New technology matches adoptive children with forever families

Reporter: Breana Ross Writer: Jack Lowenstein
Published: Updated:
(Center) adoptive father and son Jameer King-Cori and Bryan Cori at the Deltona courthouse where they legally became a forever family. The two live in Fort Myers. Credit: Shared with WINK News.

November is National Adoption Month, and a nonprofit’s new technology is helping match some special kids with their forever families. A Florida nonprofit is partnering to make it available here, so agencies can help match people in the Sunshine State with their forever families. We spoke to a family happily brought together by it.

Bryan Cori in Fort Myers wanted to be a father for as long as he can remember.

“I always knew I wanted a kid,” said Cori, an adoptive father. “But I didn’t know if I would actually be able to do it alone.”

But after hearing about a new adoption technology called Family match, Cori decided to take a leap of faith and create a profile.

“I finally said, ‘You know what? I’m going to do this,’” Cori said.

Family-Match is a new website designed by nonprofit Adoption-Share to help case workers better match families with children. That is crucial to the nonprofit’s mission to better enhance the overall adoption process.

“Families complete an assessment,” said Amy Simpson, the director of program delivery at Adoption-Share. “Case workers complete an assessment about the child and then the algorithm comes out with a compatibility score.”

The compatibility score is based is based on personality, needs, lifestyle and behaviors.

“While the old way of adoption, saying, ‘That child is cute; it looks like me; I want to adopt it,’” said Jennifer Bate Richy, COO of Florida nonprofit Selfless Love Foundation. “It creates families. There’s a better way, and that way is helping families find the perfect child for them and that placement that will last.”

Selfless Love Foundation has partnered with Adoption-Share to make the Family-Match technology available to all Florida child welfare agencies.

Anyone looking to use Family Match can get started easily. All it requires is visiting family-match.org, creating a profile, selecting state of residence and getting started.

The Family Match profile led Cori to 13-year-old Jameer King — now Jameer King-Cori. The two both said the initial match caught them off guard.

“It wasn’t like a normal thing that would happen,” Jameer said. “But, to me, it was just like we’ll see how this goes.”

Jameer King-Cori and Bryan Cori. Credit: Shared with WINK News.

But, since Jameer and Cori have officially become a family, they have both realized it was a match made in heaven.

“They said me and him were perfect matches, and they were right,” Cori said.

Cori hopes the new technology continues to help more people find their forever families.

“There’s all these kids that need a home,” Cori said. “Just do it.”

Family Match has matched 250 children with families since it was developed in 2018.

“We’re hoping to get to zero waiting children,” Simpson said.

MORE: Family-Match by Adoption-Share 

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