Legislation to make adoptions faster and more efficient moved quickly and quietly through the state Senate last week.

Senator Mike Fair, the bill’s chief sponsor, says DSS has asked for legislative help in solving an array of problems he has found in his own district. One of those is child abuse. “Too many instances where children were abused after they were sent back home from a foster home to their biological parent and a boyfriend or step-parent inflicted bodily injury on them. We’ve had children in the Upstate, in the last couple of years, we’ve had a couple of children to die at the hands of someone in their home,” says Fair.

Bill S-1172 says Fair, allows the courts and DSS to truly take care of the needs of the child first when it comes to terminating parental rights. That process has gotten drawn out for months, and years.

As Fair sees it, “It’s a real hard situation for those who are given the mandate–DSS is who I am speaking of primarily–to protect children and at the same time keep the families together. That’s a very difficult thing to do. It’s almost a no-win. [Read more...]