Stay and Play

[WittyUsername123]

Hello all,
We are going (slightly last minute) to a stay and play with our LA. Has anyone got any experience of these and how to behave? I am excited but also a little uncertain of what to expect!

Hi @WittyUsername123

Is this a family finding event?

Yes- sorry my terminology may be wrong!

@WittyUsername123

probably not!
I adopted 10 years ago - terminology moves on !

Just be yourself - get down with the kids (as they say) and play and talk to them.

I’ve heard from some people who went to these events that some children appeared to be very popular and were crowded by lots of potential parents whilst quieter or less ‘attractive ‘ looking kids were overlooked.
So I’d say go with an open mind about all the children there - talk to the foster carers and social workers to get a real picture of the child.
The other thing to remember is that of course all these children have a difficult story and it can be quite overwhelming so take advantage of any quiet corners to gather your thoughts.
At a family finding event I went to the children were not present, just lots of photos and letters and pictures. To be honest it felt a bit like baby shopping. I found it all very emotional - you feel like you want to take them all home, but of course you can’t. So you do need to protect yourself a bit.
I didn’t find my son at that event, you may or may not find yours tomorrow. Good luck - come back and tell us all about it

Good luck with the event.

Thank you both for your encouraging words.
It was certainly an odd experience because it was in LA so most of the children were profiles we had seen. Also interesting as foster carers were present and some were more or less keen on encouraging interaction!
We saw a few LOs whose profiles we were already interested in and seeing them just solidified that. We are now trying to figure out if our LA wants us to express an interest in only one profile at a time- does anyone have any experience of this? Our SW has just changed and the new SW is unfortunately quite uncommunicative so far!

I can imagine what an odd experience these events must be - but great that seeing some of the kids 'for real' affirmed your interest in them!

From what I've heard, the process seems to differ between different LAs. Ours isn't running these events at the moment and they'll only show a child's profile to one family at a time and are very clear about potential adopters deciding for each child if they could be the right parents rather than seeing more than one profile at a time and thus comparing between children, but I know others let you express interest in more than one child, either in-house and/or on Linkmaker, and only ask you to decide for one should two family-finding SWs be interested in you.

When you ask the SW if you can express an interest in one or more profiles at the same time, maybe include a little bit about your thinking straight away so they can take it forward within the LA without having to get back to you to say what the process is, then for you to say which child(ren) you might be intetested in? Just to save time on going back and forth if they're not good at replying to emails.