# Adoption Exchange Day - who has been on one?



## dandlebean (Feb 24, 2013)

We are a recently approved couple and may be going on an Adoption Exchange Day soon. Has anyone here been on one? If so, what was it like?


----------



## GERTIE179 (Apr 20, 2005)

Hi Dandlebean,

We found our LO through an exchange day. You might find the below thread helpful for people's experiences.

Good luckhttp://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=295286.msg5196442#msg5196442
X


----------



## Daddyboo (Paul) (Dec 24, 2012)

Exchange or Activity Day?

*An Exchange Day* is a little like a jobs fair, but with A5 posters (on display boards) of LOs instead of jobs. There you will meet the LO's SWs, find out loads about them and possibly also watch a dvd. We went to an Adoption 22 organised event which had 4 Local Authorities and around 30 children.

*An Activity Day* is where we found our LO, its a massive gathering of 50+ LOs and their respective SWs & FCs and also 30+ prospective adopters. The kids treat it like a party.

In both the above situations the children there were deemed hard to place, either because of medical problems, they were siblings or they were just older (3+), or they were just unlucky not too have found their forever family. Our LO looks to have been in the last situation. 

Paul


----------



## MummyElf (Apr 11, 2013)

We went to an exchange day (thanks pauliboo for the clarification on which is which) - so the 'jobs fair' type. We saw a run of DVDs of around 10 kids and then afterwards could seek more information from their SWs and pick up a profile. It was very good, but we didn't find our LO. In reality we didn't expect to as knew our SW was waiting for a young, relatively problem-free match, which is exactly what we got, and the exchange days do seem to be for children who are harder to place. It was a good experience and a couple of the children really grabbed us....in fact most of them got the emotions flooding, they were all so flipping' gorgeous. There was one little boy I absolutely fell in love with but he had a lot of problems and we felt we wouldn't be the best match for him and had to be realistic about our own abilities.


----------



## Smudgey (Mar 13, 2012)

We are recently approved and going to an exchange day on Monday , thanks for the info as I wasn't sure what to expect ?  We too want as young and problem free as possible ideally , but as I'm an older adopter I am interested in slightly older also xx


----------



## dandlebean (Feb 24, 2013)

Well, we're back from our Exchange Day and would definitely recommend them to anyone. 

It was very busy and overwhelming initially, but it was so useful to be able to chat directly to the children's SWs and see a real mixture of children. It opened our eyes to considering different ages/genders too. 

Many of the LAs bring DVDs and can give you a lot more information if you are interested in any of the profiles (and there were LOADS, way more than we expected) and there was a slightly quieter area where you could go for a more in depth chat if necessary. 

It was rather sad seeing SO many children needing homes though, so you need to be prepared for a bit of an emotional onslaught. Still, definitely worth it! Plus, we've found (hopefully) our future LO!


----------



## Smudgey (Mar 13, 2012)

We had a similar experience today too , shame there were so many people and we didn't find each other !
I would definitely recommend it too , we want a young relitavely problem free child so we thought today would be about experience , but we have two LO that we are very keen on and we were approached about foster to adopt , which we need to look into a bit more ! 

Totally agree with above re emotional , there are some poor little ones that will struggle to find their forever families and it's so heart wrenching to see   , I have to say some of the BP need sterilising or putting to sleep with some of the things they do ...and seem to keep doing so pregnancy after pregnancy , so so sad xxxx


----------



## AoC (Oct 28, 2008)

We went to one while we were waiting on a potential link with our LO.  I found it very hard, especially with a couple of very keen SWers who tried to 'sell' their LOs to us, being very enthusiastic about how wonderful they were and how much they deserved to find a family.  I found that hard and very sad.  We went with our SWer who was very helpful, asking each 'station' if they had children in our matching criteria, and then we sat down with the profiles and narrowed down to possibles.  But we were really wedded to our LO already.

Interestingly, our LO's family finder was just about to take his profile to an exchange day, as he was considered hard to place (which still makes us go WTF?!?!?) and we asked her not to do so until we were approved and she'd seen our PAR.  She agreed to wait, basically because we had fallen head over heels in love at first sight of profile, and the rest, as they say, is history.


----------



## GERTIE179 (Apr 20, 2005)

Aww AoC that's lovely.

I do think the "hard to place" label is quite subjective as a lot of the kids at these events aren't always this way and sometimes it's just circumstances that have led to the delay ie SW illness, maternity, profiling, not enough adopters for 0-6 in their area, or even lack of FCs so LOs have had to move about and it's been difficult for children's SW or FFs to know what the child needs in their new families. 

Of course the biggest delay in LOs moving to forever homes is the court & legal proceedings so if this has been the case you might find a lovely 3.5yr old been in FC since very small and as a newbie approved person I know I used to question if the child was hard to place as surely someone would've snapped them up already - I now know lots of Adoptive families and certainly if adopting again I would take these situations into consideration now.


----------



## AoC (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah, we get quite angry when we think about it.  He was only considered hard to place because he wasn't a baby (25 months at placement) and because of some nasty background in his birth family, that actually hadn't directly affected him at all.  It's just a case that they felt most adopters would shy away from having to talk about it and support him through the knowledge in later life.  Talk about the sins of the fathers... grrrrrr.

Our reaction to it was to want to hold him and love him even more.


----------

