By Gemma Morris, Sky News Reporter
A shortage of people willing to adopt more than one child means some brothers and sisters are being split up.
Each year in the UK some 6,000 children need adopting and nearly half of them have siblings, according to research by the British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF).
But matching a pair or group of siblings to a new family is not always easy.
John Simmonds, director of policy, research and development for BAAF, told Sky News part of the reason could be that many prospective adopters get used to the idea of raising just one child.
"The expectation is: 'That's what I can manage, that's what I have in mind when I'm thinking about having children of my own'," he said.
He added that apart from cases where placing siblings together is not appropriate, keeping brothers and sisters with each other is important, particularly as many of the children will have had a difficult start to life.
"Someone doesn't want to add to the trauma of separating children from their birth parents to also separate siblings from each other."
Brothers and sisters are also among the children who wait longest to be matched with a family.
During next week's National Adoption Week the BAAF is hoping to encourage more people to consider adopting siblings.
Karen Goodman, a social worker with 30 years' experience in children's services, told Sky News there is a need for as many potential adopters as possible.
"Social workers and the adoption panels will always try to find prospective adopters who can take sibling groups, but it's a challenge and it's a tall order.
"Also boys are harder to place than girls and the older the children are, the harder they are to place."
Civil partners Scott and Tristan Casson-Rennie adopted two young brothers, Frasier and Brandon, seven years ago.
Scott said: "When they came to live with us and we had some tricky times people would say, 'Well wouldn't it have been better if you just had one of them?'... No."
The boys - who have four siblings elsewhere - are now 15 and 16, and told Sky News they were lucky to have been able to stay with each other.
"I was on my own so I didn't have any other siblings around but when Brandon come along I felt happy again. I felt like I can move on with another person beside me."
Brandon said: "I think it would have been really, really hard to live by myself."
Despite some challenges, their parents hope others will consider the positives of adopting siblings.
Tristan said: "We have two amazing boys that have gone on to do some wonderful things in their teenage years and they will go on now to be amazing adults.
"I firmly believe that is a part of keeping them together, so that they can bounce off each other."
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