If you want to contact your birth family
The Post Adoption Team can act as an intermediary if you do decide to trace a birth parent or relative. It can be a shock for birth relatives to be approached after many years and research shows it is helpful to have a third party making the initial contact.
Some other organisations, such as NORCAP, which supports adults affected by adoption, also offer this service though they will charge a fee.
You can also register a wish for contact on the Registrar General's Adoption Contact Register. If both you and the birth relative have registered a wish for contact, an automatic link is made. The Registrar General will then send you the relative's name and address, with details of their relationship, to you.
The relative is told this has been done, but it is up to you to decide if you want to make contact with them. However you can still come to us for an intermediary service - in this way, you will be able to find out more about the circumstances of your adoption before you make a decision to contact birth relatives.
We do not offer a tracing service but can offer advice and guidance on how to trace birth relatives.
Will my birth family always be able to contact me?
From 30 December 2005, adult birth relatives can ask an intermediary agency to trace an adopted relative and find out if contact would be welcome. However, the new law recognises that not all adopted people want to have contact with their birth relatives or have the information passed on. No agency is allowed to pass on any information which could reveal your identity or whereabouts unless you have agreed.
You can formally register your wishes about the extent and type of contact with a specific birth relative by contacting the Post Adoption Team.
If you don't want to be approached at all, even by an intermediary agency, you can register an absolute veto. You may wish to think carefully about this. It would rule out contact even if, for example, a birth relative wanted to pass on information about a hereditary medical condition, or if you'd been left money in a will.
If there are some circumstances in which you would allow an intermediary agency to contact you, you can register a qualified veto. You could, for example, say you would welcome an approach from a brother or sister, but not from a parent. Or you could say you could only be contacted for medical reasons.
You could also register a wish for no contact with a specific birth relative on the Registrar General's Adoption Register. This means, for example, that the intermediary agency would have to take your wishes into account when deciding whether to process an application from your natural mother, but you could be contacted by a brother or sister.
Visit DirectGov for more information.
The following organisations may be able to help:
NORCAP
112 Church Road
Wheatley
Oxon OX33 1LU
Tel: 01865 875000
Fax: 01865 875686
Website:
www.norcap.org.uk Email:
enquiries@norcap.org For adopted adults and their birth and adoptive families.
The Adoption Contact Register and General Register Office
Website:
www.gro.gov.uk
Supporting adoptive families before, during and after adoption.