A breast cancer grant request, adoption law, technical issues and a day care update highlighted the Edgecombe County Department of Social Services meeting on Monday.

Edgecombe County ranks 16th in the United States for incidents of women who have contracted breast cancer. Through a nine-page document containing statistical information and a summary, DSS Coordinator Michele Cherry expressed that "a gap in services" exists for families living with breast cancer.

Cherry explained that although services exist for breast cancer patients, the afflicted individuals do not live in isolation. They are part of a family unit also impacted by the disease "financially, emotionally and physically."

Cherry requested approval for a program entitled the Jackie Freeman Breast Cancer Fund. Pertaining only to Heritage and Nash General hospitals, it would allow families living with breast cancer to receive funding based on need instead of income. A a part-time social worker to work will a resource agent, effectively navigating breast cancer patient families through the DSS system.

Freeman is the former Edgecombe County tax collector who died of breast cancer in April.

The monetary source for the Freeman Memorial Fund will be "grant funding from the N.C. Triangle Affiliate of the Komen Foundation," Cherry said. The STEP (Screening, Treatment, Education and Post-diagnosis) grant ranges from $40,000-$75,000 annually, while the Kay grant (in honor of cancer combatant, N.C. State women’s basketball head coach Kay Yow) of up to $5,000 is also a prospect.

The board approved continuing the grant application.

DSS Assistant Director Clifton Hickman discussed a county "adoption confidential intermediary policy." Taking effect on Jan. 1, the policy would permit social services "to act as confidential intermediaries" between a person adopted through DSS to another person within proper jurisdiction. The scope of information would vary depending upon adoptee age.

Hickman and the board worked through legal verbiage and arrived at a required initial deposit of $250 for cost of research services. Any counseling would be billed at $31.95 per hour. Board member George Cooper asked whether already thin worker resources were able to accommodate an influx of clientele the additional service may subsequently create. Projected numbers were not provided and no anticipated legal concerns were cited.

During an annual county audit performed recently, the inability to locate a record and account for $2,000 in food stamps from a "number of things they look at," drew a review from Director Marva Scott of "all in all, it wasn’t a bad audit at all."

Scott saw the illusive record as "probably there but not able to call itself up" due to new Recollect software being used. Bill Gates may want to know about files with similar self-launching capabilities.

A possibility that $2,000 in food stamps shrinkage may have been fraud was quickly rebuffed by Fiscal Officer P.J. Quinn and tagged as a "computation error."

For those who'd consider retrieving hardcopy items for further research, Scott said, "You would have to wade through boxes" of paperwork in a back trailer for hard copy backups and they'd probably take "months, maybe."

Additional system snags include a failed scanning system and a lack of external information backup. Scott confirmed that "(County Manager) Lorenzo Carmen is aware we’re unable to get that system in place yet," and that "CPS has not yet been able to scan any of our records into the Recollect system."

Quinn elaborated on a larger system woe; "no backup for Recollect at this minute" and that neither DSS location (Rocky Mount or Tarboro) has off-site data storage. An attempt to utilize the county building’s main server as a data reserve was a lethargic affair. The try was terminated, still incomplete after 36 hours.