Darren Sharpe from Ashford started fostering 12 years ago and says being gay and having MS should not be a barrier

KentOnline / KMTV

Watch Darren Sharpe from Ashford started fostering 12 years ago and says being gay and having MS should not be a barrier - KentOnline / KMTV on Dailymotion

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00:00 Myself and my husband started fostering in 2012 and in that time looked after

00:08 four children on long-term placements and we've had many come and go for shorter times.

00:14 We currently look after two brothers aged nine and eleven. As a gay couple we were never gonna

00:23 go down the conventional route of having a child. There would always need to be some work involved

00:28 one way or another and we looked at different options including IVF and adoption and then we

00:34 just felt that, so I had previously worked for YMCA, my husband was a primary school teacher

00:41 and we had that feeling that we made a small difference to a lot of people but we wanted to

00:46 make a lot of difference to just a few people. The images are as diverse as all foster carers are

00:53 and I think for some people there may be a list of reasons why they might feel that they can't

00:59 foster and so for me, I'm also a disabled man, so it was really important for me to have my stick

01:05 in the picture because I wanted to show that actually being disabled is no barrier, being gay

01:12 is no barrier, no matter what colour you are and what age you are sometimes you hear people say,

01:17 "Oh I think I'm a bit old for it all now." Actually no, like some of the best carers are ones that

01:22 have maybe already raised their own children and sort of rambling around in their house and

01:27 thinking they've got a whole lifetime of skills, they're parenting with their own kids, why would

01:31 you not bring that in and help someone else? So I think yeah, when you see the images you realise

01:37 just how different we all are and kind of how brilliant that is. The children you get in are

01:42 really different and it's all about the match, so we need as many varieties of foster carers as you

01:48 can have and I guess I'm keen on just spreading that word as much as possible. I don't want people

01:54 to rule it out for any reason until they find out about it. At least go on the websites, have a look

02:01 around, go to nfg.co.uk, have a look, find out the information, look at the pictures, read our stories

02:08 and then see how it fits with you, but please don't rule it out.

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