Jacob is 16, and he is waiting for someone to adopt him. Described as resilient, driven, and fun-loving, Jacob brings laughter and energy to the people around him, according to his profile in the long-running Sunday's Child series.
The feature is part of a weekly column that has run for decades, spotlighting a child or teen in Massachusetts foster care who is awaiting adoption. According to The Boston Globe, the column profiles Jacob. He is described as energetic, athletic, kind, helpful, and generous. His sense of humor is described as amazing, and those who know him say he is a unique and engaging young man.
A Statewide Program Built Around Column Profiles Like Jacob's
Sunday's Child is not a one-off feature. The Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange established its partnership with the Globe to publish the column back in 1976, and the nonprofit still provides guidance and information on the adoption process today, per the Globe's report. MARE, which works directly with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families to register waiting youth, also runs 12 to 18 activity-based “adoption parties” each year — a matching model dating to the late 1970s that lets waiting youth interact with prospective parents in low-pressure settings, according to MARE.
Jacob's case sits inside a much larger pool of Massachusetts youth still waiting for permanent families. Among roughly 5,500 youth aged 0 to 17 in the state's foster care system, around 800 are actively awaiting adoption without an identified permanent family, per MARE data. Federal figures paint a similarly stark picture: 3,069 children in Massachusetts foster care were waiting for adoption during fiscal year 2024, and 1,405 of them had already had their biological parents' legal rights terminated, according to federal child welfare data compiled by the Administration for Children and Families.
Time Is Not on Older Foster Youth's Side
Time Is Not on Older Foster Youth's Side Age works against teenagers like Jacob in ways that compound year over year. A child's likelihood of finding an adoptive family can drop with every year past their tenth birthday, a trend that contributed to 15,379 youth aging out of foster care nationally without finding a permanent family in fiscal year 2024.
The consequences of aging out without a family are well documented in Massachusetts. State data published by the Disability Law Center found that among transition-age foster youth exiting state care at 21 — the age Massachusetts allows youth to remain in extended care — 40% lacked stable housing and 46% were unemployed. Those numbers underscore why advocates treat every year a teenager spends unmatched as a year of accumulating risk.
According to the Massachusetts General Court, state law provides for an extension of support for a child until 22 years of age.
What It Actually Takes to Adopt in Massachusetts
Much of the friction in matching teens with families, according to MARE's research, comes down to misconceptions about who can adopt and what it costs. Adoptive parents do not pay adoption fees, and adoption from foster care in Massachusetts is completely free. Prospective parents may be single, married, or partnered, and LGBTQ+ singles and couples may adopt children from foster care as well.
State eligibility rules, as outlined by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, require prospective parents to be at least 18 years old, have a stable source of income, and be renters or homeowners; applicants may be experienced or inexperienced parents. The path to approval includes the 30-hour Massachusetts Approach to Partnerships in Parenting training course, along with home safety inspections and background checks. Training, interviews, and home visits ultimately determine whether adoption is right for a given family, and the adoption process works to match families with a child or sibling group that fits their household.
A Fiscal Case Alongside the Human One
Beyond the human stakes, MARE frames foster adoption as a fiscal benefit for the state as well. Placing a waiting child into a permanent adoptive home saves taxpayers approximately $13,000 annually in avoided foster care maintenance costs, per MARE estimates.
That argument arrives amid a national decline in foster adoptions. Fiscal year 2024 recorded 46,935 foster care adoptions nationwide, according to the Administration for Children and Families, a 6% drop from the prior year and a 26% decline since 2019. Jacob's profile follows Hoodline's coverage of foster brothers Darion and Julian, another recent Sunday's Child feature that drew on the same MARE recruitment infrastructure and statewide statistics. For now, Jacob remains among the Massachusetts teens whose profiles are the public face of an effort that state agencies and nonprofits alike are trying to keep from shrinking further.
