S.C. Code Regs. § 114-590

Current through Register Vol. 48, No. 5, May 24, 2024

Section 114-590 - Licensing of Residential Group Care Organizations for Children

A. General Purpose and Compliance with Other Laws.

The South Carolina Department of Social Services is authorized to license residential group care organizations for children. In carrying out this authority, the overall purpose of licensing by the agency is to promote the provision of a temporary, safe, stable and humane environment for children who are placed in residential group care settings, and that these settings include adequate supervision, supports for mental and physical health, safe physical facilities, and opportunities for appropriate learning experiences to maximize the potential of each child to be well-adjusted, responsible and independent. When interpreting and enforcing these regulations, regulations that provide greater specificity supersede regulations that are more general in nature and are therefore, the controlling authority. All residential group care organizations shall comply with these regulations and all other applicable requirements of State and Federal law.

B. Definitions.

(1) "Age- or developmentally-appropriate activities" means activities that are generally accepted as suitable for children of the same chronological age or level of maturity or that are determined to be developmentally-appropriate for a child, based on the development of cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral capacities that are typical for an age or age group; and in the case of a specific child, activities or items that are suitable for the child based on the developmental stages attained by the child with respect to the cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioral capacities of the child.

(2) "Behavior intervention" means any containment, management or treatment technique or procedure used to intervene in a child's behavior when that behavior poses a clear and present danger of serious physical harm to the child or to others

(3) "Caregiver" means any of the following: A person who is, or is expected to be, an employee or contractor of a facility, who is or is expected to be under the control of the facility, as defined by the Agency by rule, and who has, or is expected to have, regular, direct unsupervised contact with children of the facility.

(4) "Care plan" means a written plan of services to meet the specific goals and care needs of a child.

(5) "Chemical restraints" mean drugs administered to temporarily restrain a child who poses a threat to harm themselves or others.

(6) "Child" means a person under the age of twenty-one.

(7) "Child Care Institution means a private residential group care facility, or public residential group care facility which accommodates no more than twenty-five children, and is licensed by the Agency. The setting does not include wilderness camps or training schools, nor does it include any facility that exists primarily for the detention or correction of children.

(8) "Commercial Sex Act" means any sex act for which anything of value is given, promised or received, directly or indirectly, by any person.

(9) "Corporal punishment" means physical punishment inflicted directly upon the body.

(10) CSEC" means Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.

(11) "De-escalation" means behavior that is intended to escape escalation of conflicts. It also refers to approaches in conflict resolution. De-escalation techniques may use verbal and non-verbal cues.

(12) "Department" means the Department of Social Services.

(13) "Fictive kin" means an individual who is not related by birth, adoption, or marriage to a child, but who has an emotionally significant relationship with the child.

(14) "Gender identity" means a person's internal identification or self-image as male or female, which is usually established by age three.

(15) "Group care" means the care and services provided by group care facilities and child care institutions.

(16) "Group care facility" means a residential organization, including residential institutions, residential facilities, and child care institutions, licensed by the Department to provide temporary or long-term, full-time residential care for children on a year-round basis, emergency shelters, and group homes. State contracts may also further categorize group care facilities by population and services provided. Boarding schools that do not operate year-round or that do not offer services beyond those associated with school programming are not encompassed within these regulations. All group care facilities are considered "residential institutions" for purposes of S.C. Code Section 63-7-1210, governing institutional abuse and neglect.

(17) "Group care staff" means an adult who works in a group care facility. "Group care staff" includes a person who has or is seeking a license to operate a group care facility and does not include an unpaid volunteer.

(18) "Infant" means a child under one year of age.

(19) "Licensing agency" or "agency" means the South Carolina Department of Social Services.

(20) "LGBTQ+" means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning or other sexual identities.

(21) "Sex Trafficking" means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for a commercial sex act. For minors, under the age of 18, there is no requirement of force, fraud, coercion or inclusion of a third party. No child or youth under the age of 18 can consent to commercial sex.

(22) "Victim of Child Trafficking" - a minor who is under 18 years old who is sex trafficked or labor trafficked as defined in S.C Code Section 16-3-1210.

(23) "Normalcy" means a child's ability to easily engage in healthy and age or developmentally appropriate activities that promote his or her well-being, such as participation in social, scholastic, and enrichment activities.

(24) "Program director" means the person responsible for coordinating the general management, administration, and care of the children of a facility in accordance with licensing requirements and policies established by the advisory board.

(25) "Psychotropic medication" means any drug that affects the mind and is used to manage inappropriate behavior or psychiatric symptoms and may include an anti-psychotic, an antidepressant, lithium carbonate or a tranquilizer.

(26) "Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP)" means a program that serves children with serious emotional or behavioral disorders or disturbances.

(27) "Residential Group Care Organization" means child care institutions, residential institutions, residential facilities, and group care facilities.

(28) "Reasonable and prudent parent standard" means the standard characterized by careful and sensible parental decisions that maintain the health, safety, and best interests of a child while at the same time encouraging the emotional and developmental growth of the child, that a caregiver shall use when determining whether to allow a child in foster care under the responsibility of the State to participate in extracurricular, enrichment, cultural, and social activities.

(29) "Relative" means an adult who is related to a child or youth by blood, marriage, or adoption, as well as an adult who is not related by blood, marriage, or adoption, but who has a relationship with the child, youth, or young adult, or their family (fictive kin). Under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a relative is defined as a family member who is related to the child by blood, marriage, or adoption only.

(30) "Restraint" means an emergency safety intervention defined as any manual method, physical or mechanical device, material, or equipment attached or adjacent to the child's body, that the individual cannot remove easily which restricts freedom of movement or normal access to one's body.

(31) "Staff' means an adult who is employed within the group care facility full-time or part-time, including, but not limited to, management, administrative, caregiving, program, maintenance, food service, and service personnel. This definition does not include adults whose presence in the group care facility or contact with children is incidental in nature. However, the group care facility must ensure that full-time or part-time staff provide line-of-sight supervision for any adult whose presence in the facility or contact with children is incidental in nature.

(32) "Standard license" means a license issued when a facility meets all regulatory requirements to obtain a license.

(33) "Supervision" means guidance of the behavior and activities of a child by a staff member who is within sight or sound of a child to ensure the safety and well-being of the child.

(34) "Time out" means a behavior intervention technique that is defined as the temporary restriction of an individual for a period of time to a designated area from which the person is not physically prevented from leaving, for the purpose of providing the individual an opportunity to regain self-control. Time-out will last only for the shortest amount of time needed.

(35) "Toddler" means a child at least one year of age but less than 2 years of age.

(36) "Transgender person" means a person whose gender identity (their understanding of themselves as male or female) does not correspond with their anatomical sex. A transgender woman is a woman whose birth sex was male but who understands herself to be female. A transgender man is a man whose birth sex was female but who understands himself to be male.

(37) "Volunteer" means a person, who of their own free will, provide goods or services to a facility with no monetary or material compensation and has no opportunity for unsupervised contact with children.

S.C. Code Regs. 114-590

Amended by State Register Volume 27, Issue No. 5, eff May 23, 2003; State Register Volume 45, Issue No. 05, eff. 5/28/2021; State Register Volume 47, Issue No. 05, eff. 5/26/2023.