DSS staff members accepted the award during the 27th annual conference of the North American Council of Adopted Children, held last month in Charlotte.
“I’m very proud of these folks,” said DSS Director Beth Duncan.
Duncan introduced the Children’s Services Unit staff members responsible for the work credited with winning the award at a meeting of the county commissioners last week.
During the 2000-01 fiscal year, the Moore County DSS facilitated a record 37 adoptions of eligible children in foster care.
Commissioner Chairman Michael Holden presented a resolution of recognition to Duncan during the board’s Sept. 4 meeting. Holden is also a member of the county Board of Social Services.
County Manager David McNeill Jr. said that the Moore County DSS was the only department in North Carolina to earn this distinction.
Duncan explained that a federal law passed in 1997 and later enacted by the N.C. General Assembly has enabled DSS agencies to facilitate adoptions of children who have been placed in foster families and appear to have been abandoned by their parents.
The law spells out measures allowing county departments to terminate parental rights under specific conditions.
The Moore County DSS wasted no time getting to work at this task and immediately set in motion the machinery to place eligible foster children in qualified families, she told the commissioners.
“We had to do a lot of work very quickly,” Duncan said. “It took hours and hours of hard work.”
The resolution adopted by the county commissioners says, in part: “The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services recognized Moore County’s outstanding contributions to the recruitment of families to foster and adopt children and the placement of children into permanent homes.”
The resolution closes with a commendation of the DSS Children’s Services Unit “for its demonstrated commitment to safety and permanence for our foster children.”
The North American Council of Adopted Children award was given “in appreciation of your many outstanding contributions to the recruitment of families to foster and adopt children and the placement of children into permanent homes.”
Under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, county DSS agencies are required “to achieve timely permanence for children by initiating or joining proceedings to terminate parental rights for certain children in foster care and currently to identify, recruit, process and approve a qualified family for adoption.”
This requirement applies to children in the following categories:
—Children who have been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months.
—Children who are determined to be abandoned by their parents, as defined in state law.
—Children with a parent who has murdered another of his or her children or has attempted or conspired or solicited such a murder.
—Children with a parent who has committed a felony assault against the child or another child of the parent.
Among the exceptions are foster children placed in the care of a relative.
