Coram today is a group of specialist organisations known as the Coram Group of charities, helping more than a million children, young people, professionals and families every year.
We support children and young people from birth to independence, creating a change that lasts a lifetime.
This includes Coram Ambitious for Adoption, our leading adoption agency, along with a range of pioneering family finding initiatives to ensure children receive the stability and security they need. We are known for the quality of the lifelong support we provide to adoptive families.
Over the past year, the Coram Group has directly supported nearly 145,000 children, young people, parents and carers, helped over 400,000 children and young people through our education and early years programmes, and provided online resources and specialist advice to millions of digital users of our services.
Find out more about how our work across the Group helps create better chances for children every day and discover the many ways in which you can support us by visiting our main website.
Another way to find out more about Coram’s heritage and support our ongoing work is to join The Coram Society. As a member you will be invited to talks from our historians and guest speakers, along with other benefits. Find out more on our main website here.
Foundling Hospital pupil records
Coram has carefully retained the personal information and birth records of the children who have grown up in its care, ever since we first began as the Foundling Hospital in 1739.
Following the 1975 Children Act and 1976 Adoption Act, Coram was able to provide former pupils with similar information to that which is now available to all adopted people – their birth certificate and a history of their parental background, prepared by a social worker using the mother’s original papers.
Today Coram offers a birth records and counselling service for former pupils and family descendants of the Foundling Hospital. With the support of an experienced professional, the original petition or application to the Governors is shared, together with the mother’s name and the name she gave to her child.
Through an experienced social worker, we offer a birth records information and counselling service to:
- former pupils of the Foundling Hospital and their descendants
- those who grew up in the care of the Thomas Coram Foundation as foster children
- adults previously in the Foundation’s care as children but later adopted by their foster parents
- adults placed for adoption as children through Coram or Adopt Anglia (including Cambridge Association for Social Welfare)
If you are a descendant of someone who was in the care of the Foundling Hospital we can, for a fee, provide information from our records with consent from the nearest surviving descendant.
Find out more about the above by visiting our Birth Records page.