There are around 2,000 children living in foster care in the UK who have a plan for adoption but haven’t yet been matched with a family. That’s a tiny percentage of the children in care, most of whom will either return to their birth families or remain in foster or kinship care. The average age for a child to be adopted is 3.5 years. Often, that’s because social services do everything they can to keep families together, before the courts take the decision that adoption is the best decision for a particular child. At the moment there are more families waiting to adopt, than there are children with a plan for adoption. Obviously it’s vital to get the right family for each child, and some groups of children spend much longer in care before being matched with a family. Sibling groups spend around 11 months longer, and children over the age of 5, those with a disability, and black children all spend longer in care than their peers. If you’re the right family for a child or children from one of those groups, you are likely to be matched more quickly.