Social Services seeks more foster, adoptive parents

By Yvonne Wenger

The Post and Courier

Monday , April 5th

COLUMBIA — Greenville native and musician Edwin McCain leads a new campaign for the state Department of Social Services to find more foster and adoptive parents for South Carolina children.

McCain joined the agency today for the kick-off of the new media outreach.

“Adoption is the way we lift each other up,” McCain said. “This is about changing the ending of stories.”

McCain is adopted. He and his wife, Christy, have two children, one of whom is adopted.

The public service announcements will air on TV stations across the state, including WTAT-TV in Charleston.

The ad shows the faces of South Carolina children in the foster care system and pictures of celebrities who have been adopted, including former President Bill Clinton, former South Africa President Nelson Mandela and Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs. It also features McCain’s song “Letter to My Mother.”

Last year, 523 children were adopted in South Carolina. During the past decade, 4,200 children have been adopted. Kathleen Hayes, director of the state Department of Social Services, said that many times when a family adopts a child, the family is complete and no longer fosters children. That leaves a need to recruit more families, she said.

The state has made gains in the past several years because of stepped-up efforts to reduce the time children spend in foster care before an adoption is finalized. Since 2007, the state has shaved six months off the average time a child spends in foster care and adoptions have reached record highs.

South Carolina has more than 5,600 children in foster care, 1,600 of whom are available for adoption.

The ad campaign began in 2008 with a partnership between the Social Services Department, the South Carolina Heart Gallery, FOX Carolina and Ashley Furniture Homestores, which put up money to produce the ads. South Carolina is the only state to use broadcast media to recruit adoptive and foster parents.

The Heart Gallery is part of a national project that presents professional portraits by volunteer photographers to showcase children available for adoption