Maintaining relationships for adopted people

Modern adoption promotes the importance of maintaining relationships with the people who were important to children before they were adopted, where it is safe to do so. Until a child reaches the age of 18, it is ultimately up to their adoptive parents and social workers to decide on the contact plan they have. This can include keeping in touch with their family members and birth parents, previous foster carers or friends. The social worker will arrange a contact plan for the child and should ask for adopted children's input before the plan is finalised and agreed with the adoptive parents. For more information on the work we're doing to help adopted people maintain relationships, please click here.

Lifelong Links aims to ensure that children who have been in care have a positive support network around them to help them during their time in care, the adoption process and in adulthood.

Adoption England are working with Family Rights Group on developing the Lifelong Links programme for adopted children. The programme has shown to be hugely successful for improving outcomes for children who have been in care and we hope it will have the same impact for adopted children.

The project assigns an independent Lifelong Links coordinator to work with adopted children to find out the relationships that were important to them pre adoption, who they would like to be back in touch with and who they would also like to get to know. The coordinator searches for these people, using a variety of tools and techniques. They then bring the network together at the Lifelong Links family group conference to make a plan with and for the child, which the regional adoption agencies support to ensure such relationships can continue to grow.

Adoption England recognise that better services are needed to support adopted people. The IASA project is being progressed in partnership with the University of East Anglia and PAC-UK to help adopted people maintain relationships and access better support. The project will run until July 2024 to address the needs of adults affected by adoption. There are issues with lack of support for adopted people, such as accessing birth records, intermediary and therapeutic services.

Likewise, services are needed to support birth parents and birth relatives who are affected by adoption. The team will collaborate with experts who have professional experience, alongside adults with lived experience of the impact of an adoption order on their family.

It's understandable that not all adopted people want to be contacted by their birth parents or relatives. Everyone with lived experience of adoption has a right to anonymity and can use the Adoption Contact Register to say that they don't wish to be contacted.

Birth relatives may use an intermediary agency to help trace their children who have been adopted, once the child is legally considered an adult. If adopted people don't wish to be contacted, they can register for an absolute veto to say an intermediary agency cannot contact them under any circumstances. Please visit GOV.UK – Adoption records for more information about intermediary agencies and how to register a veto.