stonewalling, promised citizens would know more
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  Speaker 1: about what happens behind the scenes. He did that on
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  Speaker 1: talk line last June. Well, here's the moment to prove it.
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  Speaker 1: Because responsibility always settles at the top. A governor may
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  Speaker 1: not steer every oar, but he's still captain of the ship.
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  Speaker 1: And if reforms promised after a child's death quietly vanish
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  Speaker 1: into bureaucracy, then explanations are owed, not tomorrow, not after
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  Speaker 1: another review now, because in Western Virginia, this is not
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  Speaker 1: about contracts, memos, agencies, even the money. It's about children,
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  Speaker 1: and children can't wait for government to get organized.