AUSTIN, Texas — Joseph is a 4-year-old boy in Texas foster care who needs a forever family to adopt him.
Immediately upon meeting Joseph, you will notice he's an active little boy with a big bright smile and a whole lot of love to give.
KVUE's Hannah Rucker met up with Joseph, his caseworker and his nurse at San Gabriel Park in Georgetown.
Joseph loves playing soccer and has a great kick. He will keep playing until you tell him to stop.
"Joseph is really curious, and he likes to learn because he's constantly exploring the world around him. And so, when he finds something new or something that he really likes, then he might get a little fixated on it and wants to see how it works," Amanda Achilike, Joseph's caseworker, said.
At one point, Joseph held a toy microphone and pretended to be a reporter with his nurse.
Joseph needs daily speech and physical therapy because he is mostly nonverbal. However, he is able to understand everything you say to him.
"Joseph has some medical needs, but that doesn't define who he is. And he is, he's very active and loving and he likes to help people. He likes to help clean. He likes to help clean up in the house. And he has some foster sisters that he's really sweet to," Achilike said.
Families don't need to have a medical background in order to foster or adopt a child with medical needs – they just have to be willing to learn. There's an upcoming training with limited space for licensed families to receive additional care instruction from nurses who work at Dell Children's. Families that are licensed and interested in the training can contact the Heart Gallery of Central Texas at heartgallery@partnershipsforchildren.org.
To learn more about Joseph or to put in an inquiry to adopt him, visit his page on the Heart Gallery.
PHOTOS | Forever Families: Meet Joseph
Catch Joseph's full story on KVUE Midday on Friday at 11 a.m.!
KVUE launched the Forever Families segment with Partnerships for Children (PFC) in June 2020 to highlight children in the Heart Gallery of Central Texas who need secure and permanent families. Every day, there are nearly 1,000 children waiting to get adopted in Central Texas, according to PFC.
Editor's note: The children who are in the Heart Gallery program and featured in KVUE's Forever Families segments are children who have had every effort made on their behalf to connect them with family or others in their community to provide options for permanent, adoptive homes. Through no fault of their own, that hasn’t happened yet, and so in partnership with the Department of Family and Protective Services, we collaborate to bring awareness to KVUE viewers about these children in the hopes of finding them permanency before they age out.