Following a four-year review, the adoption sub-group of the Public Law Working Group today published its report calling for reforms across the adoption system to act ‘as a catalyst for positive change’. Recommendations cover international adoption; consensual adoption; access to adoption records; processes and procedures in court; and contact. Read the report here.

The report calls for ‘a change in face-to-face contact between adopted children and birth families, with training and greater support and counselling for birth parents.’ 

Contact with members of the birth family can be hugely beneficial to adopted children and can be key to developing their sense of identity, extending into adulthoods. 

Emily Frith, Chief Executive of Adoption UK responded: “Safe and well managed contact with birth family can be enormously beneficial for an adopted child or young person. It can help them understand their life story and stay connected to important people in their lives. More adopted children should have opportunities for contact with their birth family.”

Ms Frith continued: “But contact has to be meaningful and safe for the child and if it’s not well managed it can be harmful for them, both in childhood and into adulthood. At the moment, support for managing relationships between birth family and adoptive families is at best patchy, at worst non-existent. Adult adoptees often get no support in tracing and reestablishing contact with birth family members. There is an urgent need for radical change in support for contact –  including funding for specialist support workers to help everyone involved”.

Adoption UK research shows that most adopters are open to direct contact – 93% of prospective adopters in the Adoption Barometer (2024) said they believed direct contact can be beneficial and there has been an increase in direct contact over the past five years. 

However, the responsibility to support birth family relationships doesn’t end when childhood ends. Adult adoptees who want to reunite with birth family or just find out more about them are struggling to get any kind of support, and changing that situation is part of the radical shift that’s needed within the adoption system.