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