Lucy Stevens - 7th June 2024
What is Pride all about?
Pride Month can trace its history back to New York and the 1960s, specifically the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Police prejudice, discrimination and harassment at the time sparked a series of protests which lay the foundations for the LGBTQ+ Rights movement. The first Pride marches took place the following year to commemorate the Stonewall anniversary.
Today, Pride Month has grown to become a vast platform on which we celebrate diversity, challenge discrimination and campaign for inclusivity in wider society.
Take a Pride in Fostering
At Eastern Fostering Services, we know only too well that many young people still come up against challenges in the face of their sexuality or gender identity. For children and young people who are care-experienced, this can be particularly difficult as they may already struggle with other aspects of their identity related to their past experiences and the fact that they are growing up in Foster Care. We know there is a stigma attached to being in Foster Care and children and young people face scrutiny and prejudice daily. When you add sexuality and gender into the mix, life can be very daunting indeed.
How can we support our children and young people?
At Eastern Fostering Services we look at each child as an individual. All of our children and young people have their specific needs, desires and hopes for the future. Our job is to encourage them in who they are.
Find Foster Carers who understand.
One of the best ways we can support LGBTQ+ children is to find them the very best Foster Carers to help them with their questions and challenges. This means that we need to recruit as diverse a pool of Foster Carers as possible. At EFS we have created a space where everyone is accepted and where all Foster Carers feel welcome as part of the family: respected and appreciated for the unique perspectives they can bring to fostering.
Provide opportunities to shine.
Young people need to have opportunities to feel accepted and celebrated. Nothing encapsulates this principle more powerfully than an incident that took place at one of our annual Eastern Fostering Services talent shows. During this half-term celebration, we encourage our children to showcase their talents and interests. It might be dancing, singing, magic tricks, keepy-uppies, majoretting – you name it, we’ve seen it. Often children are shy and need a bit of encouragement at first, but over the years this show has served to be a yardstick for the positive impact of the nurture they receive. Children become more and more confident and ever more convinced of their deservedness to be on the stage. Child D was like a shadow when he first arrived with our Foster Carers. He didn’t speak much, wouldn’t look you in the eye and seemed to just shrink into himself if anyone spoke to him. 5 Years on and this year’s talent show saw him sweep onto stage in a ball gown, bold make-up emphasising a huge smile that was showing no signs of vacating his face. That for me, said it all.
The agency that gives agency
When trying to support children and young people, the only way to ensure you’re getting it right is to get the children and young people to tell you what they want and need. At Eastern Fostering Services, we have Choices for Young Voices, a forum for our young people to discuss the issues they face and tell us how we can help. It makes us proud every time they meet to see how everyone is accepted, how everyone’s views are valuable and that nobody is backwards in coming forwards! Our young people feel empowered and, yes, cliché though it seems, full of Pride for who they are and what they are worth.
If you’d like to join us on our mission of transforming lives through Foster Care, get in touch with us this #PrideMonth2024.
E: team@easternfosteringservices.com
W: www.easternfosteringservices.com
F: www.facebook.com/EasternFosteringServices
T: 01206 299775
Eastern Fostering Services - The small agency with a strong family feel
