Services for Located Individuals

Services for

Located Individuals

How we can help

If you received a letter from a Certified Confidential Intermediary regarding a birth relative who would like to connect with you, you have several options.

If you were contacted by a Confidential Intermediary, we have significant reason to believe you are a birth relative of someone with whom we are working. The CI working on that case will explain who is trying to reach you and why.

Confidential Intermediaries have access to adoption records, information, and other documents that are otherwise considered "sealed." While the CI cannot legally release those documents to anyone, they use the detailed information to search for birth relatives. This significantly increases the likelihood that the correct birth relatives are located.

Please be assured that the Confidential Intermediary will not share any personal or identifying information about you without the written consent of both involved individuals. It is the job of the CI to protect your confidentiality as much as our clients'.

As a located birth relative, you have many options. You can exchange contact information with your birth relative, you can exchange anonymous letters with your birth relative through our program, you can provide information to the CI to be passed along to your birth relative, or you can decline to participate. The Confidential Intermediary will respect and support any decision you make.

Direct Contact

If you would like to exchange contact information (such as name, mailing address, phone number, and/or email address) with your birth relative, the Confidential Intermediary will ask each of you to complete and sign a release form. On the form, you will each include the exact information you would like released to your birth relative. After both release forms are received, the CI will contact each of you on the same day to release the information. From there, you and your birth relative will speak directly and can openly share information with one another.

Anonymous Correspondence

If you are interested in exchanging letters with your birth relative, but are not ready to provide your name and contact information, you can participate in our anonymous letter exchange. The Confidential Intermediary will provide you with information and guidelines to help each of you through the anonymous correspondence.

In these letters, you can discuss your lives, interests, hobbies, family history, etc. without using your names, locations, and other identifying information.

After exchanging anonymous letters through our program, you can choose to exchange contact information or simply end the letter exchange and have your identifying information remain confidential.

One Time Provision of Information

If you are not interested in a continuing exchange of information with your birth relative, you can provide the Confidential Intermediary with information to be shared with your birth relative.

Information such as genetic medical history, family ethnicity, interests, hobbies, occupations, and more can mean a lot to someone who does not know of their birth family history. This type of information can be given to the CI by postal mail, telephone, or email. The CI would then share the information with your birth relative without releasing your name or contact information.

Decline to Participate

You are not required to participate in any sort of connection or information exchange. If that is your choice, please simply contact the CI by telephone, postal mail, or email to confirm that is your decision. That way, the CI will not continue to make attempts to reach you.

Your birth relative may choose to search for other members of your family; however, they would be provided with the same options for contact. If they also choose to decline contact, that decision will be supported and respected.

If you received a letter from a caseworker in our DCFS search program:

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How we can help If you received a letter from a Certified Confidential Intermediary regarding a birth relative who would like to connect with you, you have several options.

Services for

Located Individuals

How we can help

If you received a letter from a Certified Confidential Intermediary regarding a birth relative who would like to connect with you, you have several options.