The Leicester Mercury has helped dozens of children in the city – by finding them a family.

Over the past two years, the number of children in Leicester who have been adopted has risen from 30 to 50 bucking the national trend of falling rates.

The number of foster parents in Leicestershire has also increased.

And Kim Bromley-Derry, children and family services director at Leicester City Council, says there was no doubt a campaign run jointly by the Mercury and Leicestershire Adoption Service had helped.

The Find a Family campaign aimed to find 50 families to adopt or foster children.

To raise awareness about the shortage of foster carers and people willing to adopt, the Mercury published profiles of children in Leicestershire looking for homes.

It also looked at the work of Leicester’s fostering and adoption team and featured success stories about people who have already fostered or adopted children.

And two years after the campaign was launched, there are now 50 adoptive parents in the county and 370 foster parents.

Kim said: “We are performing better than the national average and we can put some of that down to the Mercury campaign.

“We are in the top 25 per cent of local authorities for adoption, which is excellent.”

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