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

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.