Gavin and Stefan's story: short-term fostering as lgbtq carers with children
Read Gavin and Stefan's transcript
Stefan: I think the biggest difference our foster carers can make from the LGBT community is that we know what it's like to be different, to be treated differently. And we can help and sympathise to that. We started fostering in April 2025.
Gavin: We got the baby pretty much straight away after approval.
Stefan: He's been with us since he was born. He's currently nearly six months old and his plan at the moment is for adoption.
Gavin: In our house currently there's me and Stefan. I've got a 13-year-old birth son, who's just a normal typical teenager. And then me and Stefan adopted two seven-year-olds. They've both got quite significant additional needs and then we've got the baby. So, I think from when we adopted the first time, we've always been really interested in fostering because we've seen what a positive impact has had on our little one's life. He had an amazing foster carer.
Stefan: The reason we wanted to foster is because we feel like we've got quite a broad set of skills that we could offer to other children. It's been one of the best things we've ever done.
Gavin: You're just there to give a little person a good start in life.
Stefan: For the impact of fostering on our children with them being adopted, that they can see that there's other children like them that have been in foster care, and it's okay, they can offer their side of the story as well.
Gavin: I mean, I don't think it really makes a difference, being from the LGBT community. I think you're just there to give a little person a good start in life because of them are some love and some structure.
Stefan: We haven't been treated any differently to anybody else. We feel like that we're really well supported. Our supervising social worker is always there at the end of the phone to help us.
Gavin: If you are thinking about fostering, we would say do it.
Stefan: Because it will change your life for the positive.
