7,000 children need homes

According to Barnardos children's charity, 8,750 new foster families will be needed across the UK in 2012 to 2013.

Currently 7,000 children are in need of adoption, with a white child three times more likely to be adopted than a black child, they said.

• 7,100 in England
• 1,000 in Scotland
• 550 in Wales
• 100 in Northern Ireland

According to children's charity Barnardos, children in need of adoption are being left to grow up without a family because of their ethnicity, age, disability or brothers and sisters.

• A white child is three times more likely to be adopted as a black child
• The proportion of children being adopted drops from one in three when a child is age four or younger to one in 15 when that child turns five

• Approximately 40 per cent of children waiting for a new permanent family have some form of special need
• Nearly fifty per cent of the children on the adoption register are in sibling groups

• Two out of three fostering services have to split brothers and sisters up because there are not enough foster carers willing to take siblings

Children's charity Barnardos are highlighting the fact that 7,000 children are currently waiting to be adopted.

It is the highest number of children since 2007.

This morning, Barnardos will bring to light the plight of these young people by projecting four images captioned, 'Too old, Too many, Too difficult and Too black' on to the walls of the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, as its Fostering and Adoption Week begins.

Read more: Government publishes adoption map