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Creating
Families Through Match Parties Six-year old David (not his real name), a little boy with many physical challenges, attended the National Adoption Center's Spring Match Party in 2004. Today, he is part of a family. There were many activities to explore that day--a room for board games, a classroom-sized science experiment, and a gym with various levels of athletic activities. But what David liked most was the Karaoke room where children of all ages, often with their social workers, sang along with the songs, and others in the audience, including prospective parents, watched and applauded. David's social worker, Frederick Brown, sat down on the steps leading up to the stage and said, "I want to tell you about David. David can't speak for himself so I'll speak for him." Brown, with the Essex Adoption Resource Center of Newark N.J., talked about what a nice boy David is, the child's interests, and the fact that he desperately needed a family to love him. Several months later, David had found a family. He was adopted by a couple who had been at the party and had heard Brown talk on the child's behalf. The couple adopted this child despite his physical challenges. This was a result of Brown's belief in this child and the fact that he was able to take him to the National Adoption Center's Match Party. Match parties, sometimes called "adoption parties," are events where approved families (through homestudies and family profiles) have an opportunity to meet and interact with waiting children who are accompanied by their social workers. The families also can network with other families who are waiting for an adoptive placement. The Center has been holding match parties for the past two decades, and as a result of these events has found homes for approximately 20 children each year. Not all the children who attend match parties will be adopted. However, the parties are a proven method of finding families for waiting children. The Center holds match parties twice a year in the Greater Philadelphia area, and many children and their workers along with prospective parents travel from various parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and beyond. Adoption match parties are held throughout the United States in places such as Rhode Island, Louisiana, Colorado, Missouri, Utah, and Arizona. The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) quoted a representative from the Aid to Adoption of Special Kids of Arizona as saying, "When prospective parents interact with waiting children, they see past labels, diagnoses, and case histories that mask unique personalities." The locations and activities of the Center's Match Party change from time to time, but the format of each event is essentially the same. Everyone--children, their social workers, and families, receive a name tag when they arrive in the morning and receive orientations about what they can expect from the day. There are several activity areas and the families choose an area where they will stay for the afternoon. The children are divided into three or four small groups and are "guided" from one area to the next. This way, the prospective parents have an opportunity to see and interact with all of the children. Christine Jacobs,
Director of the Adoption Center of Delaware
Valley (the affiliate of the National Adoption Center), says that
"Meeting the children in a fun environment is an entirely different
experience for the families. They get to see that the children are
unique and different and that they are also like other children. Many
of the families come with a preconceived notion of what they want
in a child. They may think they want a younger child and then they
meet a fifteen-year-old they are completely taken with. This is how
children find families." And it is how David found his family.
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