(Editorial - Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Charleston’s First Presbyterian Church Hope Center released a report last week that highlights the challenges for young people aging out of the foster care system in West Virginia. It showed the continuum of care for these vulnerable residents falls short in a number of ways.

For the Hope Center, the report was meant to contribute to the conversation about how service gaps can be filled and organizations can work together, according to a report by West Virginia Watch.

“No one system, agency or provider can fully meet all of the complex needs of these young adults transitioning out of care,” said FPC Hope Center Executive Director Kyla Nichols, according to West Virginia Watch. “It takes all of us working together, listening together and building together to ensure that young people don’t simply exit care, that they move forward into stable, supportive and hopeful futures.”

“Hopeful” is the operative word. Nearly 6,000 children are in West Virginia’s foster care system. Many of them are between the ages of 13 and 17 — and approximately 400 are 18 to 20. They face challenges such as how to continue their education, find jobs, find housing, get transportation (maybe even a driver’s license) and little things the rest of us take for granted such as how to set up appointments for themselves.

“Before you turn 18, most people are helping you set up those appointments,” Ceira Roberts, who has recently aged out of the system, told West Virginia Watch. “The biggest barrier I have is figuring out how to just make a phone call, how to set up that appointment.”

If that strikes you as unusual, count yourself lucky to have grown up with the support and guidance needed to prepare you for life after your teenage years.

Lawmakers understood the need to address our failure to help these young people, and this year passed House Bill 4730, “Developing a continuum of independent living and transitional support services for youth aging out of foster care.” Gov. Patrick Morrisey vetoed it because of what he called “uncontrollable cost drivers.”

According to startfostercare.org, West Virginia has the highest rate of youth in foster care in the country — approximately FOUR TIMES higher than the national average. It’s further proof that there is a disconnect between some politicians’ claim that they care deeply about children and families and the decisions they make when it counts. The magnitude of the problem is a symptom of a great many challenges our representatives in Charleston too often either ignore or intentionally make worse.

Thousands of young people deserve better. We all do.