Darion and Julian are brothers who share a love of football and basketball, and both are now being profiled by the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange in hopes of finding a family willing to adopt them together. Darion, the older brother, is described as cheerful, thoughtful in his interactions with others, and a caring and considerate sibling who prefers environments with clear and consistent expectations. Julian shares his brother's passion for sports, and the two boys are described as thriving in active, team-oriented settings where they can spend time with peers.
The brothers' story was first profiled by the Boston Herald, which described the pair as passionate about sports and especially fond of football and basketball. According to the Herald's profile, Darion and Julian would benefit from a family that celebrates their individuality and supports their goals, and the two are described as still developing their interests, strengths, and confidence as they wait for a permanent placement.
What It Takes to Adopt in Massachusetts
Prospective adoptive parents in Massachusetts must be at least 18 years old and have a stable source of income, per the Herald's report on the state's requirements. Parents may be single, married, or partnered, and may include LGBTQ+ singles and couples, renters or homeowners, and people with or without prior parenting experience. The Herald's profile notes that adoption from foster care in Massachusetts carries no fees, and that the process includes training, interviews, and home visits designed to determine whether adoption is the right fit for prospective families and to help match a family with a child or sibling group.
Those interviews and home visits are only part of the preparation process. All prospective foster and pre-adoptive parents in the state must also complete the Massachusetts Approach to Partnerships in Parenting, a free 30-hour mandatory curriculum covering childhood trauma, family dynamics, and agency expectations, according to Mass.gov. The training is meant to prepare parents for the realities of welcoming a child, or in Darion and Julian's case, a sibling pair, into their home.
Why Keeping Brothers Together Matters
Placing brothers like Darion and Julian together is not incidental to the process, it is state policy. Massachusetts operates under a statewide Sibling Bill of Rights that formally recognizes sibling relationships as a source of critical stability, and mandates that social workers work to preserve sibling bonds unless compelling reasons exist otherwise, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway. That policy helps explain why sibling groups are so often profiled and placed together rather than separately.
There is also a financial dimension for families who take in older sibling pairs. Under Massachusetts regulations known as 110 CMR 7.209, state adoption subsidy assistance is available for children with special needs, a category that legally includes sibling pairs adopted together when at least one child is 8 years or older, according to Families Rising. Those subsidies are intended to help cover ongoing medical, therapeutic, or daily care costs for adopted children.
A Statewide Backlog of Waiting Children
Darion and Julian are part of a much larger population of Massachusetts youth still waiting for permanent homes. Out of roughly 5,500 children in Massachusetts foster care between the ages of 0 and 17, approximately 800 are actively awaiting adoption without an identified permanent family, according to the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange, known as MARE. Federal Child Welfare Outcomes data puts the statewide figure even higher, showing 3,069 children in Massachusetts were waiting to be adopted in fiscal year 2024, including 1,405 whose biological parents' parental rights had already been legally terminated.
The backlog mirrors a national trend. Nationwide adoptions from foster care fell to 46,935 in fiscal year 2024, a 6% single-year drop and a 26% decline since 2019, according to federal AFCARS data released by the U.S. Administration for Children and Families. MARE has also noted that placing a waiting foster child into a permanent adoptive home saves state taxpayers an estimated $13,000 per child each year in avoided foster care maintenance costs, underscoring both the human and fiscal stakes of finding families like the one Darion and Julian are hoping for.
A Decades-Long Recruitment Tradition
MARE, founded in 1957 as one of the first five adoption exchanges in the United States, has spent decades bridging state child welfare agencies with prospective adoptive families. The organization pioneered public recruitment efforts including the Sunday's Child newspaper feature launched in 1976 and Wednesday's Child in 1981, the latter now recognized as the nation's longest-running televised adoptive recruitment series, according to CBS News. Profiles like the one featuring Darion and Julian continue that decades-long media partnership aimed at finding permanent homes for children in state care.
Hoodline has covered Boston adoption milestones before, including a 2023 National Adoption Day ceremony at Boston Juvenile Court where 21 foster adoptions were finalized. MARE representatives at that event highlighted a 30% drop in Massachusetts adoptions during 2020 and 2021, a decline that appears to have continued in the years since. For now, Darion and Julian remain among the hundreds of Massachusetts siblings hoping a family will see their shared love of sports and consider giving them a permanent home together. Families interested in learning more about adopting from foster care can find information through MARE's website at www.mareinc.org.
