Sister wanting to contact brother.

[Leanneevans95xx]

I have two younger brothers. That were adopted around the age of 9/10.
One has turned 18 in April
One 17 today.
I'm really feeling the pain of not seeing them and wanting to start building relationships if possible.
Does anyone know how I'd go about trying to contact the older brother? Or how I could go about getting my contact details to him if I'm not allowed to contact him? To see if he even wants to make any contact.
We are all badly neglected as children and at a very young age of 8-14 I was pretty much raising them whilst my mum was alwyas out of it on drugs. I'm scared they'll see there file and think all our family are bad, but I can't speak for them but I'm desperate to make some sort of contact.

[Battleax]

You can add yourself to the adoption contact register for a fee if £30.

www.gov.uk/adoption-records/the-adoption-contact-register

You could also try an intermediary organisation or the local authority of charity that administered the adoption.

Good luck!

[Italiangreyhound]

Hi, you sound like an amazing and lovely sister.

Please speak to www.afteradoption.org.uk/

Please consider some sort of counselling which may help you prepare to meet your brother/s and may help you to wait if they are not ready to meet yet.

You sound lovely and I wish you all the very best.

[OurMiracle1106]

Speak to the agency that dealt with the adoption. Possibly your local authority. They may be able to contact one or both of your brothers.

As your brother has now turned 18 you can apply to the general registry office to get a copy of his adoption certificate which will give you his new last name and make tracing him easier.

Good luck on your search

[UnderTheNameOfSanders]

Please also be aware that they might not yet feel ready for contact, even if they know they want to in the future.
We are pondering this at the moment with our nearly 19yo. We have said we will support her whatever she decides, but in our opinion she might be better off waiting a year or so for some other stuff to be out of the way so she can give contact more 'headspace'.
If your brothers are doing exams, embarking on jobs or university, they may not want to open up a potential pandora's box of emotions regarding their past.
Have you been having letterbox up to now?
If you know which LA they were adopted through, you can leave a letter on file saying you would love to have contact when they are ready. So if they ever ask it will be there for them.

[fasparent]

The salvation army have a lost family finding service, They have contacted us on occasion's , They will or should be aware of Safe Guarding procedures.

[VI0LET]

The Salvation Army can’t help with adoption cases I’m afraid.

I second the suggestion to get some counselling .

You need to be prepared that Your biological brothers may not want contact at this stage, it’s very unusual for an 18 yo to do so. As a PP said, they are caught up with their own lives and the future. It doesn’t mean they don’t care.

Please get some support for yourself. And I’m sorry for what you have been through, you deserved better.

[AndCallMeNancy]

Hi OP.

The GRO won’t give you a copy of the adoption certificate. Those details can’t be shared with you without your siblings consent. You need to contact your own LA, where you live now, whether or not that is the LA that dealt with the adoption. Your own LA is the one with the duty to provide you with an adoption support service. Often adoption support is contracted out to an independent agency such as After Adoption or PAC-UK. You will meet with one of their worker and need to prove your link to your siblings eg by having your own birth cert and copies of theirs (which you can get from the GRO for about £10 each) - this will show that you all have the same birth mum.

The agency will be able to talk you through the pros and cons, the risks etc and do their best to manage your expectations. They will also be able to obtain the adoptive names (which they wont share with you) and last known addresses. They will search and make contact and the decision will be down to your siblings as to whether they wish to have any contact with you.

However - You may well be advised to wait til the younger brother is 18 as if they were placed together it won’t be fair to approach one without the other. And as PP have said, 18 is young and they may not be ready. On the other hand, they were pretty old when adopted so presumably will remember you and you are a sibling rather than a birth parent so the relationship is less complex - you were just a child too and it was clearly not your fault that they were adopted. But they may be worried that contact with you will lead to contact with your parents or other family members, and they may not be ready for that.

The whole thing is complicated from an emotional point of view for all concerned. But in essence, you have a right to request an intermediary service to make contact with your siblings and to have support through the process. It will take time and it may not work out how you would like it to. I’m sorry to hear that you had such a tough childhood and that you had to go through the added trauma of losing your siblings to adoption.

The best thing to do is to Google ‘adoption support (insert name of your LA) and make some calls to get the ball rolling. And good luck