Not quite historical but my social worker said to me today that 2/3 yrs ago there was a massive push in families being kept together no matter what and that judges were overally keen to keep children within families. Meaning very few children were placed for adoption- and more stayed with extended families or were returned to live with families even if there had been issues. Which lead to long waits for adopters to be matched. This now appears to be turning with judges looking at adoption again as a more sensible option and.... in many cases the better option. This is leading to lots more children being placed for adoption but now the issue is.... lack of adopters!