A new peer-led charitable organisation to represent donor conceived people, donors and others affected by donor conception practices in the UK.
Our aim is to champion, empower and amplify the DC UK community
The shape and structure of this organisation will centre around three main pillars of support, education, and advocacy
Support
As a community we support each other really well, but sign posting needs improving so that all donor conceived people, donors, and others intergenerationally affected can find the help, support and resources they need easily.
Education
It is not OK to speak about the donor conceived experience without including the donor conceived voice. The voice of the DC UK Community also needs to be amplified and more high quality resources need to be created to support all those inter-generationally affected by donor conception practises in the UK.
Advocacy
There is a lot of injustice in some historical and current donor conception practises. There is a passion within our community to create lasting change in this area.
What are we trying to achieve?
As part of our roles as Co-Chairs of the Donor Conceived Register Registrants Panel (DCRRP) we launched a consultation at the start of 2023 amongst the donor conceived community and stakeholders in the UK.
It was felt that there was a disconnect around what the Donor Conceived Register (DCR) is and who we are as a community and proposed the need to establish an official peer-led organisation called Donor Conceived UK.
This new name will reflect our widening remit ambitions in terms of support, education and advocacy and will also enable clearer signposting opportunities to ensure those who require support can find it easily.
This mini-site will document our journey to achieving all this! Our first fundraising target is £5,000 and we plan to register as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). We will be launching this appeal VERY SOON. But in the meantime donations can be made via the donate button at the top of this page.
What does this mean for the donor conceived register website and associated facebook group?
We will continue to represents registrants of the DCR service which is funded by the HFEA and run by Liverpool Women’s Hospital Trust, but will also represent users of the Donor Sibling Link (DSL), the HFEA record management services and we will also be here for those affected by the ‘Open ID at 18’ Law changes, that came into affect Autumn 2023 (both also referred to as Opening The Register (OTR)).
The donorconceivedregister.co.uk domain will in time move over to donorconceiveduk.org.uk but will still be a rich resource for those seeking information and will evolve to contain more high quality resources in time.
The ‘Private’ Facebook group has now changed its name to Donor Conceived UK to reflect the more appropriate name for the community. It continues to operate in the same way – with the same rules and parameters for entry – that being over 18 and donor conceived in the UK or a former donor who donated in the UK at least 18 years ago.
We will of course keep everyone up to date as to when these changes will happen. We also regularly update our Facebook page and are available on other socials as DCUK_official.
If you want to get in touch or require support please email info@donorconceiveduk.org.uk