Exchange days and activity days

[Bouncydoog]

Hi

Has anyone experienced an exchange day or activity day? We have been offered this as a way of matching and unsure what to expect. I believe the exchange day is online and the activity day would be a smaller group than usual due to social distancing. Did anyone match with their child this way?

About a million years ago (15) we went to an exchange day. Lots of SWs / LAs there with profiles of children, and you could approach them and talk about any that had got your interest, and hand over your own profile. It felt good to be proactive. We had a 'near miss' from it (a relative came forward late).
I've never done an activity day, but there are some TV programmes (see the TV programmes thread).

Yes I have been to an activity day. I was linked with my son and he had already been signed up for one so we were asked if we wanted to go along and meet him. Was probably a bit different for us as we were going with a specific child in mind so didn't really mingle. Was like a massive kids birthday party with entertainment, soft play, face painting etc. I would imagine it would be very different now!

Hi , I've been to a couple of exchange days..very much like an activity fun filled event, and one virtual event. I expressed interests in a few children but unfortunately their social workers were looking for 2 parent families and I'm a single adopter. The days were fun , filled with activities and you get to participate and actively engage with the little ones.

I was listening to a webinar (adoptionuk) this morning and an adoptive parent was talking about how these events can be quite competitive, potential adopters shoving each other out of the way to get to talk to their preferred child.
I hope this is not the norm! It sounded horrific.

I went to a few activity days but that's not how I was matched. The ones I went to did feel competitive in the sense of you feel like you are being sized up against other adopters and naturally people want to make a good impression and spend time with the children they're interested in. I think all the days I went to had more children than adopters with one being particularly unbalanced when a few children pulled out last minute. I never experienced competitiveness in an aggressive way though, and I actually enjoyed meeting the other prospective adopters there, and at the one with very few children the adults just used the time to talk to each other.

There is a very clear etiquette around activity days and prospective adopters are briefed on this on arrival. You're asked to engage with many different children, not only those you are drawn to, and not to spend too much time with any one child. They also say they will ask you to move on if you've been with the same child for too long. You could definitely have a quiet word with the organisers if you don't feel like you're getting time with the children you wanted to see.

There is a lot you can get out of activity days apart from finding 'the one'. For most prospective adopters it's the first time they've met any looked after children. And so reassuring to realise that they are just children. It brings the process to life in ways that flicking through profiles never can. It's an opportunity to talk to foster carers who will give you the bottom line of what life is really like and social workers who may be family finding for other children. My social worker was always keen for me to make myself known to as many family finders as possible. They might have the perfect child for you now or months later so it never hurts to make a good impression while you have the chance as you might be submitting an expression of interest to them further down the line. It's also a chance to meet other prospective adopters and share experiences around the process. I am not sure how all of this networking will work or even be allowed in the current environment, but my advice would be to go with an open mind, put your best foot forward and be nice to everyone.

Thanks for your replies. I went to the exchange day last week and have a couple of potential links so feeling hopeful.

The exchange day was held in a socially distanced way, I went into the agency at a set time and was given a stack of profiles from all different agencies, read them, selected a few and they set up calls to the child’s social worker so we could talk to them about the child. It was really good to talk to the SW directly.

The activity day will be later in the year,