May 6, 2025 –The South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS) recognizes May as Foster Care Awareness Month to highlight the important role that foster parents, kinship caregivers, child placing agencies, and supporting non-profits play in working together with families to achieve reunification for children and youth in foster care. The collaborative efforts, as part of the larger child and family well-being community, are essential in helping to strengthen families in South Carolina.
This year’s National Foster Care Awareness Month theme as determined by the Children’s Bureau is “Centered on Family, Strengthened by Connections.” It reflects the need to support families whether they are our relatives, friends, or neighbors.
When children and youth cannot remain safely in their own homes, foster parents provide a safe, nurturing environment while in foster care. As of May 1, the online SCDSS Foster Care Dashboard shows there are 3,287 children and youth currently in foster care in South Carolina.
“Foster Care Awareness Month is a time for the community to unite and invest in the lives of children, youth, and their families,” said Tony Catone, DSS Interim State Director. “The team at DSS remains grateful for our foster parent partners and kinship families around the State who volunteer to serve children and families in need. There is a critical need for foster families who can rise to the challenge of fostering teens, sibling groups, and youth with complex needs and provide them with stability and support when it is needed the most.”
South Carolina needs additional family-like homes so that whenever possible children and youth can remain in their home communities, sibling groups can stay together, and teens can be cared for in the home of a loving family. SCDSS continues to recruit foster parents year-round, not just in May, as the needs for the agency and the children and youth in foster care constantly change.
To become a foster parent or to learn more about ways to support foster parents in your community, visit www.dss.sc.gov or call (888) 828-3555. You can also learn more by texting “DSS” to 211211.
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