Cynthia’s Place gets new look

LAURINBURG — New life has been breathed into Cynthia’s Place, a quaint structure located to the rear of the Scotland County Department of Social Services office.

Cynthia’s Place mimics a single-family home for children who may have been removed from their family or caregiver. It was built in 1996 with the help of county and private donations, but this week, DSS officials came out to celebrate Cynthia’s Place’s reopening after months of renovations, thanks to a grant from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’s Adoption Promotion Program.

“A heartful thanks to the Children’s Services Unit. Because of their hard work and dedication in 2022 to place 14 children in adoptive homes and receive adoption incentive forms, an excess of $100,000 made these renovations possible … These renovations did not cause the county one red cent,” said Dorothy Tyson, chair of the Scotland County Department of Social Services Board.

Updates to Cynthia’s Place include upgrading the half bathroom into a full by adding a shower, converting a storage room into a bedroom and updating carpet and furniture. Now the makeshift home has the capacity to house four to six children at a time.

“There’s been quite a few renovations … It’s like night and day from what we had,” said Kimberly McCrae, the director of Scotland County Department of Social Services.

Cynthia’s Place has served in many capacities since its inception, including a space where “families and children could feel safe and feel at home.”

“Throughout the years we’ve had meetings here, we’ve had visitations and we’ve even had overnight stays here … A lot of hard work went into the renovations of this building,” McRae said.

“Unfortunately, part of what created the need for this renovation was the uptick of children and care and the lack of having a placement when children come into care and almost everybody in this agency has been touched by that cause you’ve spent the night here or you’ve spent the day doing something that wasn’t really your official dedicated job duty because we had these children here,” said Scotland County Manager and former DSS Director April Snead.

Snead said she believes Scotland County is the only in its kind to have anything like Cynthia’s Place.

“In other counties, children are put in a room to visit their parents within an office and so we have something very special,” Snead said.

Cynthia’s Place was named after Cynthia Wentz Fickland, a dedicated Foster Care social worker who died of cancer in 1992.

“This is a very special place for me … Cynthia Wentz Fickland, I knew her growing up. Cynthia cared about children. She loved what she did and that always continued. To me what I care about in our county, is the services that we provide for people who take care of people and nobody exemplifies that any better than social services and what this building is for,” County Commissioner Whit Gibson said.

McCrae thanked all who contributed to Cynthia’s Place.

“I feel like we’ll all sleep better knowing that our community here in Scotland County came together to make the lives of our children and families just a little brighter so that in itself is a true labor of love and I thank each of you,” McRae said.