Senate subcommittee advances bill to shorten foster-care permanency timelines and speed adoptions

A South Carolina Senate subcommittee on Family and Veterans' Services on Thursday voted to give bill S240 a favorable report to the full committee after a multi-hour hearing that focused on shortening the timelines courts use to move foster-care cases toward permanency and adoption.

The bill would change several deadlines in state child-welfare procedure: move the statutorily required permanency-planning hearing earlier, from 12 months to 9 months after a child is placed in foster care, and shorten the maximum period of reunification efforts from 18 months to 15 months. The measure also directs earlier preparation of adoptive-home background summaries, adds tools to find or notify absent parents, and strengthens one ground for termination of parental rights (repetition and severity of abuse and neglect).

Senator Billy Garrett, the bill sponsor from Greenwood County, told the subcommittee the bill’s central goal is to “shorten the time it takes to get permanency planning so we can get a child adopted.” Garrett said the proposal would initially reduce the reunification window by three months — from 18 months to 15 months — and that the longer-term aim is to run adoption efforts in parallel with termination proceedings so “on that day … we go ahead and go forward with the adoption.”

Jim Thompson, an adoption attorney who described decades of practice in both private and foster-care adoptions, told senators that federal policy and existing statutes have produced an inconsistent timeline in South Carolina and that aligning the law is necessary. “The 15 months starts when the child comes into foster care,” Thompson said, describing the period after removal that triggers the case’s permanency timeline.

Amanda Whittle, state child advocate and director of the Department of Children’s Advocacy, framed the bill as aligning statutory deadlines with existing Department of Social Services (DSS) policy and federal aims to limit how long children remain without a permanent home. “Time matters,” Whittle said. She cited research showing that a child who has spent two years or more in foster care has a substantially lower chance of reunification and emphasized mental-health and stability consequences for children who remain in care.

Whittle described how the bill would require adoptive-home background summaries to begin earlier — within 60 days of DSS filing a termination-of-parental-rights (TPR) case — so prospective adoptive families and courts have the child’s medical and social history sooner. That change is intended to let some adoptions be finalized quickly after a TPR case, as proponents recalled was more common before current procedural practices developed.

The bill also would change how absent biological fathers are notified in some cases: the text includes a change from mere “notice” to formal “service” in portions of the code (a provision committee members flagged for redrafting to avoid legal confusion). Members discussed adding statutory language to narrow what counts as “extraordinary circumstances” if a judge extends timelines beyond the 15-month limit.

During questioning senators repeatedly returned to how the change would affect parents who show intermittent compliance with treatment plans, the capacity of courts and DSS to meet new scheduling expectations, and the availability of adoptive homes — particularly for older children and sibling groups. Thompson and Whittle both said judges, attorneys and DSS already have tools to speed cases when necessary but that the bill would make a 15-month policy the statutory norm and move the permanency-planning hearing earlier, which supporters say will reduce lengthy delays.

DSS-related witnesses and staff told the panel that South Carolina’s foster population has declined from a recent peak and that adoptions for infants surrendered under Daniel’s Law have been completed in an average of about four to five-and-a-half months in recent cases. A DSS representative said current DSS policy schedules permanency-planning reviews at nine months; the bill would place that policy into statute.

Committee members asked for and the sponsor agreed to subcommittee amendments aimed at (1) clarifying the statutory language switching notice/service for unmarried fathers, (2) tightening the timing between the merits hearing and the investigation window (members discussed aligning the 35/45-day thresholds), and (3) making an exceptions standard explicit when judges extend the 15-month limit. The subcommittee voted to forward the bill with those items to be addressed by amendment; the transcript records a voice vote and a favorable report was announced but does not provide a numerical roll-call tally.

The measure was advanced as part of an incremental plan proponents described as balancing parental rights with the state’s interest in timely permanency for children. Senator Garrett and others said the committee also is studying pilot programs that assign one judge to hear the family’s case from removal through TPR and adoption to reduce repeated delays caused by multiple judges handling a case.

Votes at a glance S240 — Favorable report to full committee (subcommittee voice vote; numerical tally not specified in transcript). Amendments to be drafted addressing notice/service wording, timing (35/45 days), and a narrowly defined exceptions process for extending reunification timelines.

The measure will return to the committee calendar once subcommittee amendments are drafted. Several senators asked staff to produce a one-page “case timeline” visual for parents and counsel showing probable cause, merits, permanency-planning and TPR milestones and deadlines.