AN adoption agency is appealing for Huddersfield area families to give homes to older children.
Adoption-Yorkshire, run by Catholic Care in Leeds, wants to find more homes for children aged between two and eight.
Tony Ryan, adoption team leader, said it was easy to find homes for babies and toddlers, but not so for older children.
He added: "People tend to want younger children."
Mr Ryan, who has 25 years' adoption experience, will retire next year.
He aims to make one final push to find loving homes for older children.
He also wants to put more groups of siblings in the same home.
Mr Ryan said it had been getting easier to place groups of two or three siblings with one family, but there was still work to be done.
He added: "I would love to round off my career placing four or five siblings in a home.
"It can actually be easier to bring up a family group. They can be more stable because they have had each other through the bad times."
Mr Ryan said that in the past people had felt they were too old to adopt when they hit 50.
But now more and more older people were offering homes to children.
Mr Ryan said: "By the time a child reaches 18, their adoptive parents should be in their early 60s, so it is possible for a person of 50 to adopt an eight-year-old."
Contact Adoption-Yorkshire on 0808 144 2650 or visit www.adoption-yorkshire.org.uk
