Event focuses on adoption and fostering in faith communities
Members of Birmingham’s diverse faith communities are being invited to attend an event encouraging them to draw upon the commonly held family values which are promoted across all the faiths and to consider adopting or fostering a child or sibling group.
Hosted in partnership between West Midlands Faith Forum and Birmingham City Council’s Adoption and Fostering Recruitment Team, the ‘No Place Like Home’ event takes place in the Banqueting Suite at the Council House, in Victoria Square, Birmingham, on Saturday, 15 November.
Running from 6pm to 8.30pm, the event will see the launch of the new Adoption and Fostering Faith Community Resource Pack, as well as launching Inter Faith Week in the West Midlands region. Inter Faith Week is a national event promoting the benefits of building strong relationships between people of different faiths at all levels.
Speakers at the event will include Mark Rogers, chief executive of Birmingham City Council, and West Midlands Faith Forum chair Gerald Nembhard, as well as faith leaders from across the city, including Pastor Peter Pennant, chair of the Council of Black Majority Churches; Dipak Shelat of the Hindu Council of Birmingham; Abdul Rashid, treasurer of Birmingham Central Mosque; Dr Pyara Singh Bhogal, chair of the Council of Sikh Gurdwaras, Rabbi Shmuel Arkush of the Progressive Synagogue and Rev Canon Martin Stephenson  Church of England, Birmingham.
The theme of the evening will be how Birmingham’s faith communities can team up with the local authority to strengthen families and improve the lives of the some of the city’s most vulnerable children.
Where possible, children are placed with adoptive and long term fostering families who reflect or are able to promote their beliefs. Foster carers are required to care for children from a variety of backgrounds and beliefs.
To ensure this is possible, this event aims to encourage the faith leaders and outreach workers attending to take away information and resources to help promote the message within their places of worship and community organisations so that more people of different faiths will come forward as adopters or foster carers.
The evening will also include entertainment and refreshments.
Anyone wishing to attend is asked to register at www.eventbrite/co.uk/e/no-place-like-home-tickets-13162049043.
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