Christian foster carer struck off for allowing Muslim girl to convert

A Christian foster carer has been struck off because she allowed a Muslim child in her care to convert to Christianity. The girl, in her late teens, was interested in exploring Christianity before she was placed with the foster carer.

Although the girl’s social workers had appeared to have given a green light for her baptism, officials in the fostering department said her carer had failed in her duty to preserve the girl’s religion and should have used her influence to prevent the baptism from going ahead.

They said the girl should stay away from church for six months, and later struck the carer off the fostering register. The carer, who has over ten years experience looking after more than 80 children, is now challenging the local authority’s decision.

Her case is being backed by The Christian Institute’s legal defence fund. Neither the carer nor the girl can be named for legal reasons.

The carer is an Anglican who attends a local evangelical church. She said: “I did initially try to discourage her. I offered her alternatives. I offered to find places for her to practise her own religion. I offered to take her to friends or family. But she said to me from the word go, ‘I am interested [in church] and I want to come.’ She sort of burst in.”

The foster carer is devastated at being de-registered. She said: “This is my life. It is not just a job for me. It is a vocation. I love what I do. It is also my entire income. I am a single carer, so that is all I have to live on.”

The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge said: “All people should be free to change or modify their religious beliefs. That surely must be a core human right in any free society. I cannot imagine that an atheist foster carer would be struck off if a Christian child in her care stopped believing in God. This is the sort of double standard which Christians are facing in modern Britain.”