Introducing our Capstone North Peer Mentors & LGBT Champion!

Our mentors offer non-judgemental support from a position of understanding as foster carers themselves. They are here to help improve confidence, skills and practices of new or less experienced foster carers. Adele has been fostering for over 10 years were she has cared for babies to teenagers, sibling groups and children with disabilities. Her passion for Looked After Children and commitment to advocating for their needs to be met puts her in an excellent position when it comes to acting as a Peer Mentor – promoting the foster carer role, whilst using her knowledge and experience to support others effectively. Additionally, Michelle has been a foster carer with Capstone for 8 years, and more recently she has volunteered to become our LGBT Champion. Her background in this area is from having a close number of friends from the LGBT community, and being a passionate advocate for equality and diversity. To date she has been involved in supporting Capstone Foster Care with reviewing policies, and providing reviews on books for young people exploring their identity. Furthermore, Liz began her fostering career back in 2010 and has gone on to care for children of all ages and from a variety of cultures, many with additional needs and behavioural issues. All have benefitted from her warm and empathic approach and she wanted to extend this support to those new to fostering or those experiencing difficulties. She hopes to help carers feel less isolated and more at ease when it comes to them understanding their roles and responsibilities. Nina has gained valuable experience through her 6 years of fostering with Capstone Foster Care she has looked after children aged 5 months to teenagers each with their own diverse issues and problems. She has a wealth of knowledge to share especially with the mother and baby placements she has supported. Finally, Simone, unfortunately, wasn’t present when the photo was being taken, Simone became a foster carer 4 years ago and has since demonstrated her ability to remain level-headed and child-focused in some particularly difficult situations. Her calm and nurturing responses have enabled her to connect with young people quickly, developing a mutually respectful environment where they have flourished as individuals. Through becoming a Peer Mentor Simone would like to think she could offer encouragement to help develop confidence in others, enabling placements to become more secure, happy places.

Left to Right: Adele (Peer Mentor), Michelle (LGBT Champion and Peer Mentor), Liz (Peer Mentor) & Nina (Peer Mentor).