Children's advocates said they are hoping for major changes to the state's foster-care and child-protective services systems in the new year.

Recent investigations have highlighted a strained foster-care system, largely because of the opioid crisis and lack of resources.

Marissa Sanders, director of the West Virginia Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship Parents Network, said while state lawmakers recently formed a bipartisan child-welfare caucus, she has since seen little movement on the issue.

Sanders would like the state to increase accountability and data collection on how many foster parents are in the state, and what their capacity to care for children is.

"We have a staffing shortage is CPS, which is common," Sanders asserted. "One of the best ways to alleviate that is to reduce the number of kids coming into care. And in West Virginia, we have the highest number of children per-capita in care of any state in the country, and we remove more children than any other state per capita."

According to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, more than 7,000 West Virginia children currently live in foster care, and in 2019 West Virginia removed 14 out of every 1,000 children from their homes. The national average is three children per 1,000.

Rachel Kinder, FrameWorks Director for Mission West Virginia, said despite the state's problems and serious concerns over child safety and wellbeing, increasing numbers of kids are entering the foster-care system, and there are not enough adults to care for them.

"So we just have an ever-increasing need for new foster parents," Kinder explained. "There's also kind of this cycle where people become foster parents, and if a child is not able to be reunified with their family of origin, then those foster parents a lot of times adopt. And that lessens their ability to be foster parents."

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 140,000 children lost a caregiver or parent due to pandemic-related causes, and it is estimated a portion of those children could end up in foster care.

Sanders added foster care is designed to be a temporary intervention, and she believes the state should shift toward a model which increases partnership between birth parents and foster parents to strengthen a child's web of support.

"Really, the goal of foster are is always reunification, unless it becomes clear that's not safe," Sanders emphasized.

According to the publication The Imprint, the number of children who were living with foster parents through state agencies across the country dropped by 4% during the pandemic. As of last March, around 402,000 children were in foster care nationwide.

New Mexico's families of color, Hispanic families in particular, have been hit hardest by income losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report.

The annual Kids Count Data Book from New Mexico Voices for Children tracks 16 indicators across four domains: economic security, education, health, and family and community.

Emily Wildau, KIDS COUNT coordinator at New Mexico Voices for Children, said families suffering from income losses relied heavily on monthly checks from the American Rescue Plan.

"One of the most interesting things in that hardship data is limited numbers on how families have been spending the expanded child tax credit," Wildau reported. "Primarily, they're paying for their basic needs, they're paying down debt at really high rates and trying to do some saving as well."

The payments would have been continued for another year under the Build Back Better Act, which has stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Wildau pointed out data showed the pandemic led to increases in childhood food insecurity, greater numbers of children enrolled in Medicaid, and significantly higher numbers of chronically absent students.

New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country, but is currently flush with resources due to federal relief dollars and high state revenues. At the same time, the state regularly ranks last in K-12 education.

It could change if voters approve a question on this November's ballot to tap the state's Land Grant Permanent Fund to provide additional money for early childhood and K-12 education.

Wildau hopes the new data pointed will keep lawmakers focused on child and family well-being.

"We want to consider everything that's done now with the budget, as far as early childhood goes especially, is seen as a bridge to hopefully passage of that amendment so that there's permanent funding," Wildau urged.

In her State of the State address this week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham highlighted education, promoting a 7% raise for educators this year, noting the proposal would put New Mexico first in the region for average educator pay.

Colorado and other states are hoarding more than $6 billion intended for struggling families, according to new analysis.

In 2020, Colorado denied more applications for cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program than it accepted. Ali Safawi, a research associate at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said many Colorado families with children are not getting the help they need, even though the state has some $87 million in unspent TANF funds.

"So in Colorado, we see that for every 100 families with kids living in poverty, just 20 receive TANF," he said. "That means that 80 families out of that 100 are not, even though they are experiencing poverty and could really use that assistance."

Welfare reforms passed under the Clinton administration, aimed to help families transition to jobs that would end what critics called a cycle of dependency, gave broad leeway to states for how to use TANF funds. In Colorado, TANF distributions vary greatly depending on which county you live in.

Safawi noted that most Colorado families living in poverty already are working, but at jobs that do not pay a living wage. He added that investing in children's well-being pays off down the road. When families have cash resources to meet their basic needs, their kids do better in school, earn better wages as adults and are more financially self-sufficient.

"We know from a lot of research that giving cash to families who are struggling with very low incomes has a significant difference for children," he said, "and these impacts are not just immediate; we see improvements in their health and their economic outcomes well into adulthood."

He pointed to Columbia University research showing that raising a low-income family's income by just $1,000 a year, about $83 a month, creates more than $10,000 in societal benefits. Safawi said one way to get assistance to more Colorado families is to increase qualifying income limits, which are exceptionally low.

"It's $421 a month for a family of three," he said. "That means if they make over that, they don't qualify. We don't really see income eligibility that low anywhere else outside of the Deep South, which has a long history of limiting assistance primarily to Black families."

Washington state lawmakers are considering a policy which could help close the wealth gap for future generations.

The Washington Future Fund is a policy typically known as "baby bonds" and would allocate $3,200 to children born under the state's Medicaid program Apple Health. They would have access to it between the ages of 18 and 30.

Jennifer Tran, research and policy director for the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, said the policy would help address the racial wealth gap in particular.

"We know that children of color disproportionately represent households that have fewer wealth and assets," Tran observed. "It's really building at the state level a program that would encourage wealth building for kids in Washington state."

Recipients of the one-time benefit would be able to spend it in-state to help pay for a home, post-secondary education or to start a small business. The legislation was requested by the State Treasurer's office and modeled after legislation enacted in Connecticut last year. The House version of the bill, is scheduled for a public hearing today.

In the legislation's current version, the first distributions would go out 18 years from now for children born this year. Tran argued lawmakers should consider more flexibility with how the fund can be used.

"While buying a home and pursuing higher education and starting businesses might be the right mix of opportunities right now, there could be new, emerging ones to consider in the future," Tran pointed out.

The Washington Future Fund would be pooled in an investment fund. According to the State Treasurer's office, there are about 40,000 Apple Health births each year, or about half of the births in the state. A baby bond policy has been proposed at the federal level by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.