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Foster Care Fortnight 2018

Foster Care Fortnight, Day 8: LGBT

We recruit foster carers from a wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities, races, religion and sexual orientation. It is great to have foster carers from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community.  If you have a spare bedroom and can provide a loving safe environment, then you can become a foster carer.

Current figures show in England as of 31st March 2017 that there are over 70,000 children in care. We encourage people from all walks of life to become foster carers, to offer and share their different life experiences and have a positive change on a child’s life.  We have a number of LGBT carers at Sunbeam and we urge for more.

We are actively recruiting applicants from the LGBT community. We feel that our young people in foster care can often struggle with their own identity and then they are removed from their family which can further add to their confusion as to where do they belong. This is often where LGBT applicants come into their own offering reassurance that if a young person is confused can seek reassurance from you.

 “As a gay couple, we have felt supported by Pride throughout from the very start of the process through to panel, and then since we were approved and have had young people in our care. There has been no discrimination or prejudice only the help and support we have needed. Pride are always just a call away if we need anything, our supervising social worker Antoinetta is very supportive on home visits and always wants to know how she can help and support us. Pride offer an extensive range of training and development, along with many events throughout the year where we can meet other foster carers which further increases out support network, we feel totally accepted by all the professionals and other foster carers, which is very empowering to us as a gay couple.”  

LGBT foster carers can make a difference to a child or young person’s life in foster care, you can be a positive role model advocating it is ok to be different. So why not look to foster with any agency who truly cares and recognise your potential and be proud to be part of our inclusive fostering agency and make a difference to our looked after children!