Gavin McNamara-Jones is co-chair of our LGBTQ+ Staff Network which recognises and supports colleagues that are part of the community and works closely with allies.
Gavin is an operations manager at Guild Lodge, our secure forensic hospital, and outside of work he and husband Daniel are loving parents to a three-year-old daughter.
Gavin began:
“Daniel and I have been together for 13 years, married for nine years, and despite knowing I was gay from a young age, I always wanted children. My nana remembers me telling her when I was around 12 that I wanted to be a parent. Daniel felt the same, so it was the natural thing for us to do.”
Gavin’s husband also works for the Trust, as a call handler for our Initial Response Service. February is LGBT+ History Month, with the theme this year activism and social change, so Gavin is highlighting how becoming an LGBTQ+ parent is possible, sharing the story of how he and his husband became a loving family of three, hosting a session for colleagues focussing on the challenges and experiences of being an LGBTQ+ parent.
Gavin explains:
“I’ve been with Daniel for 13 years, we’ve been married for nine, we had established early on that we both wanted to be parents, but we travelled and built our careers and home, we never really gave much thought into how we could make it possible.
It was during COVID that our minds became focused on starting our family. We began researching and looked into surrogacy, egg donors and adoption. We saw something on TV about children being taken into care, we got emotional. We were hearing on the news about domestic violence increases in families during lockdown. We just knew that we had so much love to give to a child and could provide a safe and loving home.
So we settled on adoption and by March 2021 we started the process, with DBS checks and fire safety checks initially. I’d been a dance teacher for years outside work, and had taught at schools, it’s something I’d done since being small and Daniel is a qualified childminder. We got through to the second stage and were given a social worker. He was a gay man and really championed same-sex parenting. We told him we wanted a baby, ideally a girl, but was told it was rare. For about ten weeks we were questioned individually about our upbringing, lifestyle and hobbies. He then compiled a report. I’m quite an emotional person and thought that might be a weakness. He actually put that as one of my strengths, highlighting emotional intelligence.
Then we had to go to a panel, which was terrifying. It was made up of social workers, foster carers, people with lived experience who have been adopted or have adopted. It was all online during COVID but it was so scary because the opportunity and chance for us to become parents was in their hands. It was their decision. We were asked why we wanted to be parents. I told them I’d always wanted to and why wouldn't I, or me and my husband have the same chance as anyone else? To become parents, to show them the world, to love them unconditionally?
We then moved out of the meeting with our social worker. I was so nervous and my throat was tight and we were holding hands under the table. He told us not to worry and said it might take time for them to come back with their decision. We were called back into the virtual meeting pretty much right away.
All eight panel members had unanimously agreed we could become parents. They told us they’d love to see how our journey to growing our family progresses and wished us all the luck. I was in bits.”
After that it was a waiting game for Gavin and Daniel. They’d asked for a girl under 12 months old and the panel had agreed that would fit their lifestyle and home life. Christmas was approaching and several months past. It got to April and they were getting despondent so went on holiday.
Gavin continues:
“We were starting to think we’d slipped off the radar, but the holiday helped. People we met around the pool celebrated our adoption approval with us and we got excited again. By June we’d had a call to say our social worker was going to some matching meetings. That’s when three lots of prospective parents are told about child Z. Then a panel decides the best fit.
By then I’d joined the Trust and was working in Lancaster managing admin teams. One day after visiting some of my teams I decided to work from home in the afternoon. As I arrived home, Daniel was just getting off the phone to our social worker who was going to a meeting for baby X, and that he’ll be in contact as soon as possible.
Well baby X is now our daughter who joined us at six months old. It was like fate that I went home to be told we’d got our baby. We got sent her file with all her information. Her picture popped up on our screen on the first page. She was four months old. We were flooded with love and were both so emotional.
Our social worker met with our now daughter’s social worker and the process was gradual. We had to go to another panel. They agreed on our match and gave our adoption the final go-ahead. Then the family building section started. We met her foster carers, a married couple in their 40s. We asked them all sorts of questions, what sort of milk she drinks and things.
Weeks later they took a video of when we first met our daughter, we watch it all the time. It’s like time stood still and there were just the three of us there. We got to the point we spent full days at the foster carers home. One day we were playing with her on the floor. She naturally came to us and looked to us. The foster carers said: ‘It’s happened, she’s moving to you, she wants you and is recognising you as parents.”
It's something that still makes Gavin emotional today.
He said:
"I felt something, the power of our tiny baby wanting us, made her our daughter and we felt like parents. No one can take that away from us. We were flooded with love, she wanted comfort and safety, and she wanted that from us.”
Within weeks the adoption was finalised, and today, their daughter is three and the light of their lives. Gavin is papa, and Daniel, daddy.
Gavin concludes:
"I once thought it’d never be possible growing up when I was that young seven year old dancer, but now I’m married to a man I love, we are parents to our wonderful daughter and I am so thankful we’re no longer living in the Thatcher era, I mean, where would I be then, and how would I have been papa then? I have so much gratitude we have the daughter we were meant to have and we’re a happy family of three. We sometimes get ludicrous questions, like: “Where did you get her from?” She’s our daughter, she didn’t come from Amazon. I used to get certain comments in previous workplaces, so I’d laugh it off, but since being at LSCft I’ve been supported to bring my whole self to work and nothing less.
“I’m naturally a really private person, but decided to become staff LGBTQ+ Network Co-Chair to be a support to the LGBTQ+ community and be the person I could have done with in previous workplaces. Raising awareness of same sex parenting is important to me this LGBT+ History Month. I was supported by the Trust and benefitted from paternity leave. Flexible working now helps us to balance our family life, she really is our world. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Trust for giving the flexibility to be a present parent, a voice for the LGBTQ+ community and for giving me a sense of belonging. I'm proud to work for a Trust where we definitely do more to be inclusive."
