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LGBT Fostering and Adoption week

LGBT Fostering and Adoption week

Paul O’Grady backs LGBT Fostering and Adoption week

Popular British TV star backs UK’s first gay and trans adoption and fostering week. Paul O'Grady has backed the first LGBT Fostering and Adoption Week. One of Britain’s best-loved TV presenters, Paul O’Grady, has given his support to LGBT Fostering and Adoption Week.

O’Grady, who is gay himself and made his name as drag queen Lily Savage, told Gay Star News: ‘There are so many children in need of a home and someone to look after them.

‘For many of these children it doesn’t matter that they have two dads or two mums, what is important is that there are people to care for them.

‘I’m really pleased to support Action for Children during the first LGBT Fostering and Adoption Week. Those interested in being adoptive or foster parents should get in touch with them.’

Action for Children is one of the leading mainstream charities promoting gay and trans parenting for vulnerable kids. They say that 10,000 foster carers are needed in the UK alone and that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people often make particularly good parents.

They cite a new study by Cambridge University which shows lesbian and gay people often have the right mix of skills and experience to raise children who have been in care, and give them the best new start in life.

Of these skills 72% of social workers surveyed saw the ‘amount of energy and enthusiasm’ LGBT adopters bring to the process as a significant strength. And 76% saw ‘openness to difference, and supporting a child with a sense of difference’ as equally important.

Adoption rates are at a 10 year low in the UK. Of the 65,520 children currently in care in England, only 3,050 were adopted last year, a decrease of 20% from 2005 and there’s a shortage of potential adopters.

An Action for Children spokeswoman said: ‘For a long time, LGBT people were seen as only suitable to look after harder-to-place children, if at all. Now adoption and fostering agencies see them as having a key role to play in meeting the urgent need for more new homes for children in care.’

By Tris Reid-Smith..Photo by Steve Punter.

Find more information about Action for Children’s fostering and adoption service here.

Published: 23-Feb-2012: (1133)

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