First of all, I am a grandmother currently raising three of the four grandchildren, two of which we did adopt. Also served as Admin. Assistant for a residential treatment center in California, then for one in AZ for 4 years. In the meantime, my husband and I both were Foster Care Review Board Members for 5 years until we got a 3 month old baby and a 16 month in 2005. We had plans of and did adopt the first two, as it was part of the process of being fost adopt parents. The girl was 3, the boy was 11. As grandparents we loved him dearly and wanted the best for him. Loved him unconditionally, were patient, But, he was already damaged from the neglect, and abuse. We did EVERYTHING humanly possible for this boy for 7 years until he turned 18. To let you know, we did not ever turn our backs on him, call him unadoptable, but, if it was someone else wanting to adopt him, with the extensive problems he had, if we had not put our hearts and souls into him, he would have been one of the unadoptable. There are just some, a very few that over the years, we have found that cannot be saved. Even with all of the mental health treatment, counseling, police and fire involvement, church, mentors, life skills coaches, most gave up on him. We did not. We stood firm, keeping him safe, but we were not safe from him. My husband was the "guard" over the family for 5 of the 7 years. He had tried killing his sister, then, he attacked us, he hurt others in school, and boys and girls club, Church mentors told us to keep him away from them because of his fits of violence. He is 20 now, lives in another state, has turned to marijuana, abuses his girlfriend, and he thinks it is ok. Unadoptable? We did it. We stuck to it. Loved him guided him, but if it had not been any other family, I hate to see where he would have ended up. We just don't like the word unadoptable either.