May is National Foster Care Month, and I’ve been enjoying many of the recent stories of foster families at RaiseAChild.US. Read on for links to their tales and to other information resources for LGBTQ foster families.
Ricardo and Jesse Ortiz-Barreto are parents to four young men they adopted from foster care when the latter were aged four to eight. Hugo Redwood and Denis O’Hare began their family by fostering an infant (and Hugo coined the wonderful term “scare-cited” to describe being both scared and excited when having a kid). Mignon Moore and Elaine Harley are raising Elaine’s child from a previous relationship and fostering two infant and toddler siblings. And Michael Arden-Sonego, now a 22-year-old college student , offers his perspective as a former foster youth who found a permanent home with two men at age 12.
If you’re considering fostering a child, here are some additional resources that may help:
- AdoptUSKids has lots of general information about adoption and foster care, as well as a list of links to LGBTQ-specific resources. It also runs a hotline where you can talk with an LGBT adoption specialist, at 888-200-4005 or LGBTSupport@adoptuskids.org.
- HRC has a good overview of the process of becoming a foster parent.
- The National Foster Parent Association has lots of good general resources.
- The Foster Club is the national network of young people in foster care.
And don’t forget that research has shown foster children do equally well no matter the sexual orientation of their parents.
