COLUMBIA - South Carolina's Social Services director is studying whether the state should start reviewing the deaths of children known to the child welfare system the way North Carolina does.

Director Kim Aydlette's comments seem to signal a shift in attitude at the S.C. Department of Social Services, which was less eager to work with other agencies and involve the public in carrying out its mission in the past.

Aydlette said this week that she began researching whether to create local review teams after The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer published stories in August on scores of children who died in both Carolinas after contact with social workers.

In South Carolina, abuse or neglect killed about half of the 112 children who died under suspicious circumstances since 1994, despite the Social Services agency's efforts to help them.

Those included Amanda Cope, 12, and 6-week-old Donovan Franks. Social workers knew of complaints against both families.

But lessons from the deaths remain locked away in Columbia because the S.C. Social Services Department does not release results of its internal investigations.

In contrast, when children die north of the state line, local and state experts convene in the child's home county to study the death. They issue a public report suggesting how to prevent future deaths.

Appointed by S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, Aydlette is a former prosecutor who took the reins of the money-starved Social Services agency this year.

She said The Observer's series, which tracked the findings of North Carolina's fatality reviews over five years, prompted her to ask staff members to contact their N.C. counterparts to learn about their system.

She said she likes that N.C. review teams bring together many groups involved in children's welfare, including law enforcement, health officials and social workers. That interagency, interdisciplinary approach could help the state better care for vulnerable children, she said.

Acknowledging her agency has no money to spare, Aydlette said South Carolina should develop local teams in all counties to examine child deaths. She said she doesn't have a clear idea what those teams' structure, specific mission or public reporting responsibilities should be.

"I think we need to have a consistent system in place for doing it, from county to county," she said.

Local children's "health and safety councils" started up in 16 of South Carolina's 46 counties in recent years.

But they receive no funding, and their missions - and members' involvement - vary greatly.

Laura Hudson of the Victim Assistance Network said her advocacy group pushed legislation to create the councils in all counties four years ago. The bill failed, partly because of lawmakers' fears that they'd need to give the councils money, she said.

Hudson said she hopes to try again next session, with Aydlette's backing. She'd like the General Assembly to require counties to assemble teams of volunteers who could review the deaths of children who'd had contact with social workers - along with other categories of preventable child fatalities and injuries.

Funding still would be a problem. The Social Services Department's budget dropped $48 million since 2001. It's now $83 million.

"The state is broke," Hudson said. "I'm sure anything we'd ask for in funding, we'd be laughed out of the state capital."