A very large charity that works locally#
Barnardo's is the UK's largest children's charity, with national offices in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh as well as across England. Most of its work happens in local services, so the help you can get depends on where you live: support for young people leaving care, mental health, homelessness, employment and training, young carers, LGBT+ young people and their families, parents, fostering and adoption. Its support pages have a quick-exit button.
Reaching a Barnardo's service#
The contact page is clear that its general form is not the way to get support. Instead, you search its directory by town, postcode or keyword and contact the local service directly about who it helps and how to be referred. The general form is for questions and compliments, and replies can take up to 20 days. For a child in immediate danger, it says to call 999 or your council's children's social care team.
For young people leaving care#
Its leaving care page notes that in England and Wales you do not have to leave care until 18, though some leave at 16. Barnardo's teams can help you find somewhere to live, including supported lodgings with a host family, learn to budget and run a home, stay in education or find work, and get support or counselling. The page also explains pathway plans and personal advisers, which are where help from your council should be set out.
Records for former Barnardo's children#
Barnardo's archive is unusual. Its Making Connections team holds records of every child in its care, or adopted through it, since the 1870s, with photographs and films from 1874 and details of the homes it ran. A child's record may include the reasons for their admission or adoption, known family members, birth and baptism certificates, school reports and photographs.
If you were looked after by or adopted through Barnardo's, you can ask for your own records with its enquiry form, free; it gives information in line with the law on other people's data, and there can be a waiting list. If your adoption went through Barnardo's, it can also support and counsel you through the process. Birth relatives can ask it to act as an intermediary, and it is reopening its family history service for descendants in phases.
Elsewhere, its LINK service offers therapy to anyone affected by adoption, including special guardianship families, and CAFIS in Kent helps adult adoptees reach birth records and birth relatives.
Names, records and paperwork#
Barnardo's publishes nothing about changing a name. For someone who grew up in care or was adopted, a record that includes a birth certificate can matter, because it shows the name you were born with, and some people choose to return to it.
- If you were adopted, Returning to a birth name after adoption shows how a deed poll links your birth name and adoptive name.
- If you are leaving care, Changing your name as a care leaver explains when you need others' agreement and when the choice is yours alone.
A deed poll needs no solicitor: GOV.UK publishes wording anyone of 16 or over can use, though a care order changes who must agree.
This page describes what Barnardo's publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Barnardo's has not reviewed it, and appearing here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
