National Lottery hands charity’s adopted teens project £326,000

Family Action has been awarded a grant of £326,824 from the National Lottery Community Fund to expand its support for adopted teenagers in the Yorkshire and Humber area.

The Adopteens service launched eight years ago to support this group of young people. Through this latest National Lottery award, its scope and range of events will be expanded. The money will also be used to help young people be involved in decisions around their support.

The service is run through Family Action’s adoption support agency PAC-UK and currently supports 140 young people. Through this new funding it aims to more than treble its reach, to support up to 500 young adoptees in the region by the end of 2025.

“We are delighted to have been awarded the funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, as this additional funding means that we can expand our reach and service into even more areas, and we are looking forward to being able to connect with many more young adoptees in our community who are harder to reach, especially in rural areas,” said Adopteens and projects practice manager Tanya Killick.

“We have seen first-hand how essential connections like these are for young adoptees confidence and self-esteem, and how these connections help them to develop new skills, experience, and knowledge, and ultimately to help them to fulfil their potential.”

Thank you @TNLComFund for your grant to expand our @family_action PAC-UK Adopteens @AdoptedTeens_ID service for adopted teenagers across Yorkshire and Humber.

Full info: https://t.co/h9ek6cym5x @one_adoption @OneAdoption_WY @OneAdoptionN_H @OneAdoption_SY @CASAadoption https://t.co/GvxyHuVob2
— PAC-UK (@PACUKadoption) February 27, 2023

One young adoptee who has been supported, called Jane, added: “This funding for the Adopteens is amazing. Many of the members of the group have formed such a tight friendship due to the opportunities we have received. We all work hard to educate other people about adoption and hopefully help other people to feel less alone and to understand that there are many other people in similar situations.

“This funding will hopefully allow us to educate more people and meet more people in our situation. Thank you so much for this funding it will help so many people.”