CCS recognise that the impact of adoption is lifelong, and if you are an adult adoptee in need of support, then you may find the information below useful. For any enquiries, please contact us at birthrecords@ccsadoption.org.
Applying for your Birth Certificate
Adopted people aged 18 or over can apply for access to and a copy of their birth certificate. Everyone adopted before 12 November 1975 will need to attend a counselling session with an approved adoption advisor first.
If you know your birth details
You can order a copy of your original birth certificate from the General Register Office. For adoptions outside England or Wales, you need to contact the General Register Office where you were adopted.
You don’t know your birth details
You need to fill out an application for the Birth certificate Information Before Adoption (BIBA) service if you don’t know your birth details.
Accessing your Adoption File
If you are aged 18 or over and would like more information on your birth family, you can request to access your file. You can do this by emailing the filled-in enquiry form linked here below to birthrecords@ccsadoption.org.
Following this, we will check if we hold a file for you, and if we do, a social worker will write a file summary to share with you as well as copies of the documents in your file.
Please note that if a local authority was involved in your adoption, you may wish to request your file from the local authority, as there will be more information regarding your birth family.
CCS do not currently offer a tracing and intermediary service, but we can put you in touch with agencies that can help you with this.
Other Support
- GOV.UK – Accessing your birth records
- GOV.UK – The Adoption Contact Register – You can add yourself to the Adoption Contact Register at the General Register Office to find a relative or say you do not wish to be contacted. This is not a tracing service – for a connection to be made between people, you must both be on the Adoption Contact Register.
- PAC-UK | Adopted Adult Support – The largest independent Adoption Support Agency which provides training, support, and advocacy. They can offer advice, access to adoption records, searching and intermediary services and counselling.
- Transnational and Transracial Adoption Group – Transracial adoptees group whose purpose is to facilitate networking and contact opportunities for adoptees whilst recognizing, respecting and valuing each individual’s diverse adoption experience and the resulting lifelong impact upon them. They also have social meet-ups.
- How to be Adopted UK adoptee support groups – Connect adoptees from the UK and around the world to share stories and tips on coping as an adopted person in a non-adopted world! They also have a list of meet-up groups that run across the UK.
- The Dunbar Project – The first UK adoption organisation made by adopted people, aimed at everyone involved in adoption with adoptees at the centre.
- Adult Adoptee Movement – Adoptee Voices. Adoptee Rights. – A group of adult adoptees who gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) inquiry into The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976.
- FamilyConnect – Family Adoption Links – Helps adults who have been adopted or in care find answers to questions about their origins.
- adopt ni – Independent registered charity established in 1989. Their main priority is to support any adult impacted by the lifelong journey of adoption.
- Barnardo’s LINK – Provides therapeutic services to anyone affected by adoption. Barnardo’s provides therapeutic services to anyone affected by adoption. This includes adopted adults. Barnardo’s offers a modular training service designed to provide sufficient learning to enable therapists to undertake adoption support therapy.
- Adoption Matters’ Support for Adopted Adults – On the 3rd Wednesday of every month, an adult adoptee group is hosted by Adoption Matters on Zoom. To join that meeting people, need to drop an e-mail to postadoption@adoptionmatters.org and ask to be put on the Zoom invitation and link up. Meetings start at 7.30 and adoptees are welcome from anywhere in the world.
- Adoption UK – The Pathways for Adult Adoptees – For adopted adults affected by adoption prior to 1976.
- InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) – Has a mission to educate, support, connect, collaborate, galvanise, and give voice to intercountry adoptees from around the world.
- CACH (Children Adopted from China) – CACH-ALL was founded in 1995 by a small group of families who had adopted young children from China. Pre-empting the many challenges that both they and their children would face in the coming years, they built a network that would facilitate the support and information.
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