Possibly effective, but it has the exact tone of “adopt this pet from the animal shelter” type advertisement, and just seems a bit… odd. Plus, I thought white families were beating down the doors for white toddler type kids. Woud they really need a newspaper ad to place him with an adoptive family?
If you read all the way to the end of the article, you’ll see that he has behavioural issues and (reading between the lines) is possibly developmentally delayed, as well. They’re asking for a very specific type of family: two-parent home, no other kids, stay-at-home parent, etc. People probably aren’t as anxious to take a child with special needs.
There used to be an article like this every week in the local paper. Called “Wednesday’s Child”, it featured special-needs kids in need of adoption. It always gave me a strange, sad feeling. Even worse, it was on the same page as the “Featured Pet” from the animal shelter, and the comics. They’ve since stopped running it, and now there’s just a small ad from children’s services promoting adoption and becoming foster parents.