Growing up in a big family with young siblings, Brianna Unger ’14 always felt drawn toward working with children. Upon graduating from the College of Charleston with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Brianna began her career working in a psychiatric residential treatment facility for children ages twelve to seventeen in Asheville, NC. Her team worked with individuals who required the highest level of care, and her eyes were quickly opened to the challenges faced by adolescents in her field of work. Little did she know, these challenges would prepare her for her career working in child welfare and adoption services a few years later.

Following her time in Asheville, Brianna eventually moved back to Greenville to live closer to her family including her step-mom, Paulette Unger, who teaches in the Upper School at CCES. When a role became available at the Department of Social Services, Brianna jumped at the opportunity to utilize her prior experiences and desire to work with children. In June of 2021, she started her role as a Child Welfare Services Case Manager, working specifically with adoptions and adoptive family placements.

In her position, Brianna works on all stages of the foster care to adoption process. She meets monthly with every foster child in her caseload to check-in and ensure the child is being cared for, and she works closely with the foster parents to provide anything that they might need. If and when a birth family’s parental rights to a child are terminated by the court, she then goes about the process of finding an adoptive family for the child. Only four members of her 50-person team have this unique responsibility of working with both the adoptable child and the adoptive families. In her words, this dual responsibility “enables her to see the adoption process come full-circle.” 

She currently has 20 children and 35 families in her caseload, so needless to say, she stays quite busy. In fact, when asked what is the most surprising aspect of her job, she quipped, “the amount of work.” In addition to the relational aspects of her role, Brianna must maintain and update mountains of paperwork for each case. She finds the hard work is “definitely worth it,” however, when she gets to see the happy ending of finalizing an adoption. 

As of this fall, Brianna has placed 13 children into adoptive families and hopefully will place another two within the next month. She never tires of seeing the smiles and tears that abound in the courtroom after an adoption gets finalized, and she is grateful for the opportunity to help children find their forever homes. 

If you would like to learn more about ways in which you can help, Brianna would be happy to chat with you. Please reach out to her at brianna.unger@dss.sc.gov or contact Upstate Adoptions at 864-729-0279.