Dear FITSNews,
Thank you for your service and representing our voices and needs. My husband and I are approved adoptive parents through the South Carolina Department of Social Services. We have a sibling group of three that think we are ‘mom and dad.’ Recently, DSS ‘discovered’ some information that they feel makes us unfit to adopt and instead of sitting down and discussing with us, they chose to revoke our license. We have not received a formal letter and they refuse to respond to a phone call, email or hold a face-to-face meeting.
We know the SC DSS has a terrible reputation and we are seeing first hand how damaging their incompetency can be to three precious children. These children are living in separate foster homes and they are suffering. They were supposed to come home to us for Christmas and we feel DSS is not properly representing their best interests.
The entire Region II Adopt office knows these children belong with us; that we will take the best care of them but the State DSS office decided to allow a committee behind closed doors who do not know us or the children make a decision regarding our case. They never asked for our side of the story and seem to be basing their decision off of a newspaper article that briefly mentions my husband. The allegations are false and we have the legal documents stating the facts. My husband should be commended for willing to adopt three older children not have his character questioned but do they want to hear our side of the story? Doesn’t seem that way.
These children deserve to be out of the system and home for Christmas. Please help us in anyway you can. We will share anything you would like to see including our positive home study, pictures, letters, videos, legal documents, etc. supporting our cause.
Does DSS really have the best interests of these children in mind? Or are they more worried about protecting themselves as an agency?
Sincerely,
Erin Q. Hansen
Lexington, S.C.
SIC SEZ
Erin: Thank you for your letter. SCDSS is truly a disaster, but the good news is a growing number of elected officials from both parties are stepping up to investigate its incompetence. We will be sure to pass along your submission to them.
Got something you’d like to share? Send your letter to the editor here.
31 comments
Hats off to you Ms. Hansen
In the past when I would complain to the Legislative Cockroaches one of their first responses was that they could do little because the vast majority of the complaints were filed anonymously
In your case they have the capability to match a complaint with someone who can verify their side of the story
Under the best of circumstances it still may be possible for your “family” to share the joys of the holidays together – best wishes
Wonder what the issue is? No rush to judgement but I would err on the side of caution when children are involved. Hope this gets resolved soon.
There is no rush to do anything at SCDSS. Cases and adoptions languish for years over there. I had a case where the case worker claimed she couldn’t find the birth father to get his consent to an adoption. Turns out the guy was right there online, just across the river in Lexington County and the case worker said she couldn’t go to West Columbia, because that was not in her jurisdiction. Pathetic stupidity. SCDSS makes the education department look like a model of efficiency and expert workers.
That speaks to the primary problem at DSS – training. In your case, training the worker to ask their supervisor questions & vice versa.
They know (or, knew as recently as 2006) that was the problem, but they don’t appear to know how address it. It did not improve when they got rid of their entire SD&T staff and turned training over to the USC School of Social Work – the long term cause of many DSS problems related to mismanagement.
Instead of making the front line jobs as paper-work easy as they can, they have tended to make them as difficult and confusing as they can be. Keeping children safe is not rocket science, but you do need to be able to develop the innate common sense that most people have to do it and get rid of workers who are untrainable – fast.
Before reorganization and the cabinet system, the B&CB ran the state Merit System – you know, before cronyism replaced merit – and DSS (and many other agency) workers had to pass actual tests of general and specific knowledge related to the jobs.
You cannot tell me that has not made a massive difference in the quality of state employees in those agencies.
Wacked out liberal professors at USC are one of the root causes of much of this. We should post their names and home addresses.
Many DSS adoptions workers are even more anxious than foster care workers to do everything they can NOT to disrupt a placement.
They tend to develop their relationships with the ‘parents’ and not the children, which can preclude them learning about any abuse or neglect the children are enduring and not wanting to believe it when they see it.
OHAN (Out of Home Investigations) rarely indicates a case of foster parent abuse or neglect when it is obvious to county agency workers and members of the community.
The fact the letter writer chose not to give the details of the ‘discovered’ information speaks volumes.
Cockroachshit
DSS, DOT,DMH, DOR, DHEC and the rest of the Governor‘s “D”amns “err” on the side of making their asses look good while not breaking a sweat.
Not a fan of mixing my collards with anything else on the plate so the rest of this comment is solely for Senator Katrina Shealy, Senator Nikki Setlzer and Senator Ronnie Cromer
If just one of you cockroach bastards has one iota of human decency left in your hypocritical spineless POS body, you have a chance here to do something to benefit real people – real kids
Don’t know if the lady and her husband have a valid issue but for her to go public with her identity and issues with DSS, gets her around first base and sliding into second – spikes up – in my book
However if you three cockroaches choose to continue to kiss the Governor’s fat ass and put up with the bat shit crazy bitch running DSS into the ground – well then, so be it – or you can make a few calls and watch the little cockroaches over of DSS run like hell to get out of the sunshine
That alone should tell you what you need to know
DSS, DOT,DMH, DOR, DHEC and the rest of the Governor‘s “D”amns “err” on the side of making their asses look good while not breaking a sweat.
———-
I’m sure you’d much rather they erred on the side of making their asses look like they hadn’t been wiped in years.
Nice story Captain Relevant.
Thanks. Glad you were entertained.
Social services – what a concept. Beat the shit out of your kids, and save the state some money. The Greeks believed their offspring were property, and there was no such thing as child molestation.
Civilization is a scam.
The current crack pot director only cares about numbers and not people. As long as her numbers are good (forced or not) she is Nikki’s rock star.
The State is saying that she is going to “work from home”.
Erin, is your husband’s name Dennis M. Hansen? Was/is he a softball coach?
Dennis Hansen’s wife is Carrie.
Recently, DSS ‘discovered’ some information that they feel makes us unfit to adopt
Read more at https://www.fitsnews.com/2013/12/18/letter-scdss-serving-childrens-interests/#8sQJ8vRftmrxBbJU.99
Inquiring minds want to know what that information is.
Hopefully with Lillian Koller on LOA, adoptive and foster parents and organizations will be treated with the respect they deserve and the children stuck in the system will be able to have the childhoods they deserve! It is easy to make assumptions but facts should guide all their decisons. Praying for you and your family!
Due Process Violations. They had a right to a hearing before any action was taken. Hence, DSS violated not on the federal and state statutes, they violated these people’s Constitutional and Civil Rights. So I want to know who over at DSS did this? Who signed off on it? In other words, “who are the lawless rogues” that must be punished with termination and possible jail time???
You dont know anything. If a child isnt safe, he’s removed from the home and placed in emergency foster care because he has a right not to be abused. Duh.
The people of South Carolina have NO interest in paying qualified people in the numbers necessary to do the job right. That is the bottom line
They are paid well already, you sack of shit.
To a shit heel like you, $28k per year is a whole lot of money.
No governmental institution can possibly recreate the charitably voluntary involvement necessary to help and protect the most vulnerable among us in an equitable manner. But one fact is constantly being proven – organizations, like fish, rot from the head.
Be wary in questioning this agency or seeking help with anyone, they will immediately turn things on you and even find a case against you. Even when children are in danger and constantly reporting this agency fails to protect or listen to them…..in Lexington county it’s all about who you know, not what is right.
DSS is a magnet for stupid inexperienced lack of wisdom college rejects who think they are Gods. The really bad thing here is, they all get fantastic tax payer paid benefits and are paid well. But still, the agency has too many worthless supervisors that keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. It is time to expose all the criminal activities in this agency and to bring federal charges. It can be forced, easy enough.
You must be mistaken. I worked for this agency for nearly two years and anyone below a director is paid in pennies. Many of the workers had to work part time jobs to survive. We all worked over time and received NO compensation for it at all. No bonuses. Any time we were up for a raise our incredibly expensive health insurance mysteriously increased around the same amount. This agency only cares about two things: Federal money to line their own pockets at the top and numbers.
I cannot wait for a full audit of that agency and seeing Lillian Koller and the governor go down for all the harm they’ve done to the citizens of this state. It’s appalling.
Our Chesterfield SC DSS head supervisor hangs up on people.
As of this past week of Sept 2015, if you called to report abuse, you were asked to leave a message.
Folks may say what they will about myself and others who disrupt the system. We are not social workers, teachers, lawyers, law enforcement, or anyone really.
The fact of the matter is, we’re so bat guano crazy from abuse and manipulation that we don’t mind exposing the perpetrators, exposing our mistakes, wonder daily how we’re still living, and have little interest in living except to change things for the better.
Prisons, jails, solitary confinement in psyc facilities, etc. mean little to us. We’re damaged goods that will pass on soon enough.
If exposure saves or makes just one life better, it is worth it.
SCDSS is going to have a new State approved name…. This is the bad tempered “bastard” among even some of the worst managed State agencies. Someone should clean house or at least have everyone there re-earn their jobs through some form of testing / competency review.
Wow
wow
wow wow
A person with little to lose is dangerous to the sinister elements within a society. I just so happen to be one of those persons.
It is much bigger than any organization, individual, or group of people.
My fond memories of growing up in Chesterfield SC include the sickest acts of pedophelia, beastiality, the shooting up of drugs, being taken to DSS and Chesterfield Police Dept. to be ordered to act right and be a good child or I would be put in juvenile hall, and the boasting of the locals of their ties and connections that kept them from criminal prosecution.
I was 6 years old when the abuse first began.
I have to question if certain secret societies and the social elite in this area have begun to notice that acts such as child abuse of any nature, blood sacrificing of animals, blackmail, shipping folks off to prison and psychiatric facilities, blackballing, stealinging, and every indecency in creation have begun to realize isn’t buying them any quality time on this planet.
My life, past and current, is an open book. I choose to tell all and have no concern of repercussions.