Campaign calls for LGBT+ people to consider these  routes to ‘Build Your Family’ 

Call to build on 2020 record of LGBT+ people adopting

LGBT+ people in the UK are urged to explore adoption and fostering as potential parenting routes in a campaign launching today (1 March). With 80,000 children in care in 2020 in England alone, LGBT+ Adoption & Fostering Week brings together agencies and LGBT+ possible applicants. The campaign is led by charity New Family Social, with support from some 70 agencies - representing more than 80 local authorities - across the country, from Belfast to Brighton. 

Build Your Family – the campaign theme – helps LGBT+ people view the adoption and fostering assessment process in easy stages. The campaign starts by showcasing LGBT+ parented adoptive and foster families. 

Tor Docherty, New Family Social Chief Executive said: ‘Record numbers of LGBT+ people now adopt or foster. The urgent need for more to do so hasn’t disappeared in the pandemic. The assessment process can still take place, despite lockdown and restrictions. If you’re LGBT+ it’s as good a time as any to find out how you can build your family through adoption or fostering.’ 

Since the campaign started in 2012, the number of same-sex couples adopting reached 1 in 6 in England in 2020, a record in both its proportion and total figure. In the same period 1 in 5 adoptions in Wales were to same-sex couples and 10 per cent of adopters in Northern Ireland were same-sex couples. 

LGBT+ people can find out more about their fostering and adoption options at newfamilysocial.org.uk/afw21/