Donor Conception Network

Key Facts

Location

All areas

Project Criteria

Health/Mental health

Project funding

£61,114

Funding round

Round 1

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The Donor Conception Network is a national self-help network providing advice, guidance and support for families created with the assistance of donated eggs, sperm and embryos. We were set up in 1993.

We are using the Parenting Fund for our 'How to Tell' project. This will research and produce materials intended to support parents in telling their donor conceived children about their origins. These resources will be in the form of leaflets, both paper and web based, and a visual aid that may be a video or CD Rom.

The aim is to enable parents of donor conceived children to share information about origins with their children in ways that feel comfortable for each family and are appropriate to the age and stage of understanding reached by the child or young person.

In the past the vast majority of gamete (eggs, sperm and embryo) donation has been anonymous. From April 2005 all donors of eggs, sperm and embryos will have to be 'willing to be known' to offspring from age 18, if the young person chooses to seek this information. In order for young people to be able to take advantage of this opportunity they need to know that they were conceived with the aid of a donor(s).

The Donor Conception Network recognises that parents, particularly fathers, need a range of supports to be in place in order for them to feel confident about sharing this information. Parents of donor conceived young adults who have not yet been 'told' about their origins often need considerable support if they are to manage the 'telling' process in ways that promote and maintain family unity, after holding the secret for so long. We will produce the first materials in the world to support this group as well as resources for parents who are starting to share and adding to origins information at younger ages and stages.

Situations that are unique to single and lesbian women will be addressed in addition to those of heterosexual couples using egg, sperm and embryo donation.