[{"_1":2,"_88":-5,"_89":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,76],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_75":74},"mediaId",6104152,"mediaKeyId","2792309-b4d87f18dbf40ecd1b97c5611f5bf99c","parentId",2792309,"title","Child advocate highlights Heart Gallery, volunteer gains and a proposal to speed permanency hearings","audioSeconds",906,"startMs",384000,"endMs",1290000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=2792309-b4d87f18dbf40ecd1b97c5611f5bf99c&start=384&end=1290","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2792309-b4d87f18dbf40ecd1b97c5611f5bf99c/thumbnail_384000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6104152/South-Carolina/Child-advocate-highlights-Heart-Gallery-volunteer-gains-and-a-proposal-to-speed-permanency-hearings","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6104152-d6a819ebfd178a8cd446f3baef633a16/orig.mp4?Expires=1771208626&Signature=o43K5Bxb5LtH8mj02fqGaCNa~XaUv4dfnD0OZD5jSxmIEVUfnCdhKcc0AmUN8WKJxb7AUSmrgFAOvvMmIbUBDAxvj8OAMThmZQsqhSZRsQYykSXAagSU-31LK2GYEii4qym1WMXEP8J4aN3EAA3HOXNraDtdlE3srPuyWXF3awVf~GBVousnGDLh1yTVHcXUDwAxyH4re1PUKu5GuxAMWZkNCXdQ7fX4Po35UYZeiQTUsZMBa0XbIy9puzXDQjsMQ~YSQnB7pvJPpn3TbY3DfD~wGN04gdgzUS5LvhfIJLVdzyV~mlSyOKFiGr43iTHXVYSc8ri~ZyLLWRUV1HqPDg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","South Carolina Legislature","date","2025-02-19T00:00:00Z","article","Amanda Whittle, the state child advocate, told the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee that the Department of Children's Advocacy has stepped up efforts to recruit adoptive families and Guardian ad Litem volunteers and will pilot a modest monetary stipend to support volunteer participation.

Whittle said adoption inquiries rose from 383 to 851 in one fiscal year and credited the South Carolina Heart Gallery — a program of the foster care review division that posts photographs and videos of children legally free for adoption — with helping generate interest. \"They take beautiful photographs of children who have indicated that they want forever homes,\" Whittle said of the Heart Gallery exhibit she described at the Columbiana Center in Harbison.

On volunteer staffing, Whittle said the Guardian ad Litem program served 11,577 children in the last fiscal year, averaging about 6,600 children per month. The program, she said, employed 128 staff and had 999 volunteers; volunteers were appointed in roughly 56 percent of cases while staff acted as guardian in 44 percent. The agency reported a vacancy rate for Guardian ad Litem positions of 37 percent when Whittle joined in 2019 and said that rate had fallen to 6 percent in the most recent fiscal year after targeted recruiting and hiring.

To further support volunteers, Whittle said the agency will test using carry-forward funds to pay $250 per guardian per case next year and evaluate whether that increases the volunteer pool. \"We're going to try to put that into play, test it, look at the results next year to determine did spending $250 per guardian per case increase our volunteer pool or not,\" Whittle said.

Whittle also described the Foster Care Review Division, established by statute in 1974, which supports a state board and 43 local boards that review cases of children who have been in foster care longer than four months. Foster care review board recommendations are delivered to judges on a yellow paper the director said is displayed prominently in court files to aid judicial review.

The committee briefly discussed pending legislation that would move permanency planning hearings from 12 months to nine months; Whittle said she had reviewed the draft and that the bill had input from the state's children's law center and judges. The bill was in the Family and Veterans Services Committee and was expected to be heard again by a subcommittee; Whittle said the Department of Children's Advocacy had not been a drafter but would review the proposal and provide feedback.

Whittle noted the agency's outreach to legislative delegations and offered to provide county-level data on current Guardian ad Litem staffing and vacancies to delegation chairs to aid local recruitment. Chairman Young and senators on the panel recorded follow-up items to receive that information.

Whittle is the department's first state child advocate; she told the subcommittee she expects to leave the post around the end of April when she assumes a judgeship in the second judicial circuit.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Senate Legislative Oversight Committee -- Legislative Oversight Subcommittee on DCA Wednesday, February 19, 2025 11:00 am ","oneSentenceSummary","Director Amanda Whittle told the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee that adoption inquiries rose sharply, the state Heart Gallery and new case-management tools boosted recruitment, and the agency will test a $250-per-case stipend for Guardian ad Litem volunteers while reviewing a bill to move permanency hearings from 12 to 9 months.","taxTitle","Legislative Oversight, Standing, Senate, Committees, Legislative, South Carolina","taxId",17643,"location","South Carolina","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":77,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":78,"_41":79,"_43":80,"_45":81,"_47":82,"_49":83,"_51":84,"_53":85,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":86,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":87,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_75":74},6104157,"State child advocate tells oversight subcommittee she expanded complaint hotline, investigations unit after surge in incident reports",1948,44000,1992000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=2792309-b4d87f18dbf40ecd1b97c5611f5bf99c&start=44&end=1992","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/2792309-b4d87f18dbf40ecd1b97c5611f5bf99c/thumbnail_44000.jpg","/articles/6104157/South-Carolina/State-child-advocate-tells-oversight-subcommittee-she-expanded-complaint-hotline-investigations-unit-after-surge-in-incident-reports","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6104157-15537e58372c34623aef60c791b6af8b/orig.mp4?Expires=1771208626&Signature=ESAr7P0TEH33aUtQs1Kxr0ha-4coHTe2ULWkJ2iwP6cK-I9VezdpF0-m98voXmNl7-iuXVV5kJTkd03OmmuxQVQl8D-e9xAHzK3YJUkFkFpyikfRBljJQw~NCpdpqCBe3Q3UTOBptIcMLOewdNrhcCGFlgm59Nnk1LifuNe6jN-O0gWsqhfvi7I6eCDtFxeAGWC9mOhx3oUAO2X3FTNNKKE02-Pa-ghH0uXjwVM2A8IZ50LerQCWBNscgGbIkt2ECPQQHDcp--U9l1bt85TcsSSV2FzlKZCXGWT559tXV-AN~Lfx0Ju0H9GXnBEp8VEQ38DxzNMqEmI3t6iHZjfg9A__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Amanda Whittle, state child advocate and director of the South Carolina Department of Children's Advocacy, told the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee that her office has expanded its complaint intake and investigative capacity after a sustained rise in public contacts and critical-incident notifications.

Whittle said the newly created intake channels include an online complaint submission form and a toll-free hotline (exact digits not specified during the hearing). She also described obtaining secure, read-access to other agencies' case-management systems, including the Department of Social Services and the Department of Juvenile Justice, to support timely reviews of child-specific complaints.

The agency logged 4,870 phone calls in fiscal year 2020 and 7,289 in fiscal year 2024, Whittle said. Critical-incident notifications — defined by the agency as fatalities, near fatalities and serious occurrences — rose from about 30 in the early period to 2,894 most recently. \"One of our commitments is . . . we will return a phone call within 24 hours,\" Whittle said, describing a standard the office has emphasized as it scaled staffing.

To handle the growth, the department reclassified vacant positions and hired investigators and system-improvement staff. Whittle said the unit that handles critical investigations grew from a staff of three at the end of FY 2020 to 17; she named Laurie Davidson as investigations unit director and said the agency recently promoted Wanda Baker to director of the critical investigations unit. Whittle said the agency is seeking additional positions in its budget request to continue that work.

Whittle said the office has used simple outreach — laminated posters in English and Spanish at partner agencies, updated website pages, and monthly newsletters — to raise awareness about the agency's role overseeing nine child-serving state entities. She listed those agencies as the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs (DDSN); the Department of Health and Environmental Control (now Public Health); the Department of Health and Human Services (the state Medicaid agency); the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ); the Department of Mental Health; the Department of Social Services (DSS); the Governor's School for Agriculture at John Lehi Howe; the School for the Deaf and Blind in Spartanburg; and the Willie Gray Opportunity School.

Whittle described steps aimed at reducing friction when complaints involve other agencies: written referral workflows, confidentiality agreements for system access, and routine coordination meetings with agency partners. She said staff make judgment calls about when a complaint can be handled via referral and when investigators must travel to a facility to confirm a child's safety.

The office also partnered with the Department of Mental Health and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to support the Hope Connects SC Kids Screener, a 24/7 interactive online tool Whittle described as the first of its kind in the country. She said department staff volunteer as on-call responders for the screener at times and that staff training has been expanded to cover that role.

Whittle closed by asking the subcommittee to consider whether the enabling legislation for the Department of Children's Advocacy — created in 2018 and launched July 1, 2019 — is producing the oversight and system-change outcomes lawmakers intended. The subcommittee agreed to follow up on several action items and to schedule another hearing if needed.

","Amanda Whittle, state child advocate and director of the Department of Children's Advocacy, told the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee the agency created an online complaints process, secured access to other agencies' case-management systems, and expanded staff after a jump in critical-incident notifications and public contacts.","actionData","errors"]

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Child advocate highlights Heart Gallery, volunteer gains and a proposal to speed permanency hearings

State child advocate tells oversight subcommittee she expanded complaint hotline, investigations unit after surge in incident reports