2025 Recruiter of the Year: Jean-Marie from New York
During the 2025 Wendy’s Wonderful Kids® Summit, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption recognized Jean-Marie, a Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiter with Abbott House in New York, as a Recruiter of the Year.
Through our Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program, the Foundation supports the hiring of adoption recruiters, like Jean-Marie, who are dedicated to finding permanent families for the longest-waiting children in foster care. That includes teenagers, children with special needs and siblings. These professionals use an evidence-based, child-focused recruitment model to find the right family for every child in their care. A rigorous, five-year national evaluation revealed that children referred to Wendy’s Wonderful Kids are up to 3x more likely to be adopted.
Jean-Marie’s compassionate approach naturally draws others in — helping him build meaningful relationships with the youth on his caseload and partner with their team as they strive for legal permanency. “One of the things I admire about Jean-Marie is that he looks at every case as adoptable,” Wendy’s Wonderful Kids supervisor, Jacqueline, said. “And I love that about him because it helps him to move forward with the [child-focused recruitment] plan. He embodies everything that the model talks about. He follows it, and he gets results.”
“What I like most about working as a recruiter is the opportunity to connect with the children we serve,” Jean-Marie shared. “I believe we must achieve legal permanency for children.”
Congratulations, Jean-Marie, for this special honor, and thank you for your commitment to finding safe, permanent families for the longest-waiting youth in foster care.