It’s time SC allowed every child to have a ‘forever’ home and a real childhood.

Children without ‘forever’ homes are those uprooted and shuffled through SC’s foster care system following abuse, neglect or abandonment by their birth parents.  While the courts and agencies can spend years deciding where a child will end up, he or she is often moved from one temporary home another. That means different schools, different rules and constantly changing friends and neighbors.  Too often, children in care are also separated from their siblings.  One can easily understand why they are at increased risk for problems down the road.  And so the cycle of dysfunction continues.

It’s not hard to grasp the human tragedy for these children, our hidden ‘homeless.’ But it’s not just their problem  This travesty affects every aspect of our lives, too — whether  you realize it or not. It negatively impacts our judicial, penal, educational and health care systems, as well as our…

Almost half (45%) of all births in South Carolina are to single mothers, with the dad acknowledging paternity for fewer than half of those children. When both parents are involved and take responsibility for their child, this is less of an issue. But far too many do not, and then it does become an issue for our children and for our state as a whole. Permanency for these children can be delayed, contested and disrupted when paternity is in question. Fortunately, the SC General Assembly passed the Responsible Father Registry bill during the 2009 legislative session, making SC the 34th state to enact a law of this kind. The Registry will:

• Give unwed fathers the opportunity to document their possible claim for paternity rights or foreclose those rights in a timely manner
• Shorten the length of time children must spend in foster care by speeding adoptions
• Help avert disrupted adoptions
• Protect privacy
• Save the state money

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