But it has been far from quiet for myself and my team of dedicated supporters and volunteers who worked tirelessly – many of them for free – to launch ABW and our first report, Adopt a Better Way: Not Just for the Children’s Sake.

I have been stunned by people’s generosity, the time and skills they offered, from PR, designers and rebranding professionals, to the stunning posters which were donated and placed around 20 key locations in London.

And a special thanks goes to our lovely Baroness King of Bow, Oona King, patron for ABW who has also adopted three children, and left her busy work and family life to pose with me for a photo shoot at one of the poster sites. We are hoping this will be followed up with some coverage in a national publication.

Although this was a quiet week for media coverage, my concern is that complacency could set in when we desperately need urgent adoption reforms, that everyone will sit back and do nothing because they believe that the government is doing a great job, yet there is still so much that needs to be done.

Here are some of its findings from our study that government needs to be aware of, and this is what continues to drive us on:

Adoption rates are their lowest in ten years
The number of children waiting to be adopted has increased by 15%
A child over the age of 8 has only a 1% chance of being adopted
It takes an average of 2.7 years for a child to be placed with a family after they have been accepted
Compared with 10% of the general population, 45% of children in care are assessed as having a mental health disorder
Twenty seven per cent of children in care have special educational needs compared with 3% of the general child population
Compared to 86% of all 19 year olds, fewer than 40% of children in care in London are in education or employment at 19

We must keep adoption as a high profile topic to remind everyone of the urgent reforms that need to be made, and how we must place the needs of these young children above the bureaucratic system that currently exists.

Given the amount of bandwidth and the media’s insatiable desire for more stories, it’s easy to generate noise. But does that translate into real and meaningful action?

It’s a little misleading to see the government issuing an Adoption Bill rather than what it has done so far which is pronounce ‘guidelines.’ The fact is the laws they are talking about already exists. In 2000 a White Paper  from the Labour party became the Adoption Children’s Act in 2002. A year ago, Tim Loughton issued new guidelines on interracial adoptions.

So what has been achieved so far? Nothing.

The reason is that the government is still standing outside the circle, continuing to pass blame on to local councils and social workers (not always unwarranted) while insisting on not taking actual responsibility. A year ago Tim Loughton told me he was confident this would happen; that we might have measures in place to create, enforce and monitor those Councils and Social Workers and make the guidelines stick.

Eleven months later the prime minister has had to intervene to impose stricter measures. Meanwhile, time has been wasted and let’s be clear here, we’re talking about lives that are not just on hold, but being ruined. The longer a child is in care the less likely he or she will find a stable, loving family home.

Adoption With Humanity continues to call for action and for the government to set up a National Adoption Authority to address the crisis the system is in at present. Not just for the children’s sake. But for all of us because the impact of unloved children is not just personal, it’s social.

It was horrible. It made you feel small. And useless. That’s nothing compared to how it feels to not be adopted. As I write adoption in the UK is in a sadly dysfunctional state. The system is broken and it means that there are thousands of children awaiting adoption- 4000 approximately at present. In the past year, there were less than 300 adoptions.

It’s not for lack of potential parents either. Each year there are hundreds of couples who apply and go through one of the most searching processes just to be allowed to adopt. And often they give up.

Why? Because local authorities and councils are applying rules of their own making, something is wrong. The authority vacuum and the lack of any leadership on the part of the government means that it takes at least 2 years and 7 months for a child to be adopted. But first they have to be removed from the family that can’t or won’t look after them. And that isn’t happening because the system thinks that keeping a child in a family that can’t or won’t love them is better than finding them someone who will.

By the time a child is adopted they may be around four years old.

By the time a child reaches five, it is put into the too hard basket and is less likely to be adopted.

And if you’re a black or mixed race child, forget it. It probably won’t happen.

These children will have suffered first at the hands of a family that neglected them and secondly at the hands of social workers and local authorities who simply have no motivation to place children with new families. Instead they try to keep them in the place that has made their childhood a memorable one for the wrong reasons.

You can make a difference. Please, please respond to this by clicking here and signing our petition and urging your friends and colleagues to do the same.

For their sake.

It is, in fact, both great news to have such support and sad at the same time that it has come to this.

It is also sad that I believe we are unfortunately not getting the support we were hoping for from the government. So far what we have heard from them is mostly talk. And wishy washy attempts to change the mentality of the social workers.

Meantime, we wait to see if another attempt to change attitudes which we will never be able to measure is successful and young lives, thousands of them will hang in the balance.

Hopefully in a few weeks, during National Adoption Week, we will be able to make our voice heard loud and clear. For the children’s sake.

However, it is a day tinged with sadness following the death of one of the greatest men, Steve Jobs, a perfect example of how adoption can work beautifully. Please read about it here.

Yet we are still agonising over whether adoption should or not be first choice for children languishing in care.

This morning I was on the Vanessa Feltz show on BBC radio discussing the merits of mixed race families with her. This afternoon on ITN London Tonight. I was yet again calling on David Cameron to step up to the challenge facing thousands of children in care today. During his Conservative Party conference speech this week, he said “this might not be the biggest issue facing this country but it is the biggest issue facing these children”.

I am asking the father in him to make this his biggest issue to solve. Now. For their sake.

You can help too by signing our e-petition which urges the government to take action.

And then I read today’s stories about adoption falling rates in both The Times and The Guardian.  Just to be clear, it’s not that the number of children in care available for adoption has declined, quite the opposite, it’s on the rise. Neither is it the case that applications to give them a stable loving home are declining. They are also increasing. It’s the system which is wrong. As it is set up today it’s letting down the thousands it’s set up to help. They are shunted around the system for years whilst social workers seek a perfect match for them. Meanwhile perspective parents go through heartbreak because the system makes it absurdly hard for them.

Its is sad. And unfair. And it just shows what what we are up against and why we desperately need to push for change. Now. For the children’s sake.