Post Adoption Contact: Letters, Meetings and Your Options

Part of: How to Adopt a Child and Change a Life

Post adoption contact is the contact an adopted child keeps with their birth family once the adoption order is made, and it most often means letterbox contact: letters and photographs passed between the two families through the adoption agency. Some families also agree to meet. Very few arrangements are court orders, because the law gives the adopters parental responsibility and leaves most decisions about contact to them. This guide is for birth parents and relatives who want to stay part of a child’s life, and for adoptive parents trying to get contact right. It covers the law in England and Wales.

Whichever side you are on, you can book a free initial consultation and one of our specialists will give you initial advice on your situation before you write, reply or apply.

What is letterbox contact?

It is an exchange of letters between the adoptive family and the birth family that goes through the adoption agency, so neither family has the other’s address. Birmingham’s adoption service, for example, never shares addresses or phone numbers between the families, and checks each letter is suitable and keeps to the agreed arrangement before passing it on (Birmingham City Council).

A written letterbox agreement usually says who writes, how often, and whether photographs or gifts are included. The adopters typically send news of the child and the birth relative replies. You may also see it written as letter box contact. The North Wales Adoption Service sets out typical rules for birth families (NWAS letterbox guidance):

• Sign with your first name. The child knows the adopters as Mum and Dad, and will know you as their birth mum or birth dad.
• Leave out anything that locates you. No address, phone number or places you visit regularly.
• Keep anger and grief out of the letter. A letter outside the guidelines may not be forwarded, and the letterbox team may contact you to offer help.
• Reply within the agreed time. Some adoptive families accept letters only inside the agreed window.

Who can ask for post adoption contact?

Anyone can ask the adopters through the agency. To ask the court, you must be someone who can be named in an order under section 51A of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Subsection (3) lists them:

• anyone who, but for the adoption, would be related to the child by blood (including half-blood), marriage or civil partnership. That covers birth parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles;
• a former guardian of the child;
• anyone who had parental responsibility for the child immediately before the adoption order;
• some people who were entitled to apply for contact while the child was placed for adoption;
• anyone the child lived with for at least a year. The year need not be continuous, but it must not have begun more than five years before the application (s.51A(7)).

Section 51A applies only where an adoption agency placed the child, or was authorised to place them. Where no agency was involved, as in many step-parent adoptions, it does not apply. Brothers and sisters have their own guide to sibling contact orders, and grandparents to grandparents’ rights.

Is a letterbox agreement legally binding?

No. A letterbox agreement is a written plan, not a court order. Before making an adoption order, the court must consider whether there should be contact arrangements, look at any existing or proposed ones, and obtain the parties’ views (s.46(6)). Considering contact is different from ordering it. Even when everyone agrees, the court must not make an order unless doing so would be better for the child than making none (s.1(6)).

So the adopters run an agreed arrangement. They hold parental responsibility, and the law trusts them to make the decisions that promote the child’s security (Re B, para 57). If they pause or end the letters, a birth relative can talk to them through the agency, or ask the court for leave to apply for an order. Our guide to adoption orders explains how agreed contact differs from ordered contact at the point of adoption.

Post adoption contact orders: what section 51A allows

Since 22 April 2014, section 51A has given the court its own power over contact after adoption. It can make an order when it makes the adoption order or at any time afterwards.

Once section 51A applies, a child arrangements order under the Children Act 1989 cannot deal with contact between the child and the people it covers (s.51A(8)). The court must also set a timetable so the application is decided without delay (s.51B(3)). Before the adoption order, while a child is placed or an agency is authorised to place them, contact orders come under section 26 instead. Our guide to placement orders covers that stage.

What the court weighs before giving leave

If you need leave, the court first considers any risk that your application would disrupt the child’s life so much that the child would be harmed, your connection with the child, and anything the child or the adopters tell it (s.51A(5)). If leave is given, the child’s welfare throughout their life becomes the paramount consideration (s.1(2)). The court must then look at the child’s relationships with relatives, including how likely each is to continue and its value to the child (s.1(4)(f)).

Will a court order contact the adopters do not want?

Rarely. In Re B (A Child: Post-Adoption Contact) [2019] EWCA Civ 29, the Court of Appeal dismissed birth parents’ appeal against a refusal of direct contact with their daughter after adoption. Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, held that section 51A had not changed the law. It will only be in an extremely unusual case that a court orders contact the adopters do not agree to (para 59). He added that Parliament’s aim in section 51A was to enhance the position of adopters (para 54).

The court accepted that professional thinking may be moving towards more openness, especially between siblings, but said any shift belongs in welfare decisions made case by case (para 59). For a birth relative, more contact usually comes through the adopters’ agreement, with the agency’s help, before any court.

Your post adoption contact route: a three-step check

Pick the answers closest to your situation. The result shows whether you can go straight to court, what to do first and what a judge would weigh. Nothing you choose leaves this page.

When letterbox contact stops or goes quiet

Letters can stop for ordinary reasons, such as a house move or a letter delayed between offices, as well as worrying ones. Find out which before you act.

1. Contact the letterbox service first. Ask whether a letter has arrived for you, whether one of yours was held back, and why.
2. Ask what help the agency offers. In England, prescribed adoption support services include assistance, including mediation, with contact arrangements between an adopted child and birth relatives (Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005, reg 3(1)(c)).
3. Keep writing within the agreementif the agency will still accept your letters. A steady, warm record counts if you later need the court’s leave.
4. Keep copies of everything you send and receive, with dates.
5. Take advice before you apply. An application tells the adopters you are ready to go to court, and the judge must weigh the risk that it disrupts the child’s life (s.51A(5)(a)).

What not to do while you wait

Do not approach the child directly, including online. It can frighten the child and the adopters, and anything that looks like disruption counts against you if you later ask for leave. Once the child turns 18, any order ends (s.51B(1)(d)) and they can apply for their own birth records (GOV.UK).

Post adoption contact for adoptive parents

As adopters, you decide about informal contact (Re B, para 57). An order, or a birth relative going to court, changes that.

• An order binds you until the court changes it. You can apply to vary or revoke a section 51A order without leave (s.51B(1)(c)). Stopping contact on your own would breach it.
• Your views count at the leave stage. The court must consider what you tell it when a birth relative asks for leave (s.51A(5)(c)).
• You can ask for protection. If contact with someone is harming your child, the court can make an order forbidding that person from having contact (s.51A(2)(b)).
• Make informal changes through the agency. Its letterbox service can explain a change to the birth family, so they are not left wondering why the letters stopped.

If you adopted through foster to adopt, the same rules apply once the adoption order is made.

Post adoption contact: frequently asked questions

General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.