Post adoption support

TACT provides a range of Post Adoption Support Services for:

Children and young people

One of the services we provide is support for contact between children who have been adopted and their birth relatives. Contact is when children and birth relatives who cannot live together are in touch with each other. There are three types of contact:

  • Letterbox contact: also called indirect contact.
  • Direct contact: a face to face meeting takes place between a child and their birth relative.
  • Contact order: a judge can sometimes set up contact orders in an adoption hearing.

Adopted adults*

Intermediary services help birth relatives and adopted adults seek information, trace and make contact if this is something they both want. The services can help by:

  • preparing individuals for search and reunion
  • obtaining information from courts, adoption agencies or the General Register Office to aid a search
  • providing counselling, support and advice
  • tracing adopted relative(s)
  • acting as an intermediary for the adoptee and their relative(s)

Note (*)

Please note that all of the adopted adults we currently support are adults who were formerly placed through the Independent Adoption Service (IAS), Parents for Children (PfC), Family Ties and the Phyllis Holman Richards’ Adoption Society (PHRAS).

Relevant publications