A professional body, run within Coram#
CoramBAAF describes itself as the UK's leading membership organisation for professionals working in adoption, fostering and kinship care. Its corporate members include most local authorities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with adoption agencies, health and social care trusts and fostering providers, and it has more than 650 individual and associate members. It publishes books and the journal Adoption & Fostering, produces the report forms agencies use in court and panel work, runs training, and gives practice advice to members.
It is not a charity in its own right. Its site footer says it is run by Coram Academy Ltd, a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales, as part of the Coram group, whose parent charity is the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children.
Who can contact it#
CoramBAAF works for professionals. Its contact page lists teams for membership, policy, publications, training and events, and its Advice Line is a members' service, with specialist health and legal advice for England and Wales. Families and adopted people are better served by the public pages below, or by a charity that supports them directly, such as Adoption UK.
What it publishes for adopted and care-experienced adults#
Its adoption records page explains that adopted people can get information about their adoption and family history from 18, including what they need to get a copy of their original birth certificate. The rules depend on when the adoption happened: for adoptions before 30 December 2005 the agency has discretion, balancing your need to know with the birth family's privacy, while for later adoptions you have a right to your Child Permanence Report without redaction. It adds that you may also have separate children's social care files, with different rights of access.
Its guide on how to trace birth family members advises starting when the time is right for you, thinking about what you want to achieve, and considering an intermediary for first contact. It points to GOV.UK for England and Wales, Citizens Advice Scotland and nidirect.
In March 2026 CoramBAAF and the Archives and Records Association announced a free online resource showing where adoption and care records are held across the UK, due later in 2026.
Where names come in#
CoramBAAF has nothing on changing a name; a site search for "change of name" returned no results. For adopted people, though, records and names are closely linked. An original birth certificate shows the name you were given at birth, and some adopted adults choose to take back all or part of it. Going back to your birth name explains how, from 16, a deed poll can do that without anyone else's agreement, and how it sits alongside your adoption certificate.
For a child being adopted, the court's order names the child; changing a name after adoption or under special guardianship covers the questions social workers and carers usually ask.
This page describes what CoramBAAF publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. CoramBAAF has not reviewed it, and listing it here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
