CHARLESTON – A Wood County woman says her 6-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted while in foster care.
Kyla G., as parent of Jane Doe, filed her complaint August 5 in Kanawha Circuit Court against ENA Inc. doing business as NECCO Inc. Rita Smith also is named as a defendant.
NECCO is a business that recruits and trains a network of foster parents to provide safe and stable homes to children in need. NECCO provides these services under a contract with the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. Smith, who lives in Lincoln County, was a foster parent recruited, trained and supervised by NECCO.
According to the complaint, the 6-year-old girl was removed from the home of her parents and placed into foster care on May 24, 2023. She was placed in Smith’s home.
The mother says the girl was sexually assaulted by Walter Smith, an adult son of Smith, sometime during her placement. The complaint says Walter Smith has a learning disability with an IQ of 45 and a first-grade level mentality.
On June 29, 2023, the girl was returned to the custody of her mother. On July 1, 2023, she told her mother what had happened to her. The mother contacted police and Child Protective Services worker Mallory Cash. On July 5, 2023, the mother made a report with the CPS hotline and took the girl to Marietta Memorial Hospital to be examined.
According to NECCO’s contract with the state, the company has a duty and obligation to recruit and train foster parents through a process that includes approving the potential foster families. It also has a duty to not place children in homes until the completion of criminal investigation and protective services background checks, a comprehensive home study and assessment and pre-service training. The providers also must be training on the requirements of the Foster Child Bill of Rights, which is meant to provide guidance to the foster parents on their rights and the rights of the children.
NECCO also is supposed to ensure foster parents are training in the areas of healthy sexual development and pregnancy prevention as well as ensure the foster children are free from physical, sexual and psychological abuse or exploitation.
The mother accuses the defendants of negligence, saying it breached its duty to select, train, approve and supervise Rita Smith to ensure she properly would supervise Walter Smith as well as children placed in the home such as Doe. She also says NECCO failed to screen Walter Smith to determine he presented a risk to children in the home and failed to ensure he girl would not be subjected to sexual assault by a resident of the foster home.
She says her daughter suffered physical injuries as well as mental anguish, suffering, embarrassment, humiliation, indignity, shame and diminished capacity to enjoy life. She says he girl also will require future medical expenses, counseling and therapy.
She seeks compensatory damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs and other relief.
The plaintiffs are being represented by James M. Barber, R. Dean Hartley and Mark R. Staun of Hartley Law Group in Charleston and by Eric J. Buckner of Katz Kantor Stonestreet and Buckner in Princeton. The case has been assigned to Circuict Judge Maryclaire Akers.
West Virginia' foster care system has been a hot topic in recent years.
A class-action lawsuit accuses the state of failing to protect foster children. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin has scheduled that trial for November.
“Plaintiffs paint a grim picture of a deeply flawed system that inflicts on vulnerable children much of the same abuse and neglect that it was designed to redress,” Goodwin wrote when he certified the class.
The state has more than 6,000 kids in the foster care system. The latest statistics show parental drug abuse is the cause of nearly half of the children being removed from their homes in 2022.
The state has made reforms, including hiring more CPS workers.
And during this year's legislative session, lawmakers divided the DHHR into three parts to improve transparency. the Department of Human Services now oversees the foster care system. The state DHS says the rate of abuse of foster children in West Virginia is better than the national average, but it still has the nation's highest rate of children in foster care at four times the national average. The opioid epidemic is cited as the reason for the number of kids in foster care in the state has jumped 57 percent in the last 10 years.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 24-C-829
