Adoption Cumbria
Working for Cumberland Council and Westmorland & Furness Council

Support for adopted adults

If you are an adopted adult living in Cumberland or Westmorland and Furness, we offer help to access your birth records

Adoption support groups

Adoption Cumbria can offer support groups for adopted adults who live in Cumbria and who have accessed their records and considered, or have gone ahead with tracing and making contact with their birth relatives. 

We know that every adoption situation is unique and individuals will be affected differently by their adoption journey.

The group will be an opportunity to meet with other adopted adults to share your experiences, thoughts and feelings in a safe supportive environment.  The groups are informal and facilitated by social workers experienced in working with adopted adults. 

They will be held twice a year in north Cumbria (Cumberland) and twice a year in south Cumbria (Westmorland and Furness). 

Adopted adults are welcome to attend all the groups offered by Adoption Cumbria.

If you are interested in finding out more about our support groups please contact the Adoption Support Team, details below.

Accessing your birth records

Adoptions before December 30th 2005

If you are an adopted adult (aged 18 or over) and live in the Cumberland or Westmorland and Furness council areas and want to access your birth records, we can support you with this. 

If you do not have a copy of your original birth certificate or do not know your birth name you can apply directly to the General Register Office for a copy of your certificate. Once you make your application the information will be sent to Adoption Cumbria to share with you.  When we receive this, we will contact you and offer you an appointment to share this information. 

Adoption Cumbria will provide an experienced adoption worker to support you in locating your birth records and with then share these with you. We will also support you in understanding why you were adopted and discuss your feelings about this, including next steps for you.

What are the Next Steps?

We would recommend accessing your birth records prior to making decisions about contacting your birth family.  If you do decide, after receiving your records, that you want to progress to contact with your birth family then Adoption Cumbria can support you with this.  This is called an intermediary service.  We can provide a tracing service, and should we locate a birth relative we will make the initial contact on your behalf and support you through the process of reunion. There is a charge for this service.

Adoption Cumbria will provide you with information about the Adoption Contact Register. This puts adopted adults and the birth relatives, if registered, in touch with one another and is administered by the General Register Office.

What if my birth relative wants to contact me?

Once you turn 18 your birth relatives can request an 'intermediary' service from an Adoption Agency.  This could mean that you are approached about contact with a birth family member.

The agency providing this service would need to complete an assessment before approaching you.  The agency will not share any identifying information about you with birth relatives without your consent. 

If you are approached by an agency, it would be up to you to decide how much information you wish to give them about yourself and whether you would like any contact. Whilst some relatives may go through an agency others may try and trace through social networking sites, like facebook. You may wish to consider the information you share online and your privacy settings. 

Is there anything I can do to make my views about contact clear?

You can use the adoption contact register administered by the General Register Office to record whether you wish or do not wish to have contact with birth relatives. 

In addition your views about contact can be recorded with the Agency that arranged your adoption.  If you do not wish to be approached about contact from your birth family you can register a Veto.  This could be an absolute Veto which means that you do not wish to be approached in any circumstances or a qualified Veto which means there are some circumstances in which you would or would not want to be contacted.  An example might be that you would want to be contacted if there some important medical information to share. If Adoption Cumbria was the agency involved in your adoption you can contact us to record your views. 

Adoptions after 30th December 2005

If you were adopted after the 30th December 2005 there are different regulations covering what information you should have received at the time of your adoption, what information you can receive now and how  you can access this. 

You should already have a lot of information about your adoption including your Child Permanence Report.  For further information see link.

Descendants and other relatives of adopted adults

From November 2015 if you are a descendant or other relative of an adopted adult you can request an intermediary service to contact an adopted person's birth relatives. 

Adoption Cumbria does not offer this service but information about this and agencies that may provide this service can be found on the Adoption Search Reunion website. 

Further advice - contacts

If you want advice about the services we offer, you can

Useful websites

FamilyConnect, hosted by PAC UK with funding from Adoption England, helps adults who have been adopted and birth families who would like support and advice regarding adoption and they are able to offer intermediary services for those adopted prior to 1976.  For adopted people this is the link with information:  Welcome to FamilyConnect - FamilyConnect

Family Connect also provide advice and support for birth families affected by adoption and intermediary services for pre 1976 adoption and this is the relevant web page:  Welcome to FamilyConnect - FamilyConnect

They also have an advice line with details here:  FamilyConnect Advice Line - FamilyConnect

In addition, the  Family Rights Group allows people to search for adoption support services in their area using their postcode or local authority.It includes details of services offering advice, counselling, contact support, support groups and other forms of help. 

Adoption Support Service Advisor

Every agency has an adoption support service advisor (ASSA), who can provide advice and information to all involved in adoption. 

The ASSA can also help you access adoption support and other specialist services:

Adoption Cumbria's ASSA is:

Jane Gray, Adoption Support Team Manager, Adoption Support Service Advisor (ASSA), South Lakeland House, Lowther Street, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9 4DQ

Telephone: 0303 333 1216