***UPDATE*** Julianna has a 5 year old half-sister in foster care with her. Her name is Whitney. Whitney is in her 5th foster placement and does not have any biological family to adopt her. It is a possibility that she joins our family too! We do not want to separate the girls, and we have grown to care for Whitney as we do Julianna. We would cherish the opportunity to raise them together and have them be able to grow up with a close bond…we are hopeful as things have been moving in a positive direction, but the costs have been exorbitant and way more than expected. Please share our story anywhere you can!
6/4/18-As I have shared with many of you, my niece Julianna was being neglected and was put into foster care in Florida. I was called on, as her next of kin, for adoption. Since that first day I was called 3 months ago, my fiancé and I have spent countless amounts of time and money doing anything and everything we could to have her placed with us...trips for court dates and visits, hours on phones with case workers & lawyers, countless time responding to emails-following up on broken promises that this time the state “really filed the right paperwork”, disappointment walking out of the courthouse because the case worker changed AGAIN and they’re “sorry they dropped the ball but they’re short staffed.” I could go on and on about all the ways that the system has failed us, but we have been told so many times it is a broken system and so we continue on to the next option.
Today we were told of a process called adoption intervention which allows us to force the matter out of the state’s hands and into a private adoption attorney’s control. The attorney is working with a very small window of opportunity to file this intervention as this matter has been ongoing for many months.
While there is no price tag I can put on bringing Julianna home, paying a private attorney is our only chance. We are working against a clock and every day she stays in foster care lessens the chance we have for placement. She belongs with us. I would do anything to bring her home tomorrow and can’t stand the fact that we could lose her. For this reason I am reaching out to all of our friends, family, and beyond for help. We are so ready, willing, and able to give her a loving home. Any way you can help us will allow us to hire the private attorney to bring Julianna home and end this nightmare as soon as possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
6/4/18-As I have shared with many of you, my niece Julianna was being neglected and was put into foster care in Florida. I was called on, as her next of kin, for adoption. Since that first day I was called 3 months ago, my fiancé and I have spent countless amounts of time and money doing anything and everything we could to have her placed with us...trips for court dates and visits, hours on phones with case workers & lawyers, countless time responding to emails-following up on broken promises that this time the state “really filed the right paperwork”, disappointment walking out of the courthouse because the case worker changed AGAIN and they’re “sorry they dropped the ball but they’re short staffed.” I could go on and on about all the ways that the system has failed us, but we have been told so many times it is a broken system and so we continue on to the next option.
Today we were told of a process called adoption intervention which allows us to force the matter out of the state’s hands and into a private adoption attorney’s control. The attorney is working with a very small window of opportunity to file this intervention as this matter has been ongoing for many months.
While there is no price tag I can put on bringing Julianna home, paying a private attorney is our only chance. We are working against a clock and every day she stays in foster care lessens the chance we have for placement. She belongs with us. I would do anything to bring her home tomorrow and can’t stand the fact that we could lose her. For this reason I am reaching out to all of our friends, family, and beyond for help. We are so ready, willing, and able to give her a loving home. Any way you can help us will allow us to hire the private attorney to bring Julianna home and end this nightmare as soon as possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.