Poppy and Dale’s Story- Celebrating Diversity

Here at Fostering Rotherham, the wellbeing of the children and young people in our care is our ultimate priority. We strive to promote the importance of developing a positive identity with our looked after children and encourage children and carers to embrace diversity in our community. We provide carers with specialist support and appropriate training for children in care who may have a different cultural heritage or religion to their own. Read on for Poppy and Dale’s fostering story as they share their experience of fostering children from a range of diverse backgrounds.

Poppy and Dale have been fostering for 38 years. They had wanted a large family, but after having their daughter, they were unable to have any more children. They believed fostering would give them the family life they dreamed of while giving love and stability to children who really needed it.  The couple say their proudest moment was adopting 6 of their foster children. “This made all our lives complete. Helping to place many children with other adoptive parents has been wonderful too”.

The couple have completed a number of courses through Fostering Rotherham, including courses in: religion, heritage and ethnicity. The courses have enabled Poppy and Dale to better support their foster children. Poppy even gained an NVQ in Equality and Diversity, explaining. “It all helps with our learning and development as foster carers”.

“The children currently in our care are Muslim”, explains Dale. “We respect the wishes of their family. We ensure our meat is Halal, and celebrate Eid together as a family”. 

“We respect the wishes of their family. We ensure our meat is Halal, and celebrate Eid together as a family”

Sadly, Poppy admits that the children in her care have encountered racism. This is a challenging situation for foster carers to deal with: “Children learn from others, what they see, experience and hear, is what they think is acceptable. So we must, as adults show that racism of any kind is not acceptable.”

During these challenging periods the couple say they have always felt supported; "We have had some very understanding, caring supervisory workers over the years that we have been fostering.” 

“We must, as adults show that racism of any kind is not acceptable”

Fostering Rotherham is committed to making the foster carer community inclusive and welcoming to foster carers from a range of different backgrounds, we hope you will agree that Poppy and Dale’s story reflects this. 

As Poppy and Dale conclude: “Fostering Rotherham do their very best to support the looked after the children, us as foster carers, and our families”.