Fostering as an LGBTQ+ person

Yes, absolutely! We encourage LGBTQ+ individuals and couples to foster with Southampton City Council. Having foster carers with different skills, knowledge and life experiences is important as our children and young people are from a wide variety of backgrounds with different reasons for being in care.

There is still a myth that LGBTQ+ people are not allowed to foster, however, changes to the law in 2006 enabled LGBTQ+ people to be legal guardians on adoption and fostering paperwork. As a result, changes have been made to the assessment process and there has been an increase in LGBTQ+ foster carers across the UK.

We treat all prospective foster carers equally. We focus on your ability to provide a safe and nurturing environment to child or young person, regardless of your sexuality or gender identity.

As part of your assessment, you will be invited to have conversations about your journey in terms of your identity, with the aim to understand the wider context of your parenting capacity, resilience and your support network. This helps us to understand your strengths and how you can use them to support vulnerable children and young people.

Your sexuality and gender identity are only one part of who you are. We are committed to only sharing information as necessary within the assessment process with clear and informed consent. If you are transgender and/or non-binary, we appreciate that conversations regarding transition or childhood can be difficult. It is important for us to understand your experiences of parenting and we will explore these with sensitivity.

Our assessment process uses frameworks that allow us to consider the impact of discrimination, and how we can best support applicants through these things during their fostering journey.

Southampton City Council is proud to be a member of New Family Social, a UK charity led by LGBTQ+ adopters and foster carers. They support us to ensure we are up to date with LGBTQ+ training, that our processes do not discriminate and that our LGBTQ+ foster carers are welcomed into our community.

As a Southampton City Council foster carer, you will have access to support through New Family Social. This will include webinars, Q+As with key members, online training, and access to peer support groups.

We deliver training such as ‘LGBTQ+ awareness’ and ‘supporting LGBTQ+ children and young people in care’ to our foster carers and staff. We do this to ensure that our whole fostering community understand the challenges facing LGBTQ+ people and are in a better position to guide you as needed.

We run quarterly Fostering Forums for our foster carers that enable us to better understand how we can improve, taking away sustainable actions to implement. We won’t always get it right, but we are committed to gaining a better understanding of the needs of our foster carers.