About the foundation#
Helen Bamber worked as a young nurse at Bergen-Belsen after the war, joined Amnesty International in 1961, and in the 1980s founded the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, now Freedom from Torture. In 2005 she founded the Helen Bamber Foundation, a human rights charity for survivors of trafficking and torture. Its model brings six kinds of help together: therapy, medical advice, legal protection, housing and welfare, counter-trafficking support, and help to build a life in the community. In October 2024 it opened a trauma centre in London with private rooms for therapy, legal work and doctors. Since 2020 it has led a group of charities that includes Asylum Aid.
Who it can help, and how referrals work#
Its referral page sets out two routes and five conditions.
- Integrated care is for adults living in Greater London. Anyone can refer, including the survivor themselves, using an online form with a signed consent form and supporting papers such as asylum interview notes and Home Office letters. When we read the page on 26 October 2026, referrals for integrated care were paused.
- Medico-legal reports only, which document the physical and psychological evidence of what someone has been through, are available across the UK, must be requested by the person's legal representative, and remained open.
Both routes are for people aged 18 or over who are survivors themselves, not in prison or immigration detention, whose main needs are trauma-related, and who do not yet have refugee status, humanitarian protection, indefinite leave or citizenship (with occasional exceptions for trafficking survivors). It is not a crisis service. Its office is open weekdays from 10am to 4pm, and general questions go by email.
Names, safety and the Home Office#
The foundation publishes nothing on changing your name, and we found no guidance from it on eVisas or identity documents. Its housing and welfare team works on the practical side of safety, finding short and long-term housing for survivors at risk, and its legal team supports people through the asylum process.
For a survivor, wanting a new name is often about distance from the people who caused harm. The Home Office's guidance on names has a section for this. If a victim or witness at risk changes their name for protection, the guidance expects a body such as the police, a refuge or another accredited organisation to back the application, and it allows that the person may be permitted more than one name. Changes made for protection are also among those the guidance exempts from the usual check of both names against police records.
Before you act#
A change of name does not, on its own, hide where someone lives, and a new name on a Home Office record follows the Home Office's process, not just a deed poll. While a claim is being decided, keep the name on your Home Office papers. Talk it through first with the legal representative or caseworker who knows your situation.
These pages go further:
- Changing your name to stay safe: planning a change around your safety.
- Who can see my former name?: what stays private, and what an enrolled deed poll makes public.
- Your eVisa and UKVI account: how the name on an eVisa is updated.
This page describes what the Helen Bamber Foundation publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. The foundation has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
