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New project leads the way in helping birth relatives and adopted people make contact

Issued: 16 July 03

Leading adoption charity BAAF Adoption & Fostering is launching a new project which will help birth relatives and adopted people access the services they need to get in touch with one another.

BAAF has been awarded a grant of £100,000 by the Department for Education and Skills for the Intermediary Services Support Project. The key aim of the project is to carry out a research survey to establish the availability and quality of existing intermediary services to help birth relatives and adopted people trace one another in England and Wales. The project will help develop proposals for how intermediary services can best be provided in the future and inform the development of national best practice protocols. These will be needed to ensure consistent, high quality intermediary services are available for adopted people and their birth relatives at local level across the country. The project is also receiving funding from the National Assembly for Wales.

This funding underpins the Government’s commitment to develop and improve services in this area following the Adoption and Children Act 2002 which gave birth relatives the right to access an intermediary service from a registered Adoption Support Agency for the first time. The new legislation provides for registered Adoption Support Agencies to be able to trace and facilitate contact between birth relatives and adopted adults - subject to their consent being given to the disclosure of their identity.

Julia Feast, Policy, research and development consultant at BAAF Adoption & Fostering will be leading the project. Julia has provided services for adopted people and birth and adoptive relatives for over fifteen years.

Felicity Collier, chief executive of BAAF Adoption & Fostering says:

“This is a critically important and much needed project. It will provide birth mothers, who gave up their children for adoption years ago, an opportunity to find out if their son and daughter is alive and well and whether or not they would welcome contact. Many of these mothers made the very difficult decision to give up their child for adoption because of the stigma that was attached to being an unmarried mother.

“The project will face its own challenges and it is vital that we make sure that the new policies and practices not only meet the needs of those affected by adoption in the past but also support those affected by current adoptions. This will involve listening carefully to the views of adopted adults and adoptive parents. We look forward to working on this project and helping to make sure that people can access the services they need.”

In the course of the project BAAF will be producing a directory to show where services are currently available and to highlight areas where more resources are needed. The directory will be published by mid-2004.

Ends

Contact:

Lucy Handford, Media Assistant, 020 7593 2054

Notes

1. The British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) is the UK’s leading adoption & fostering charity. For more information visit www.baaf.org.uk