The award-winning show traces and reunites families who have been apart for most of their lives.
Series three features eight heart-warming new episodes, helping mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters and brothers find the loved ones they have been desperately trying to find.
Taking on the most challenging and unpredictable searches yet Long Lost Family journeys across the world to bring families together – from Spain and Northern Ireland to New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and America. With the help and support of Davina and Nicky, each relative is guided and supported through the emotional and heart-rending process of tracing their long-lost loved ones.
Davina said: “I love watching this series as it goes out on telly because I finally get a chance to have a really good weep – whilst filming I have to really hold it in. Our contributors share their amazing stories and heart-breaking losses and it’s such an honour to be part of the programme that helps them find resolution.”
Nicky added: “In this third series we’ve taken on some of the most difficult and complex searches yet. We’re telling some truly emotional tales but also tales with incredible twists which have taken us to the other side of the planet looking for people’s long lost families.”
In each episode ITV viewers are taken on a moving journey, from the revealing moment relatives are told their loved one has been traced, to the raw moment of the reunion which, in many cases, would only ever have happened in their wildest dreams. Long Lost Family explores the background and social context of each family’s estrangement and why it occurred.
Many of the people featured in the series were adopted or gave children up for adoption when they were younger. During production of Long Lost Family, producers Wall to Wall worked closely with adoption expert Ariel Bruce, a Registered Independent Social Worker who specialises in tracing people affected by adoption. She also helps to trace people who have lost touch as a result of emigration, divorce or other family separations. The protocol devised and worked to throughout the making of Long Lost Family complied with current adoption legislation and was modelled on the protocols and best practice that leading Ofsted-inspected adoption support agencies work to when searching for, contacting, reuniting and supporting adopted people and birth relatives.
Adoption is personal territory for Nicky Campbell, who was adopted as a child, before searching for and being reunited with his birth mother and father as an adult. Nicky is a patron of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.
