in because i was so young. i went into care at the age of two and didn't leave until i was 18. i always wondered whether i was considered for adoption and never had the courage to ask about it as a kid. it's really hard to describe what it felt like being shunted before five different homes before the age of 18. it felt like being under a cloud of rejection, like no sense of family, no sense of belonging. check what happens in my mid to late 20s and i'm still coming to terms with my own childhood — i get a message from a man on facebook who tells me that he's my brother. it was completely crazy because for a long time, i thought that i was kind of isolated, in terms of family, that i didn't have anyone, but i've got a brother, that's life—changing.

i find it difficult to understand why no—one told me i had siblings while i was in care. there is one person who might hold some answers. oh, my days! oh, my gosh! rosalynn! rosalynn was my social worker between the ages of 15 and 18. a few years ago, i had a brother get in touch with me. really?! yeah. from where? he just spoke to me on facebook. who? my dad's side. oh, my gosh. i can't talk to you about this, man, i don't know why i feel emotional. oh, my god. yeah, woo... flipping... ihad to... so, basically, on my dad's side, i've got at least four siblings who are all older than me. was there any information in my files about me having siblings?

no. not to my knowledge. you know, files and information gathering has come a long way. obviously, back in the day, we had paperfiles, now we have electronic files. and i think sometimes families don't always tell us what we want to know at the time and that happens quite a lot, where family members, erm, withhold information. speaking to rosalynn about my siblings brought up another part of my past which i've always wanted to know about. was i ever considered for adoption? i know that's a big question and you don't have to answer it if you don't know. i was going to say, you might... i will tell you what i know but you might not want to know. i think you were. from what i can remember, you were, but i think they fell pregnant. and then they pulled out. ooh. at what age? very, very, very young. oh, my god.

you didn't know that? i didn't know that. you wouldn't. you feel like your narrative in life and identity does not belong to you. the fact that you could have been adopted, the fact that you could have had siblings but no—one necessarily tells you they are there. i just feel like everybody wants to know who they are, everybody wants to know who they are connected to. and i agree. i think in social care, that's what you want for your young person as well, you don't want any young person to come out and be like, well, what happened there? i've no idea what happened in the last ten years. that's not what you want. that's not why we come into this role. i'm feeling shattered after that chat. it was great to see rosalynn but even just talking to herfor ten minutes, i see how many unanswered issues there are as it pertains to my time in care but it now makes me think that there are so many siblings in the system who are estranged from relatives and they are not getting the support that they need.

the more you move them, the more you scar them because you're just letting me know i'm a kid in care, and more people don't care about me. ten years ago, when i started out as a journalist, i spoke to a guy called jerome who grew up in care and he said he was split from a brother so we've now become mates, i want to catch up with him and see what he has to say about the issue. i'm just hoping he can relate to what i'm going through at the moment. welcome to my humble abode. you have got a slit in your eyebrow. yeah. that is a decade old swag. jerome now works with children in care and has reconnected with his brother. when i spoke to you ten years ago, you told me about your brother who,

at the time, was in prison. how is he now? he's out. ah, brilliant. he's out of prison, doing really well, in terms of moving his life forward, but still struggling with the trauma of having gone through the system. he's still alive, he's still here. that is a success in itself. but it still hurts me to watch him because we both... you took very different paths. yeah, with my brother, i always say the system lost him. because we had an amazing carer and she got quite ill, and he had to be moved and they didn't explain what was going on, the future plans. i think he felt that sense of rejection and he just went on a spiral, and, you know, the streets were his home but as we know, the streets is not a realfamily, there is no real

love on the streets. i think of other people like us to come through the care system and i really hope they are not saying the same things about their brothers and sisters. sadly, this is what happens. and they are. i see sibling groups sometimes where they are acting out dysfunction and what happens is the carers or professionals will blame the kids for their behaviour. it's not on them. they are showing you a need and you need to meet the need with love and nuture and understanding and patience. there is little data about the extent of sibling separation so we ran our own research and it shows that as of the 3rd of september 2021, around half of sibling groups in care are split up. more than 12,000 children in care are not living with at least one of their siblings. to know more about the impact of these decisions, i am meeting

social worker student saskia. saskia and her brothers were adopted after being rescued from their birth family. saskia. in their adoptive home, they suffered physical abuse and neglect for a decade. saskia, tell me about your brothers. so, max is the oldest. he is 2a, then i'm 11 months younger than max, i'm 23. and toby is 18 months younger, he is 22 at the moment. but we are all very, very close, very tight unit, always kind of been that way. when the adoption broke down, saskia and her brothers went back into council care but they didn't stay together for long. all three of us were in different placements, different areas, and it was quite strange as well

because myself and max were obviously still attending the same school. oh, that must have been so awkward. it was really strange. at what point did the contact breakdown completely for all three of you? i would have been 1a, 15 and toby 13, yeah. i lost such a key part of myself i think because it was us three against the world, it always has been. and so being so far away from them, it is like i'm not as strong any more. sometimes siblings is all you've got left, and if you take those away, you're taking the last thing away. the last bit of hope. yes, yes, the last bit of your identity. saskia says they don't normally talk about their separation but her younger brother toby has agreed to meet me for a chat. are you going to sit like that while filming? yeah.

i'm calm, i don't care. weirdly, it's quite nice because it shows he is being normal. do you know what? how often do you guys sit here at your flat and talk about this stuff? never. how do you think it has affected you? where to start? oh, man. i don't know, it's made me into quite a resentful person, as a whole, really. even if life is going good, i will still find some way to be like... ..negative, so overall, i'm just a negative person. i find it hard to see the good in anything. even if it is good, i will find something with it, and i will...it up, so it is affecting me a lot because these traits have made me have real—life consequences. you have committed crime, you've gone to prison. yeah.

maybe it's fair to say that you were difficult to look after in the care system and that is partly to explain why you've been moved, what would you say to that sort of... this is not to diminish my responsibility of committing a crime either. i take full responsibility but if i hadn't lived the life i lived, i would have never been in that position to ever commit crime, you feel me? i agree. i would have never... i've done things that i cannot take back and i'm not that person but through what people and other people have put onto us, i am now that person and it's a shame. it's sad. do you think you should have been kept together? yeah. i think any siblings should be kept together anyway but given that they knew what we'd been through in that house, itjust... looking back now, itjust made no sense that they split us up.

she means a lot to me. she's the only reason i keep going sometimes. when saskia does well, we all do well. we boys, we are naughty but if saskia can do it, i can do it. it's so funny because i feel the same and there are so many times where i've nearly given up and i just wouldn't do it to them. iimagine yourface. i see your face, innit? you made me all emotional, why did you do that? it's real, innit? the law says siblings should be placed together when it's safe and possible to do so. however, many will be separated because a shortage of foster carers and suitable accommodation. hello. someone trying to change this is veteran foster carer debbie bright.

debbie is best known as lydia's mum on the only way is essex but behind the scenes, she has looked after more than 200 vulnerable children. itell you, being here, i'm like, debbie, i wish you fostered me. aw, i wish i did as well! it's so homely. i've fostered many sibling groups and i fought a lot to keep siblings together. when i first started fostering, you was not... ..you was allowed to have siblings sharing bedrooms. now, there's so many rules and regulations about all foster children having their own bedroom and i understand the reasons why but who has got a spare bedroom? who? what about the emotional capacity as well? they may not have the capacity to look after more than one child? no, but then there should be support in place so they can facilitate that sibling group.

in england, foster carer numbers are at their highest but the increase is not keeping up with the amount of children in care. debbie has been supporting a new recruit. hi. ijust let myself in, the door was open. reilly and her girlfriend have recently been approved as a foster family. a lot of people say the process is quite invasive, which it is, you have to give them very specific details about absolutely everything. it's almost like i found it like a long, year—long therapy session. it takes a year? it can take up to a year. sometimes it takes longer. mum took two years i think. sometimes it takes two years. it depends if they've got resources and social workers to do the work. you have a young person now, tell me about that. yes, i do, i have a teenager, and she is absolutely brilliant. that is crazy. sorry to cut you off because you're

23 and have a teenager. yes, it is a crazy concept to a lot of people but i can relate to her so well, because i was not there that long ago, i know what it's like to be a 13—year—old in today's time and that is where we really bond and connect. does your current foster child have any siblings? yes, she does, she has a few siblings. she has a really good relationship with them. that is something i will always facilitate and push for, especially when you're talking about children who might have bonded over trauma or lost parents. it is really important. that is why you become a foster carer, to be able to facilitate these things. i am proud, so proud. not only to see her as a foster mum but to see what a wonderful foster mum she is. she's got a big heart. while foster carers are crucial in keeping siblings connected, it's local council to make

decisions for the children. with the number of looked after children at an all—time high, the system is struggling to keep up. hi, is it ashley? hello, amy, lovely to meet you. welcome to my children's centre. here we are. i've come to derby to find out how local authorities trying to rent more children going into care by pioneering a rapid response team, amy is one of the practitioners. tell me about this team and the work you're doing. the stay together team was an idea from the heads of service where they are highlighting the children in care and increasing local and identifying that there is a need to work with complex families where children may be at risk of going into the care system.

basically helping families before the children are sent into care. to keep those children within their family home. as well as family support, amy offers critical and rapid system assistance when a family is at a breaking point. tell me about the people we are going to meet. we are going to meet someone who has had support from across the services. they were facing a range of issues, young lady going missing, violent and aggressive in the home, at risk of being exploited in the community. we protect the identity of the mum for the safety of her daughter. what was life like for you and your family before amy got involved? it was hard, we did not know where to go for support, to access support, she was going missing regularly, getting into other things like bad crowds and drinking. education also starting to fail as well. it was a strain on our marriage,

strain on the siblings and the children because they wanted her to go into care. if not for any�*s help, do you think a child would be in care at the moment? probably still in crisis. the family and all the children would have broken down. tell me how your family is doing now. amazing. the sibling closeness has come back again. they all want to interact with each other, doing tick—tocks in the bedroom with each other, football in the garden. meeting the family was so moving, something probably a bit harder was the fact that the mum said the siblings, they wanted the child to be removed from the house, that was hard to hear but it is easy to see the intervention from amy and that sibling group has been saved. over the past 15 months, amy says their team has supported 60 families to stay together, 50 of those are... sibling.

while preventative work can shrink the system, local councils are still facing those challenges. amy's boss is the head of early health and social care for derby city council. we know the government provided monday at the height of the pandemic for councils to be able to support vulnerable families. but more children are going into care, costs are increasing. do you have the resources to be able to support children in care? no, we do not. we are very stretched as a local authority. there has been year on year cuts to services that we are delivering and demand is rising. we won't compromise in terms of safeguarding standards but it will mean that other parts of the council and a further local authorities will have to make some very tough decisions. what could it mean for looked after children and sibling

groups in care nationally? i think that's what keeps me awake at night. in terms of what happens when the money runs out. how are you feeling? local authorities are close to the bone nationally. you've been a social worker for 25 years. to see this very important industry fall into poverty, what would that mean for you? i'd be heartbroken. it would be devastating, i think, for the next generation and for this country. it is horrible, isn't it? it is horrible. when it comes to the rights of siblings, scotland is leading the way.

a new law there is giving brothers and sisters in care more karen! she runs a charity that reunites siblings in care. i will tell you, i would have loved this as a kid. i would have absolutely loved to come somewhere like this. it is natural. you can be a kid. here we go. you're having a laugh. look at this. oh, my days. the group you will meet today, they've not had a halloween here before, so i'm excited to see their faces. they will love it.

our family and foster carers, it didn't take long for us to realise that these children are going into the care system and they are not going to the same place together. ijust realised, they have been through enough. why not, why can't they have their own special place that they call... and most of them do, call it home? that contact, i can only imagine, must be a lifeline. it keeps them going. it is tough growing up and being a kid but it is tougher being them. but if they have that support with each other, we are not only making a difference now but fast forward to when they leave the care system and imagine if they had each other. who is coming today? we have a sibling group of five boys full of energy, lots of fun, you will have what is a fun meeting them.

today is a big day. a massive day. at the farm, they go for two hours every two months. this is their only contact. how excited have you guys been today? ten out of ten. ten out of ten? 9000. 9000? what does it mean to be able to hang

out and carve these together? it means tonnes. thank you so much for letting us film because it has been so fun, really fun. these kids are golden, absolutely incredible, and i don't even want to imagine where they would be without the opportunity to see each other because they clearly all depend on each other so much and it's really beautiful to see them together. the boys are leaving, saying goodbye to each other, and that was quite difficult for them. #

goodbye. see you, mate. goodbye. karen, that must be so hard for you to do all the time. it is not, it is not. to do nothing would be hard. that is the difference. during this film, i've seen so many children in care being estranged from their siblings and clearly substantial change is needed before

more lives get affected forever. but this can't rely only on the goodwill of people on the front line. decisive action is now crucial. going on thisjourney, i see that the system is under pressure, so much pressure and social workers i think of a new level of sympathy for them because they are so stretched, and one of the most encouraging thing is i will take away from meeting someone like saskia is from having the brothers in the union, even though my brother and my siblings, i now have the chance to meet with my family. i now have the chance to be... and create the life i want, and sometimes it will be blood, sometimes it won't, it doesn't actually matter. as long as you have people you love to love you back, i think that's enough.

hello. not the prettiest of sundays out there at the moment. heavy winds rain, strong winds for some too. and it sets the scene for the week ahead. we have got a strong jet stream coming out of north america right

across the atlantic. little bubbles in that helping to develop various areas of low pressure, this one here created to day's low pressure system, all this cloud which is spilling its way northwards and eastwards. plenty of rain so far across western areas, easing off a little bit through the rest of the afternoon across northern ireland and slowly across the western fringes of england and wales. maybe a little bit of brightness around the irish sea. but after a dry day for some across east anglia and the south—east so far, the rain will put in here. strongest of the winds in the south, reaching gale force at times. head further north, a wet afternoon across parts of eastern scotland, but the further north you go, some hazy sunshine and the lighter of the winds. temperatures today, because there were areas coming off the south and the south—west, will be above what they should be at this stage in february, seven to 11 degrees. and a mild evening across east anglia and the south east, tempered by the strength of the wind, outbreaks of rain continuing into the night. rain will come and go. _ continuing into the night. rain will come and go. a — continuing into the night. rain will come and go, a northerly - continuing into the night. rain willj come and go, a northerly direction for scotland and northern ireland,

the clear— for scotland and northern ireland, the clear skies and some frost and ice are _ the clear skies and some frost and ice are round into the start of the new week — ice are round into the start of the new week-— ice are round into the start of the new week. ., .., ., a, ._ new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure _ new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure to — new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure to begin _ new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure to begin with, _ new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure to begin with, ridge - new week. for the commute on monday, low pressure to begin with, ridge of- low pressure to begin with, ridge of high pressure in its week will turn the shower is fewer in number. plenty around in western areas, rather cool, cloud across england and wales, pushing southward, taking away early sunshine and brightening up away early sunshine and brightening up north. a story of sunshine and showers, wintry for northern scotland as the wet —— my air turns cold. these are the temperatures at their highest on monday, it will feel colder than that. cold start on tuesday, snow across the scottish mountains, england and wales, cloud and outbreaks of rain pushing ciphers and eastwards and stalling by the end of the day. temperatures ten or 11 degrees. chilly across scotland and northern ireland. significant low—pressure mate week,

winds to the mid atlantic, temperatures climb into the mid teens. capital cities for costs, a changeable week, dry weather, a lot of rain at times and strong winds too.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a russian invasion of ukraine is �*highly likely�*. that's the assessment of the uk defence secretary — comparing some western diplomatic efforts to the appeasement of nazi germany — ukraine says that is not a �*helpful�* comparison. the us evacuates most of its embassy staff in kyiv as it expects that a russian military incusion could come �*any day'. warcan take an war can take an unpredictable path and we think if russia does act in the way we fear it will, it will be in tremendous hardship and for greater insecurity into the heart of europe. thirteen people are injured after a mezzanine floor collapses at a pub in east london. following the resignation

of the met police chief — the labour shadow home secretary warns that there is a perfect storm