TY - JOUR
AU - Cocker,, Christine
AB - When the first edition of this book was published in 1999, it was pioneering. My copy of that book is dog-eared and tattered, having referred to it so often in my own academic writing. When I saw that a second edition had been published this year, I was curious to see how a book that captured the spirit of the 1990s adoption and fostering stories of lesbians and gay men so well (‘extraordinary yet ordinary’ was the subtitle on the original) could be as relevant for a much changed social and political context. I need not have worried. The strength of the original text was always the stories. This edition revisits five of the original families, provides updates and introduces the reader to a further eight families. Their stories represent experiences across sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, class, partnership type and geography. The book begins with an introductory chapter that sets out the premise for the original book and provides an overview of the political and social changes over the intervening twenty years. Hicks and McDermott also comment on what has changed over this time, as well as what has not. As with the first edition, the voices of the foster carers and adopters comprise the majority of the book. All the chapters, except for the introduction, are written in the first person, and this conveys an intimate tone, which is clear and accessible. Particular highlights include the chapters that outline the experiences of the trans carers: ‘Lee’—one of the original five who has fostered over fifty children and adopted five; and ‘Dylan’, who has adopted his son. It is still rare to read first-hand accounts of trans people’s experiences of fostering and adoption (Hafford-Letchfield et al., 2019), so I was delighted to see these stories included in this volume. So for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) foster carers and adopters, what is the same and what has changed? Hicks and McDermott note that the overall assessment and placement experiences are much more positive now than twenty years ago, with a good level of support received from professionals, carers’ own networks and local communities, as well as from some birth parents. However, it would appear that experiences of homophobia, racism and heteronormative assumptions still occur. ‘Barbara and Shazia’, ‘Dilip’ and ‘Nita and Clare’ all raise the lack of complexity in thinking by some local authorities, particularly about ‘race’ and ethnicity in ‘matching’ and the placement of children generally. It makes for sobering reading. Hicks and McDermott state, … even though in some respects there has been a move towards greater equality in relation to questions of sexuality and gender, being an LGBT parent still raises many questions about how the world is experienced differently from those positions and how LGBT people are regarded by others. (2018, pp. 13 and 14) The carers’ stories are powerful; they recount ordinary family life as experienced by LGBT people who have chosen to foster or adopt. Although the time for LGBT families being officially described as ‘a pretended family relationship’ (section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988) is now in the past, LGBT people choosing to undertake such an ordinary task of parenting children is still contentious. In 2019, these issues have made mainstream news headlines with protests at Parkfield Primary School in Birmingham because of relationship and sex education mentioning LGBT families as part of ‘different’ family relationships (Parveen, 2019). This has also been the subject of a Panorama episode (15 July 2019: ‘Sex Education: The LGBT Debate in Our Schools’), which is why a book like this remains topical and necessary. It is a great resource for social workers and student social workers who want to understand more about the experiences of foster carers and adopters from gender and sexual minority communities. This book will also be useful for prospective LGBT foster carers and adopters. The honest and frank accounts cannot ever fully prepare a prospective carer for looking after someone else’s child, but they give a realistic and human account of every aspect of the experience, which is what makes this book vital reading. References Hafford-Letchfield T. , Cocker C. , Rutter D. , Tinarwo M. , Manning R. , McCormack K. ( 2019 ) ‘What do we know about Transgender parenting: Findings from a systematic review’, Health and Social Care in the Community Advance Access published April 14, 2019, 10.1111/hsc.12759 [Epub ahead of print]. OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Parveen N. ( 2019 ) ‘Birmingham primary school to resume modified LGBT lessons’. The Guardian, 3 July 2019, available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/03/birmingham-primary-school-to-resume-modified-lgbt-lessons (accessed on July 18, 2019). © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Lesbian and Gay Foster Care and Adoption, 2nd edn, Stephen Hicks and Janet McDermott
JF - The British Journal of Social Work
DO - 10.1093/bjsw/bcz095
DA - 2019-12-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/lesbian-and-gay-foster-care-and-adoption-2nd-edn-stephen-hicks-and-se0ceGuI2P
SP - 2327
VL - 49
IS - 8
DP - DeepDyve
ER -