Authors K Doris Kartinyeri ➝ Doreen Kartinyeri ➝ Roger Dean Kiser ➝ Rudyard Kipling ➝ Jackie Kay (writer) ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows The Law According to Lidia Poet 2023 Lydia Poet (1855-1949) was the first modern Italian woman to qualify as a lawyer. However, she was disbarred from practicing law in Turin (where the story is based) The Netflex series The Law According to Lidia Poet is an Italian crime series about Lidia Poet. Despite her suspension, Lidia Poet (Matilda De Angelis) works on cases with her brother, Enrico (Pier Luigi Pasino). One of the cases (Episode 4) sees Lidia and Enrico represent a woman, Margherita Sangiacomo, who is accused of poisoning a professor. The professor experimented on sex workers and was responsible for the death of Margherita’s mother. After the death of her mother, Margherita grew up in a convent and became an academic. External Website

Children's Fiction My Forever Family: from fostering to adoption Nicky Brookes 2019 Suitable for children from 4 to 10 years old, this story follows Oliver as goes through the process of being in foster care and then being adopted. The book is written by a foster carer who thought this was a gap for the young foster children in her care. External Website

Authors L Comedian, writer, director ➝ Singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist ➝ Radio & TV personality ➝ Back to Top

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles How Being Privately Fostered In White Families Impacted These People's Lives And Identities Ade Onibada 2019 A report on the American practice of fostering black children - privately - to white families. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Predators' Paradise. A Journey of Survival and Resilience Glen Fisher 2019 Predators' Paradise: A Journey of Survival and Resilence is the story of Glen Fisher's childhood in and of boys homes and foster care in Sydney where he was physically and sexually abused. Glen Fisher has overcome a heroin addiction, assisted police in abusers being brought to justice, given evidence at key inquiries, and now provides support for Forgotten Australians and survivors of child sexual abuse. External Website

Authors K From Folktales to Fiction: Orphan Characters in Children’s Literature ➝ Healthy Depictions? Depicting Adoption and Adoption News Events on Broadcast News ➝ Back to Top

Authors E Every one of us has a different story': a historic portrait of care system success ➝ Back to Top

Writers Nina Bawden 1925-2012 Nina Bawden CBE, FRSL, JP (1925–2012) was an English novelist and children’s writer whose work was shaped by her wartime evacuation to Aberdare, Wales, at the age of 14. Raised in Ilford, Essex, by a teacher mother and a father who served in the Royal Marines. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 and the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010, and was one of the few writers both to judge the Booker Prize and be shortlisted for it. She also received the Golden PEN Award. Bawden became known for her sensitive explorations of childhood, displacement, loneliness and resilience. External Website

Authors W On Tracker Tilmouth's Trip to the UN in Geneva ➝ I wanted to write about a care system that didn’t care very much': Kit de Waal on My Name Is Leon ➝ Who We Are ➝ Safer Compared to What? ➝ The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families | The New Yorker ➝ Wolf children in Lithuania: The forgotten orphans of WW2 ➝ Who Cares? Scotland project wins national campaign award ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast An obscenity trial that shocked Victorian Britain History Extra Podcast (Besant) 2024 In this History Extra Podcast, Michael Meyer discusses 1 episode in Annie Besant’s life that brought her both fame and infamy, an ‘obscenity’ trial revolving around her advocation for birth control (with Charles Bradlaugh on Thursday 5 April 1877), https://www.historyextra.com/membership/obscenity-trial-shocked-victorian-britain-podcast-michael-meyer/ External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Foundling (2022) Ann Leary 2022 It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work as a secretary at a remote but scenic institution for mentally disabled women called the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. She’s immediately in awe of her employer—brilliant, genteel Dr. Agnes Vogel. Dr. Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women’s suffrage. Now, at age forty, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary deeply admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women under her care. Soon after she’s hired, Mary learns that a girl from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates. Mary remembers Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes-tempestuous side. Could she be mentally disabled? When Lillian begs Mary to help her escape, alleging the asylum is not what it seems, Mary is faced with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret? Mary’s decision triggers a hair-raising sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all. Inspired by a true story about the author’s grandmother, The Foundling offers a rare look at a shocking chapter of American history. External Website

Authors H No One ➝ The Doll Funeral ➝ A Discovery of Witches ➝ The Secret of Lost Things ➝ Bobbin Up ➝ Fragile ➝ The Woman in Black (novel) ➝ The Shadow of the Lynx ➝ The Subjects ➝ The Devil's Door-Bell ➝ The Alternatives ➝ Mr Splitfoot ➝ How To Stop Time ➝ The Valley ➝ The Watch Tower ➝ Tales of the Otori ➝ Cousin Kate ➝ Quieter Than Killing ➝ Where The Dead Sit Talking ➝ Kirkland Revels ➝ No One Was Watching ➝ The Power of Five ➝ Les Misérables (novel) ➝ Their Eyes Were Watching God ➝ The Foundling (2020) ➝ Florence and Giles ➝ Into the Water ➝ Darling Girls ➝ Someone Else's Skin ➝ Two O'Clock Boy ➝ The Black Opal ➝ Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine ➝ Dog Boy ➝ Cazalet Chronicle Collection ➝ The Bone People ➝ Orphan X (novel series) ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows The Last Tycoon 2016 The Last Tycoon (2016) is an American television series adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald's last novel of the same name. The novel was unfinished and posthumously published in 1941. The series is about film industry based in Hollywood in the 1930's and raises many issues - about fascism, social class, war, race & ethnicity, bullying bosses, blackmail, greed. There is a kinship care family featured throughout. A young man, Max Miner (Mark O'Brien) and his school age sister and brother. They've walked from Olkahoma to Hollywood and Max eventually gets a job on the movie set run by Pat Grady (Kelsey Grammer). A side story is that of one of the cellists, Hannah Taub (Melia Kreiling) who arrives with the Austrian National Orchestra. An orphan and Jewish, she was raised by Catholic nuns. She elects to stay in the US given the rise of fascism in Europe. External Website

Television Shows Great Expectations (adaptation) 2023 This adaptation of Charles Dickens' 13 novel stars Oliva Coleman as Mis Haversham and Fionn Whitbread as Pip. The adaptation was written by Steven Knight who is well known as the creator of Peaky Blinders. External Website

Authors F Martin Figura ➝ Back to Top

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Ellie Simmonds on finding her birth mother: ‘During this journey I cried so much’ by Emine Saner Ellie Simmonds 2023 Eleanor May Simmonds, OBE (born 11 November 1994[1]) is a British former Paralympian swimmer. Simmonds, who has achondroplasia, became interested in swimming at the age of five. She won gold medals in the 100m and 400m freestyle events at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing.She was adopted at 3 months and this article tells of the journey to find her birth mum. External Website

Authors K Jackie Kay on putting her adoption on stage – and getting a pay rise for her successor ➝ Blog: Stigma and the care experience ➝ I felt a strange grief when I found my birth mother': Jackie Kay on The Adoption Papers ➝ The Uses of Orphans ➝ Growing up in care ➝ Lemn Sissay: ‘All care stories should be successful ones’ ➝ Back to Top

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 When sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned, she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature. External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Little Orphan Annie Harold Gray 1924 Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York Daily News. Annie is a ten-year-old orphan. Her distinguishing physical characteristics are auburn curly locks, a red dress and vacant circles for eyes. Her catchphrases are "Gee whiskers" and "Leapin' lizards!" Annie attributes her lasting youthfulness to her birthday being on October 15. Annie is a plucky, generous, compassionate, and optimistic youngster who can hold her own against bullies, and has a strong and intuitive sense of right and wrong. The story starts in a Dickensian orphanage where Annie is routinely abused by the cold and sarcastic matron Miss Asthma, who eventually is replaced by the equally mean Miss Treat (whose name is a play on the word "mistreat"). One day, the wealthy but mean-spirited Mrs. Warbucks takes Annie into her home "on trial". She makes it clear that she does not like Annie and tries to send her back to "the Home", but one of her society friends catches her in the act, and immediately, to her disgust, she changes her mind. Her husband Oliver, who returned from a business trip, instantly develops a paternal affection for Annie and instructs her to address him as "Daddy" but the Warbucks never adopt Annie and her orphan status becomes an important symbol of her resilience. External Website