Activity/ play days

[excitedmuchly]

Hello. I've been invited to attend an activity/play day in the New Year. Anyone attended one before?
Anyone with any advice?
Would love to hear from people who meet their children at one of these days!
Thanks x

[donquixotedelamancha]

Yep. We met our eldest at one. Don't forget to take two forms of ID if you want to take them home the same day :-)

I found them very useful because I struggled to really get in touch with how I was feeling when it was all paperwork. They are set up like a big playgroup, but with a load of random adults going round noseying at the kids. Often everyone will be in fancy dress- and it's a good idea to join in that.

It can be hard. There is a little bit of a cattle market feel, despite the efforts to mitigate it. There can be a scrum with the babies and the 'easy to place' children. OTOH you find out far more than you might otherwise and you get a much stronger connection with the child immediately.

I held back a lot at the first one because I found it quite difficult. At the second I pitched in a lot more but felt no connection with anyone children until, just before the end, I saw this little baby in a corner. As soon as she grabbed my finger and drooled on me, that was it- I knew.

I would suggest:

• See it as an exercise in getting to know the type of kids up for adoption. Don't feel any pressure to match.
• Understand that these will be 'harder to place kids'.
• Pitch in and have (very slightly) sharp elbows. The point is to try to find matches and to do that you have to interact.

[topcat2014]

It was watching a (sensitively produced) TV programme at one of these that encouraged us to apply.

Good luck!

[chocolatebrioche]

We attended one shortly after we our approval panel, early this year. We found it really positive. It was daunting, and we didn't really expect to find our LO there, but we were desperate to feel we were doing something positive ourselves to find a match.

We ended up really enjoying it. The kids were just lovely, and we also felt the best bit was seeing real, live children, after all the stress of the paperwork and the whole approval process.

We did connect with one gorgeous little boy, but when we enquired we discovered we were the third couple to register interest about him on the day. In the end, the SW went ahead with another family, which was really sad at the time.

We were still keen to go to another activity day. I was convinced this was how we'd find our LO, but actually we were approached a month later about another little boy, who is now fast asleep upstairs :)