Who Become is for#
Become is the national charity for children in care and young people who have left care in England. It runs an advice service, workshops and a community of care-experienced young people, and campaigns on the issues they raise. Its information pages cover being in care, leaving care, money, housing, education and work, and are written for young people rather than professionals.
The Care Advice Service#
Its Care Advice Service is free and confidential, for young people in care and care leavers. You can talk about anything, from how the care system works to placements, money, housing, education and contact with brothers, sisters and other family. It is open on weekdays from 10am to 5pm, by freephone, WhatsApp, email or an online form. If you cannot get through, it will call you back within three working days, except when you are in custody.
What you say stays private unless the team is worried you or someone else is at risk of harm, and it says it would try to talk to you first. Carers and professionals can call about a young person they support. A parent whose child is in care is pointed to its work with Family Rights Group.
Its guides that touch on identity and documents#
Become has no page on changing a name; searches of its site today found nothing on deed polls or name changes. Two of its guides come close.
Accessing your records explains how anyone over 18 can ask children's services for the records held about their time in care, through a subject access request to the council, or through a personal adviser if you are under 25. Some care leavers read their records before choosing a name, for example to understand a birth name or a family surname. Become's tips are to expect some parts to be blanked out, take your time, and have someone you trust with you; it says a council should respond in about a month, and up to three for complex records.
The transition to leaving care covers the pathway plan, which should be in place by your 16th birthday and is where help your council has agreed to give should be written down.
Changing your name in care, and after#
Who has to agree depends on where you are:
- While a care order is in force, a new surname needs agreement from everyone with parental responsibility, the council among them, or the court. Can grandparents, guardians or the council change a child's name? sets out who holds it.
- Once no order applies and you are 16 or 17, or from 18 in any case, you decide, and you can sign your own deed poll in front of two adult witnesses.
Changing your name as a care leaver goes through each case, and suggests asking your personal adviser whether your council's local offer would pay for a deed poll. If you were adopted, going back to your birth name explains how a deed poll sits alongside an adoption certificate.
This page describes what Become publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Become has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
