LITTLE ROCK, Ark. ( KARK ) – The long-awaited journey for 17-year-old Jose to find his forever family has now come to an end.
Cheering and crying filled the Ninth West Judicial Circuit Court and the Arkansas Department of Human Services conference room on Thursday as the judge declared Jose was now adopted, 6,183 days after entering Arkansas’ foster care system.
Jose suffered from shaken baby syndrome at the hands of a caretaker when he was just a baby, according to Project Zero , a non-profit coalition of adoption officials in Arkansas that aims to “deliberately and purposefully pursue out-of-the-box ways to find forever families for kids in foster care who are waiting.”
His birth family took him to a care facility for the 24-hour care that he needed. When Jose was just 1 year old, his family gradually abandoned him, which is when the state’s foster care stepped in.
His life began to change when Dr. Mary Zhang stepped in.
“When I first visited, my intention was to be an advocate for him, medically speaking,” Dr. Zhang told Project Zero in a video shared with Nexstar’s KARK.