Children more likely to be adopted under four years old

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