The LGBT community in Cambridgeshire is being encouraged to consider fostering after new figures revealed the number of children in care in England has reached a new all time high.

This week is LGBT+ Fostering and Adoption Week, supported by Cambridgeshire County Council, to encourage more people to pursue a rewarding role as a foster carer.

There are more than more than 750 looked after children in Cambridgeshire and in England a total of 75,420 children - a four percent rise on the previous year.

The news is supported by Sherwin, 43, of Chatteris, who has been a foster carer for 10 years after working as a one-to-one carer for children with disabilities.

During the decade he has been a carer, Mr Cox, who is single, has raised six children, all boys.

He also has a degree in child psychology and has worked in educational psychology and specialist learning.

He said: “The most important thing for me is to give the children somewhere to call home and somewhere that they can call a place for life.

“There is no reason why potential carers from the LGBT+ community should be discouraged from fostering or adopting, he added.

“My children have never had any issue with gay people, or my gay friends, or going to the Prides, nothing, they just accept people for who they are.

“They call me Sherwin and the boys know me as Sherwin, their dad and that is it.”

He said there was no reason why LGBT+ carers could not go for nights out with friends; they just needed to manage their responsibilities accordingly.

“I am home with my kids in the daytime and we do lots of fun things at the weekends and I have my time with my friends. Lifestyle is not a barrier to fostering whatsoever, it is just managing it.”

For more information visit www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/fostering.