WV leaders bought new CPS referral system after girl starved to death; it was never implemented

In 2024, police found the body of a 14-year-old Kyneddi Miller in a skeletal state in her Boone County home. She only weighed 58 pounds. Barracks lied on the bathroom floor for four to five days.

In the following weeks the… Justice administration claimed that Child Protective Services knew nothing about Miller before her death, despite reporters Obtaining documents indicating that a CPS referral was made through them.

In July 2024 the state The Department of Human Services said after Miller’s death that this was the case would change how it screens referrals for child abuse and neglect.

The department announced in a Press release a partnership with nonprofit organization Evident Change for the new system.

“This system will allow the department to better serve West Virginia families, particularly in cases that do not meet standards for investigating abuse and neglect but still require our attention and support,” said then-DoHS Secretary Cynthia Persily.

Evident Change was never implemented, a DoHS spokesperson told West Virginia Watch in an email, even though the state paid the nonprofit $223,000.

“It’s shocking to hear that,” Del said. Josh Holstein, a Republican who represents Boone County. “My first thought is that I’m shocked that we weren’t at least informed about this.”

A Freedom of Information Act filing by West Virginia Watch showed that the state terminated his contract with the company in March 2025 under the Morrisey administration. The DoHS has moved to a different system.

Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, has urged increased DoHS transparency about West Virginia’s troubled foster care system. He was unaware that the department was not implementing the Evident Change referral system.

“After Kyneddi, we have not made any progress yet,” Deeds said. “We have to make improvements. We can’t allow it to be the same thing over and over again.”

“At the end of the day, we just wasted $223,000 of taxpayer money and we have nothing to show for it,” he continued. “That’s my biggest problem every time in Human Services. There’s all sorts of saber rattling when something terrible and tragic happens, and everyone will make improvements, and then they let up on attention to the issue, then there’s no improvement.”

Angel Hightower, a human services communications specialist, did not respond to a question in an email about who made the decision not to implement Evident Change or to terminate the contract.

“Obvious change was never implemented,” Hightower wrote in an April 16 email to West Virginia Watch. “However, families referred to the central intake are not automatically referred for supportive services. If the information provided meets the legal definition of abuse and/or neglect, the intake will be assigned to a county office for assessment and referral for supportive services if necessary.”

She added: ““Other states lacked measurable Evident Change results,” so the DoHS decided to adopt a different model.

A spokesman for Evident Change declined to answer questions and referred inquiries back to DoHS.

The announced Evident Change move was one of the few major reforms announced by state leaders after Miller’s death.

“To hear that we never implemented the changes that I thought we had is a little disappointing to say the least,” Holstein said. “I hope we can correct this somehow.”

West Virginia reviews CPS referrals at the highest rate in the country, more than double the national average.

Jim McKay, West Virginia’s state coordinator for child abuse prevention, noted that “children who are truly at risk can be lost when the CPS intake system is overwhelmed. That is part of the tragedy of what happened to Kyneddi Miller.”

“Much of what comes into CPS today is not abuse or neglect. These are families struggling with poverty or unmet needs, and these families should be connected to community-based services such as local family support centers and home visiting programs,” he said. “We need to build the kind of front-end support that prevents families from ending up in the CPS system in the first place.”

Federal officials, spurred by Miller’s death, examined West Virginia’s CPS referral process and found that the state failed to properly investigate 91% of reports of abuse and neglect during the period examined.

DoHS is implementing a different CPS referral model

The state uses a centralized recording system for its reports of abuse and neglect. It should determine if a child needs a CPS evaluation or could operate supportive services such as food assistance or mental health care.

State leaders said in 2024 that Miller’s hunger problems had not triggered a CPS investigation; They said she needed psychological support as she reportedly suffered from an eating disorder. In response, the department said it would develop a “differentiated response system” for referrals that do not meet the legal requirements for abuse or neglect but still involve a child in need of assistance.

Evident Change, based in Wisconsin, was to design and implement a “structured intake decision-making tool” for the state’s centralized abuse and neglect intake. after to DoHS. The department has set January 2026 as the rollout date; a contract showed it would cost the state around $560,000.

It said it helps the state make “consistent, accurate and fair decisions” with children and families.

Hightower said on April 13 that the move from Evident Change to another system was “part of a broader effort to strengthen child safety assessments and ensure consistency across the system.”

“Historically, the Evident Change model was used primarily as an intake support tool. Through ongoing evaluation of internal data and external reviews, the department recognized the need for a more comprehensive and consistent approach to security,” Hightower said.

After the state terminated the contract, an Evident Change employee wrote to DoHS on April 3, 2025: “We were all very disappointed to receive termination notices for our contracts with West Virginia and that we will no longer work with your agency to help children and families and vulnerable adults achieve better outcomes.”

DoHS switched to the Safety assessment and family assessment Model, or SAFE, according to Hightower, to support its centralized intake system for abuse and neglect referrals.

“This approach supports greater consistency across the country, improves the quality of safety assessments, and provides employees with clearer guidance in decision-making…This change reflects an effort to strengthen the overall safety practice model rather than simply replacing one tool with another,” Hightower said.

According to the department, in 2025, DoHS received more than 11,000 child abuse and neglect referrals into its central intake system Child welfare data. About 50% of the recommendations were accepted.

“Implementing the SAFE model must include a system to direct excluded families to local supports in their community. We must invest in community infrastructure that meets families where they are before a CPS report is the only option,” McKay said.

Lisa Zappa is CEO of Prestera Health Services, one of six health care providers in West Virginia Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics. Prestera, which has been in the state for 59 years, provides mental and behavioral health services for children and works with hospitals and schools to support children in need.

Supportive mental health services play a role in preventing children from ending up in foster care or state juvenile facilities, Zappa said. Connecting a child to services like Prestera could uncover problems at home that need to be addressed.

“A lot of these kids need, you know, if they intervened beforehand, that would help,” she said, noting that children should be connected to providers using evidence-based models. “Sometimes these children end up in foster care through no fault of their own, but sometimes they live with guilt because they think they did something wrong, especially when they are younger when they go into foster care.”

Julie Ann Stone MillerKyneddi Miller’s mother, was convicted to 15 years to life in prison for child abuse in connection with the death of her daughter.

A trial date is planned this summer against Donna Stone, Kyneddi Miller’s grandmother, on murder charges related to the girl’s death and her role in failing to provide basic needs that contributed to the death.