Streamline foster-child adoption

Childhood is fleeting. So, too often, are foster children's chances for the security and happiness of reliable, loving, adoptive parents. Gov. Mark Sanford has wisely appointed a task force to come up with ways to reduce red tape so that more foster children can be adopted more quickly.

That task force will begin work later this month under the leadership of co-chairmen Carl Brown of Elgin and George Milner of Summerville, both longtime foster parents and advocates for foster children. As Mr. Brown aptly assessed the average four-year wait to adopt a foster child in this state:

"If it is in the system, let's change the system. Nothing is more important than this. Once childhood is over with, it's over."

Unfortunately, many foster parents report that adoption is made increasingly difficult by what they see as the state's unrealistic emphasis on returning children to biological parents who simply are not capable — and not likely to become capable for many years, if ever — of fulfilling that critical obligation.

Mount Pleasant's Kim Embler, who with husband Mitch Embler had to work long and hard to get through the bureaucratic maze for an adoption that was finalized in June, told our reporter: "To me, one of the hardest things in dealing with the whole system is a lot of times their goal of reuniting a family becomes so much more important than what the best interest of that child is. They try to give these parents months and months, and meanwhile these children's lives are moving on."

And far too many of those lives are moving on with scant chance of permanent adoption: More than 1,600 of our state's 5,400 foster children remain eligible for adoption, yet only 400 were adopted last year.

Gov. Sanford, a persistent voice for increased efficiency in the spending of taxpayer dollars, points out that this issue is about much more than that: "We're not only talking about streamlining government, but also about improving quality of life for hundreds of children and parents across South Carolina."

That task force is scheduled to issue its report early next year. Its recommendations on untangling the red tape may require changes both in policy and the law.

They should be given prompt and thorough consideration by the Department of Social Services and the state's elected officials.