Support For Adopted Adults

Your birth record is held by the General Registry Office (GRO) and is made up of the information entered onto your original birth certificate. To apply for a copy of your birth registration details you will need to contact:

• The General Registrar, Home Office, Passport & Identity Service on 0300 123 1837

(Monday to Friday - 8am to 8pm. Saturday - 9am to 4pm).

• Or apply online at gov.uk/adoption-records

(There is also further information on the government website)

If you were adopted before 12 November 1975 the GRO will send the information they hold directly to the Adoption Agency (in this case Cambridgeshire County Council or Peterborough City Council as your local authority registered Adoption Agency) and you are required to meet with an Adoption Support Worker to receive this information. This is because before 1975, promises of complete secrecy were made to birth and adoptive families and it was not expected that people would ever access information about their adoption. The Adoption Act 1976, which allows adopted adults to gain information about their adoption was made “retrospective”, that is, it affected people adopted before 12 November 1975 as well as after.

Once this information is received, your Adoption Support Worker will arrange to meet with you to share the information held. You may find it helpful to meet with your Adoption Support Worker again when you have had time to think about the information you have gained, and to discuss if you want support in tracing a birth relative.

• We can help you consider the implications of making contact with your birth family.
• We can guide you through the steps you need to take if you decide to search for your birth relatives, including deciding whether or not to place yourself on the General Register Office’s Adoption Contact Register (application form available online through www.gov.uk/adoption-records). 
• We can offer a limited tracing service.
• We can provide an intermediary service by making the initial contact with your birth relative on your behalf; help facilitate an exchange of information and photographs, and offer practical and emotional support to develop that contact, possibly into a face-to-face reunion, should this be what both parties want.
• We can continue to provide support, if required, to help you with the consequences of a reunion.

• We can try and identify which agency holds your birth relative’s adoption records and obtain information via that agency which may enable us to trace your birth relative.
• We can offer a limited tracing service.
• We are unable to pass on any identifying information about the adopted person to you (including their adoptive name).
• We can provide an intermediary service by making the initial contact with your birth relative on your behalf; help facilitate an exchange of information and photographs, and offer practical and emotional support to develop that contact, possibly into a face-to-face reunion, should this be what both parties want.
• We can continue to provide support, if required, to help you with the consequences of a reunion.
• We can also act as an intermediary for non-related adults who played an important role in the life of the child who was adopted after 30 December 2005 (for example, a Foster Carer).
• We can signpost you to other support services if necessary.