KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
A boy that was bounced from foster home to foster home is now reunited with the family he thought he lost forever and a new program is helping kids like him get out of the system and back with family.
The unique reunion effort called Extreme Recruitment is used to find homes for kids that are struggling in foster care. Private investigators use CSI-like techniques to find biological relatives that were once unknown to the foster care system.
Eugene Baker is a man on a mission. His mission started with a photograph, a picture of a boy whose face he knew well. The boy's face cannot be shown because he is currently in the foster care system.
"I showed it (the picture) to my daughter and the rest of my family and I knew Demaje needed to come home," Baker, Demaje's uncle, said.
"The photograph connected with the right person," John Ecklund, a private investigator with the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association, said.
For months, Ecklund sent the boy's picture to every Eugene Baker he could find. His goal was to find the uncle of 10-year-old Demaje. He used databases available to private investigators, therapists and medical professionals.
"I'd rather just live with my real family because I have to move from foster home to foster home over and over again and it's starting to get old," Demaje said.
When Demaje was about 5, his mother moved from California to Missouri. Once in Kansas City, she dropped him off at a residential care facility, saying she couldn't care for him anymore.
The program Extreme Recruitment fights for children like Demaje.
"(It's for those) who have been labeled hard to adopt or hard to place," MFCAA VP of Programs and Personnel Jennifer Johnson said.
For the kids that fit into that category, the best place for them is often with a biological family member the state once overlooked or never knew about.
"Family is less likely to give up on family," Johnson said.
Baker said he is not ready to give up on the nephew he had also been searching for.
"Nobody gives you that sincere hug like family. I thought ‘gosh, how cool for Demaje.' He gets to have that warm embrace," Baker said.
Baker and Demaje were recently reunited in person after about six years. Their heartwarming embrace will be shown for the first time in public at the 2012 Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association Gala that will be held Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the InterContinental on the Plaza.
Demaje's uncle is hoping to permanently reunite him with his family in California. Extreme Recruitment has 19 open cases like Demaje's and they hope to double that number during their second year.
For more information on the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association Forever Families Gala, click here.
The video used in Emily Rittman's story was provided by Local Investment Commission or LINC. The organization can be contacted by clicking here.
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