The BBC is to screen an in-depth look at the problems facing mixed-race children in care and would-be parents of all races who would like to adopt children from ethnic minorities.

Over the past five years 1,285 children have been adopted by British families from abroad, from various countries including China and India.

Yet across the UK hundreds of children of every nationality are waiting months for suitable parents. Mixed-race children can wait up to two years and some never find 'the right' family.

The series Black Britain is screening a special 30-minute documentary to look at the plight of these children and that of black and white parents involved in the adoption process.

It will look at the issues of identity, culture and belonging facing the children and the struggle, hope, disappointment and compromise experienced by prospective adopters.

Black adoptive mother-to-be Clarice, who with husband Mike, are looking to adopt five-year-old Simon says: "I'm black and my husband is white and I feel we are best suited to giving a mixed-race child a sense of his own identity.

"However well-meaning a white woman or white couple is, they can never truly know, from the heart, what it is like to be black."

Single parent Kay, meanwhile, talks about her struggle to adopt a brother and sister: "I think when you have a white mother with a mixed-race child the fear is that the child will look at the white mother and say to themselves I don't quite understand how I relate to this person."

The programme also looks at the experience that faced Natalie - a woman with a mixture of six different nationalities - who was told by social workers they could never find children with 'the right racial match for her'.

"I found myself in a no man's land, so mixed in the eyes of the people I was talking to that they didn't even want to consider me as a human being capable of mothering a child."

Meanwhile, Angela and Paul, a mixed-race brother and sister who have been in care most of their young lives and are still waiting for the 'right family'.

New legislation, published this week is aiming to help speed up the adoption process so that children do not drift in care waiting for the perfect matched family.

But will it help breakdown a culture that still appears to exist in some local authorities that dictates that only the perfect match is the right match?

All Mixed Up is be shown on BB2 at 7.30pm on Monday.

Meanwhile, over on Channel 5 on Tuesday at 1pm followers of the bizarre case of the internet twins adoption saga will be able to catch up with the latest developments on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

For those with cable TV, the Health Matters programme, on a new digital Wellbeing channel, available on BSkyB, OnDigital and digital cable, will look at motherhood all next week with Tuesday's programme focusing on an adopted child who got in touch with her natural mother.