This week Caritas Care are supporting LGBTQ+ Adoption and Fostering Week.

LGBTQ+ people in the UK asked to consider the number of vulnerable children they could adopt or foster

Caritas Care’s Fostering and Adoption Services are delighted to support this campaign focussed on LGBTQ+ potential applicants.  We have supported New Family Social’s annual campaigns since it’s inception in 2012 and it has been great to have witnessed such an increase in LGBTQ+ adopters since then.  During this time we have seen the number of adoptions in England to same-gender couples grow from 1 in 31 to 1 in 6 in 2022.  This is something we are proud to have been part of.

We are also pleased that this years focus will be on finding adopters from the LGBTQ+ community to step forward to adopt brothers and sisters.

Adoption Service Manager, Patricia Hurst said, “Finding families so that brothers and sisters can grow up together is one of or main priorities for 2023.  While the idea of taking on multiple children can initially seem overwhelming to potential adopters, keeping these little family units together as much as possible is crucial.

There are many benefits for adopters in parenting sibling groups – staying together means that they have an unbroken bond, which can increase resilience to face future challenges; staying together means that they have a shared history and can support each other to come to terms with their situation. And siblings staying together is twice, 3 or 4 times the fun for adoptive parents!”

Fostering Service Manager, Rebecca Hughes, said, “There is a national shortage in foster carers, with 1330 families needed in the North West alone.  I can only echo what my colleagues say in adoption and stress the need for people to be available to foster sibling groups.  Our priority is to find long term, short term or even respite placements for brothers and sisters who need a family right now. Some of these children may even move on to adoption.”

The latest estimates in England show that 4 in 10 children with a sibling are separated from their sibling when placed in care. Led by New Family Social, LGBTQ+ Adoption & Fostering Week starts today (6 March). It asks potential applicants to think about the number of vulnerable children they could parent or care for.

The need for more LGBTQ+ applicants to explore adoption and fostering is as great as ever. In England in 2022 there were some 82,170 looked-after children. Despite strong numbers of LGBTQ+ people adopting, the number of looked-after children grew by two per cent from the previous year.

Previous analysis showed 47 per cent of same-gender couples waiting for an adoption match were more open to considering groups of brothers and sisters, compared to 36 per cent of different-gender couples.

Tor Docherty, New Family Social Chief Executive said: ‘We hope LGBTQ+ potential applicants will think about the number of children they could care for. Some children need to be cared for by themselves. Others will thrive if they can live with their siblings. In adoption and fostering the needs of the child and children must remain paramount – for some siblings this means staying together.’

To find out more about adoption or fostering with Caritas Care, why not attend one of our information events. Click HERE to view our events calendar.