A few of us from AFABC attended an Adoption Resource Exchange today. About 15 kids (or siblings groups) were profiled, and over a hundred prospective parents joined in. AFABC was there to support our families who were in attendance (and of course provide our legendary chocolate cookies).
You might be wondering "What's an Adoption Resource Exchange?" -- not too long ago, I wondered that, too! It's basically a matching event for prospective adoptive parents who have completed their homestudies and are waiting to be matched. They come together along with their adoption workers, to hear from guardianship workers about some of the children in care who are looking for families. There's time for networking with other families and with social workers, and plenty of time to ask questions about the kids who are being profiled.
It's a pretty powerful event for all involved. It's one thing to read a description of a waiting child on the MCFD website; it's another thing entirely to watch a video recording of the same child and have the privilege of watching them shine.
There's only one way into an ARE, and that's to be invited by your social worker. And if your social worker doesn't invite you, ask them to!!! The ARE is open to both MCFD and Agency families, provided your complete, up-to-date homestudy is Ministry-approved and you are waiting for a match.
Some families attend and discover that several of the kids or siblings groups being profiled meet their family's criteria. That's wonderful! Others attend and find that none of the children are a match. That's okay, too. I like to remind families that even if you *don't* find a match from attending an ARE, you've still had the opportunity to witness what BC's Waiting Children are all about.
Equally important is the opportunity to have your family's profile handed directly to Ministry guardianship workers - the professionals who will have arguably the biggest role in determining which family is right for each child on their caseload. A few guardianship workers who were *not* profiling children attended just for the opportunity to meet prospective parents. That's a pretty stellar thing for a social worker to do; taking a whole day out of their work week solely to meet with prospective parents.
If you missed out on today's ARE and would like to attend, the next one will be sometime this fall. Put the bug in your social worker's ear that you'd like an invite.... and I'll look forward to seeing you at the next one!
1 comment:
This sounds like an interesting time; before we adopted our son, I was reading about similar events in the states - really fun, non-stressful picnics with kids looking for forever families and prospective parents... so much better than trying to get a sense of a kid through that book of waiting kids! And our son, profiled in that book, has turned out so differently than anything written there. Thanks for sharing this!
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