Blogs/Web Pages/Articles A digital archive of care experienced people in fiction, on screen and in real life IMO 2021 Care experienced journalist Sophia Hall spoke to Rosie Canning and Dee Michell, Founders of Care Experience and Culture about their care experienced led project and why they do what they do. External Website

Films/Videos Jojo Rabbitt 2019 Jojo Betzlers is a member of Hitler Youth during the latter stages of WWII. His pro-Nazi views are challenged when he finds out that his mother has a teenage Jewish girl in hiding upstairs. The film was inspired by the 2019 book by Christine Leunens, Caging Skies. External Website

Films/Videos Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story 2022 During the 2 part documentary (on Netflix) Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, Welsh journalist Meirion Jones, speaks of being concerned as a small child at the free access Jimmy Savile had to Duncroft Approved School in Surrey. He would visit his aunt there; she was the Head of the School which housed girls aged between 15 & 17 who were regarded as "emotionally disturbed". Surrey police in 2015 said there were 46 sexual assaults by Savile of 22 of those girls while Savile was visiting there. There are other allegations of Savile sexually abusing children in other children's homes too. External Website

Radio & Podcast Dickens vs Tolstoy Intelligence Squared 2023 This event by Intelligence Squared is an attempt to decide who is the greatest novelist—Charles Dickens (1812-1870) or Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)? Both Dickens and Tolstoy had experiences of displacement from family as children. Dickens was left in a foster care situation while his father was in debtors’ prison, and Tolstoy was orphaned at age 9. John Mullan argues for Dickens and Simon Schama for Tolstoy. The debate is augmented by a cast of actors who read from both authors’ works. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Glyph Percival Everett 1999 Glyph (1999) is novel by Percival Everett which features a displaced child. The narrator of Glyph is a 4-year-old boy, Ralph. By the time he is only 10 months old, Ralph is already reading books on philosophy, science and maths. He refuses to speak but can communicate by writing notes. After his parents take Ralph to see a child psychologist, the psychologist abducts Ralph and has him removed to a lab where she can study the baby. There are 2 more abductions in store for Ralph before he is retrieved by his mother. External Website

Children's Fiction The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling 1894 The tales in the book (as well as those in The Second Jungle Book, which followed in 1895 and includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to teach moral lessons. A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing Kipling's own childhood. Mowgli was lost by his parents as a baby in the Indian jungle during a tiger attack, he is adopted by the Wolf Mother, Raksha and Father Wolf, who call him Mowgli (frog) because of his lack of fur and his refusal to sit still. Shere Khan the tiger demands that they give him the baby but the wolves refuse. Mowgli grows up with the pack, hunting with his brother wolves. In the pack, Mowgli learns he is able to stare down any wolf, and his unique ability to remove the painful thorns from the paws of his brothers is deeply appreciated as well. External Website

Films/Videos Wuthering Heights (2026 film) 2026 Wuthering Heights (1847) is the only novel by English writer Emily Bronte. The story features an orphan, Heathcliff, who is brought into the family of Mr Earnshaw & is treated as Earnshaw’s favourite. The novel has been adapted for film & television many times, the earliest being a film in 1920 directed by AV. Bramble. The first colour version of a film adaptation appeared in 1970 starring Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff. The most recent 2026 film adaptation has been written & directed by English filmmaker Emerald Fennell. It stars Australian Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and another Australian, Jacob Elordi, as Heathcliff. External Website

Activists Founder of the Adoptee Mentoring Society Angela Tucker 2022 In 2013, Angela Tucker located her biological parents. Using the film she had taken during the reunion, her husband Bryan Tucker created CLOSURE which streamed on Hulu in 2014, on Netflix from 2015 through to 2017 and on Amazon Prime from 2016 until 2021. After touring with CLOSURE in 2013, Angela began a video series called The Adopted Life Episodes in which teenage transracial adoptee talk about their experiences. She launched a podcast called The Adoptee Next Door and in 2022 founded the Adoptee Mentoring Society, a non-profit focuses on adoptees mentoring adoptees. In 2023, Tucker published You Should Be Grateful (2023) which centres on the experiences of adoptees, how they are often told they should be grateful, and how the insistence they be grateful can be silencing. External Website

Writers Wayne Dyer 1940-2015 Wayne Dyer (1940-2015) was an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development. He was born in Detroit, Michigan and spent much of his childhood in orphanages and foster care after his alcoholic father abandoned the family of three boys. Dyer was first in his family to go to university and taught for a while at St. John's University in New York. His lectures were popular and he was approached to document his theories. Hence his first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), which hit the best seller lists. Dyer quit his academic career to write psychology books for the self-help market, later incorporating spirituality into his thinking as well. He published more than 30 books for adults, and 6 books for children. External Website

Television Shows Sanditon 2019 Sanditon, a British historical drama based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen, is a salient reminder that the age of adulthood has varied over time. In Sanditon, there are 2 'wards' or young women under the guardianship of older people. Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky) is declared by Lady Denham (Anne Reid) to be her ward in the opening episode. There is much more discussion about Sidney Parker (Theo James) being the legal guardian for 19-year-old Georgiana Lambe. During the Regency Era, the period in which Sanditon is set, the 'age of majority' was 21. It reduced to 18 in 1970 in England. External Website

Non Fiction Connecting with Young People in Trouble: Risk, Relationships and Lived Experience Andi Brierley 2021 In this book, Andi Brierley - who has lived experience of both the care and juvenile justice systems, critiques the UK youth justice system, arguing that the way things are done now often causes more harm than good. Instead, he says, his PACT (presence, attunement, connect & trust) approach is far more effective. External Website

Films/Videos Blonde 2022 Blonde (2022) is based on Joyce Carol Oates' 2000 novel of the same name and tells the story of Marilyn Monroe's difficult childhood and rise to fame. Reviews have been mixed, with Mark Kermode (The Guardian) at one end of the spectrum describing it as "a gothic melodrama, a fever dream of childhood trauma" while at the other end, Joyce Carol Oates was reportedly delighted with it. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: class prejudices, the convict stain and a corpse-bride The Conversation ➝ Care leaver Kerry Littleford: 'I want to give opportunities to people who haven’t had them' The Guardian ➝ Simone Biles becomes youngest living person to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom Independent ➝ The people making a difference: the woman who created a community for fellow adult adoptees The Guardian ➝ How Two Jewish Kids in 1930s Cleveland Altered the Course of American Pop Culture Literary Hub ➝ Simone Biles' scathing testimony was a warning about power and complicity MSNBC ➝ Former Cranbrook student says he was sexually abused at private Sydney boys' school ABC News ➝ Sir Mo Farah reveals he was trafficked to the UK as a child BBC News ➝ Orphans in Kids' Movies: Let's Stop Going There Jeff Alexander ➝ Greece Simplifies Citizenship Restoration Schengen News ➝ Christian Bale unveils plans to build 12 foster homes in California Christian Bale ➝ Ward of the State; The Gap in Ella Fitzgerald's Life Nina Bernstein ➝ The West African children brought up by white foster families in the English countryside Symeon Brown ➝ Like Jane Eyre, I’ve been seen as unconventional and abnormal. I’m autistic – is she too? The Conversation ➝ Almost 70 mass unmarked child graves discovered by ITV News investigation into mother and baby homes Sarah Corker ➝ Adoption support charity shreds 'irreplaceable' files to save space BBC ➝ Indian orphans weave award-winning movie magic Sujoy Dhar ➝ Hutchinson Heinemann signs Fagan's 'extraordinary' memoir in two-book deal Jenni Fagan ➝ Barrister and Chair of Independent Enquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Ivor Frank ➝ Denmark says sorry to children of failed experiment Inuit Greenlander ➝ George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father Simon Hattenstone ➝ Holidays in hell: summer camp with Russia’s forgotten children The Guardian ➝ Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later Literary Hub ➝ The Free State’s Forgotten Children Rupture Magazine ➝ ‘I cried, I cried. I had no one’: the brutal child kidnappings that shamed Belgian Congo The Guardian ➝ Campaigning on Foster Youth Backstory, Rick Jackson Heads To a Runoff as Georgia Governor’s Race Tightens The Imprint ➝ "Malcolm Still Speaks." Ibram X. Kendi on George Breitman and the Enduring Legacy of Malcolm X. Literary Hub (Malcolm X) ➝ An evening with your life your story Amanda Knowles ➝ The Wild Wist The Monthly ➝ Sweden urged to ban international adoption after damning inquiry findings The Guardian ➝ Gabriel Garcia Marquez's last novel The Conversation (Marquez) ➝ Khelsi Price Khelsi Price ➝ Katherine Rundell's top 10 orphans Katherine Rundell ➝ Children in need of ‘rescuing’: challenging the myths at the heart of the global adoption industry The Conversation ➝ Ellie Simmonds on finding her birth mother: ‘During this journey I cried so much’ by Emine Saner Ellie Simmonds ➝ ‘Designed to tear families apart’: a shocking film exposes abuse and infanticide The Guardian ➝ How Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle cracked the case of the tuberculosis 'remedy' PBS NEWS ➝ Baby stolen during Argentina's military rule found after 48 years BBC ➝ Freddie Figgers: The millionaire tech inventor who was 'thrown away' as a baby Lucy Wallis ➝ Prince Philip: A turbulent childhood stalked by exile, mental illness and death Prince Philip ➝ My mum has bipolar. My dad was a recovering alcoholic.' - Leeds City Council chief exec Tom Riordan on why we need to open up about mental illness Yorkshire Evening Post ➝ How Superman Became a Christ-Like Figure in American Culture Literary Hub ➝ Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey Restless ➝ Living in Adoption's Emotional Aftermath The New Yorker ➝ Every one of us has a different story': a historic portrait of care system success The Guardian ➝ Kids Were Marched Everywhere. This was a Concentration Camp' RolingStone ➝ Being homeless felt inevitable': after years in care, I was living in a tent. Who was to blame? The Guardian ➝ Korean-born Australian woman overturns adoption as federal inquiry launched ABC News ➝ Angelina Jolie's casting game with Cambodian orphans sparks outrage Harriet Alexander ➝ Sister Kate's site to become home to Perth's first Aboriginal aged care facility ABC News ➝ The love that helped me beat hell of foster care Paul Barber (actor) ➝ When Lucy O'Flaherty took up shoemaking she didn't know it was part of her heritage Fiona Blackwood ➝ Torn between her African and English mums: Lola (Jaye) had an idyllic childhood - until the day social workers knocked at the door Amanda Cable ➝ Adopted and Locked Away: Kids promised ‘forever homes’ instead confined in for-profit institutions Associated Press ➝ ‘I lived in a state of terror’: Patricia Cornwell on childhood trauma, her new novel and the search for Bigfoot The Guardian - Patricia Cornwell ➝ MP David Wilkins powerful maiden speech as survivor of child sexual abuse QNews ➝ The nature boy who could Sydney Morning Herald ➝ America's Riches School Serves Low-Income Kids. Propublica ➝ Thousands of children adopted by Americans are without citizenship. Congress is unwilling to act ABC News (USA) ➝ Guatemala’s baby brokers: how thousands of children were stolen for adoption The Guardian Long Read ➝ The Zombies Singer Colin Blunstone Learned His Aunt Was His Mom. She Bared Her Soul to Him Right Before Dying Jeremy Helligar ➝ Case Shined First Light on Abuse of Children The New York Times ➝ Shaken by their pasts, inter-country adoptees demand federal government broaden inquiry scope ABC News ➝ ‘This book kept me alive’: Jenni Fagan on writing a memoir of her childhood in care The Guardian ➝ Care Experienced student behind new John Lewis Partnership brand: Made with Care John Lewis ➝ ‘Next time bring my daughter’: Barbara Demick reunited a Chinese family with the stolen ‘missing twin’ adopted in the US The Conversation ➝ Remembering the original Superman Aljazeera ➝ Children evacuated during Vietnam War's Operation Babylift are on a quest to find their families ABC News (Australia) ➝ Seoul Searching ABC News ➝ Smell like a woman, not a rose’: Chanel No. 5 100 years on, an iconic fragrance born from an orphanage Gary Mortimer ➝ Foster families who ignore race are participating in a pernicious form of racism Derek Owusu ➝ Tasmania's connection to author Joseph Conrad remembered on anniversary of his death Carol Raabus ➝ The Real Lord of the Flies The Guardian ➝ Border officers saw a couple behaving oddly with a baby - and uncovered a mystery BBC ➝ Peter Mullan’s Orphans find a new ‘home’ Kenny Smith ➝ Stolen Generations survivor urges governments to act in the lead-up to Sorry Day ABC News ➝ UK Government's 2010 Apology to Former Child Migrants Child Migrants Trust ➝ Natalia Grace's sad and bizarre adoption story gets the TV treatment ABC News (Australia) ➝ Mother and Baby Homes - Sorting the 'Sinful from the Righteous' Katherine Waugh ➝ Government expresses 'regret', will compensate for disappeared Yemenite children The Times of Israel ➝ Meera Mistry Meera Mistry ➝ I was a ward of the state. The horrors of the Parramatta Girls' Home were legendary The Conversation (Parramatta) ➝ The Pale Blue Eye The Conversation ➝ How Horseback Riding Helped Barbara Stanwyck Rise Above Hollywood Misogyny Literary Hub ➝ Intelligent women are dangerous, no?’ Samantha Morton on sexism, success and survival The Guardian ➝ Who is Ronnie Archer Morgan? Homes & Antiques ➝ The care leaver who made a number one album BBC News ➝ The Show Must Go On: On Billie Holiday's Last Live Performance Literary Hub (Billie Holliday) ➝ Statues of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter erected at historical Aboriginal meeting place ABC News (Australia) ➝ How Syria's dictatorship used a global child welfare charity to 'disappear' children Haya Al Badarneh & Jess Kelly ➝ I'll never know where I'm from': plight of the adopted children of Bangladesh's Birangona women Thaslima Begum, Rosie Swash ➝ The Orphanage review – terrific tale of an Afghan teen in trouble Peter Bradshaw ➝ After I was taken off my birth parents, my foster carers became the family I needed Kirsty Capes ➝ FamilyConnect Family ➝ The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson review – an elegant retelling of Shakespeare Sarah Crown ➝ “Stolen Generations never ended”: Worsening outcomes for Indigenous communities driven by system NIT National Indigenous Times ➝ Jenni Fagan’s ‘visceral’ memoir of growing up in care wins Gordon Burn prize The Guardian ➝ Peter Norris grew up on the run with his bank-robber dad. He refuses to be defined by his past ABC News (Australia) ➝ Jane Hansen Prize Frank Golding ➝ Care Leavers Facing ‘Vile’ Assessments in Postcode Lottery when Becoming Mothers Sophia Alexandra Hall ➝ Alone in the world | The Spectator Philip Hensher ➝ I was taken into care at two years old – what really happened? Kerry Hudson ➝ She knocked on the door and the nun said her son was gone' - the story of the forgotten foster children The Journal ➝ Belgium found guilty of crimes against humanity in colonial Congo The Guardian ➝ ABC's Patricia Karvelas on her experience of Parliament's toxic 'sexist' culture and how a childhood tragedy shaped her. Natasha Johnson ➝ Care leavers tell stories in 'pain into power' art BBC News (Manchester, UK) ➝ Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Home survivors mark 100 years as push continues for museum ABC News ➝ Alma's Not Normal review – this bleak, brilliant comedy is far from ordinary Lucy Mangan ➝ Meet Karen Menzies, Australia's first Indigenous Matilda Karen Menzies ➝ Orphans Making It in the World Noel Murray ➝ A novel insight into child abuse The Guardian ➝ Chilean mother reunites with her twin daughters for the first time in 45 years CNN ➝ ‘The hardest thing is to forgive yourself’: actor Samantha Morton and writer Jenni Fagan on the trauma of growing up in care The Guardian ➝ A Bengali Pope in Merrie England The Telegraph online ➝ Our babies were taken after 'biased' parenting test - now we're fighting to get them back BBC News ➝ The Vatican's Children 60 Minutes ➝ Biden issues 'long overdue' apology for federal Indigenous boarding schools PBS NewsHour ➝ Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: Vanity Fair ➝ BBC Teach - History KS3 / GCSE: Small Axe - Alex Wheatle and the Brixton Uprising Alex Wheatle ➝ The One Percent compilation Inspired Youth ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Scrooge 1951 Care Experienced writer, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) had significant influence on how Christmas is celebrated in the West. Scrooge (A Christmas Carol in U.S.) 1951 British Christmas fantasy drama film. Starrign Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, An adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843). On Christmas Eve 1843, Scrooge tells two businessmen that he has no intention of celebrating Christmas. At his workplace, he refuses to donate to two men collecting for the poor. His nephew, Fred, invites him to dinner the next day, but Scrooge refuses, disparaging Fred for having married against his will. Scrooge reluctantly gives his poor clerk Bob Cratchit a paid holiday, but expects him back to work earlier the next day. Scrooge returns home and sees the door-knocker transform into the face of his long-dead partner, Jacob Marley. Inside the house, Jacob Marley appears as a ghost before Scrooge, warning that he must repent or suffer being forever bound in chains after death. He further warns Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits; the first will arrive at one o'clock. Frightened by the visitation, Scrooge takes refuge in his bed. There have been many adaptations of A Christmas Carol as far back as 1901 with the lates in 2021. External Website

Authors B Jamie Baulch ➝ Olympic Medallist ➝ Back to Top

Writers J.M. Barrie Significant Scottish playwright and novelist, James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) was in kinship care during his childhood. James Matthew Barrie was the 2nd youngest child of Margaret and David Barrie who, at the time of James’ birth, lived in a small cottage in Kirriemuire in the burg of Angus with their 6 children; the oldest, 18 year old Alick, was away studying at Aberdeen University. When James was 7, his 14-year-old brother, David, died. Faced with rejection by his grief-stricken mother, biographer Lisa Chaney argues that Jamie coped by telling stories and conducting performances. In August 1868, 8-year-old Jamie travelled by train by himself to Glasgow (a distance of about 158 km) where Alick was teaching and his sister Mary Ann was keeping house. The motive was to expand Jamie’s outlook and improve his education. Despite being well cared for, the boy was often homesick and lonely. Jamie returned to live with his family when he was about 10 as his brother was training to become a school inspector and did not have time to care for the boy. When Alick took up a post as an inspector for schools in the district of Dumfries (about 261 km south west of Kirriemuire), he argued that Jamie would be better off at Dumfries Academy and Jamie moved in with Alick and Mary Ann again. On finishing at Dumfries Academy, 18-year-old Jamie returned to his parents’ home in Kirriemuire before attending the University of Edinburgh for 4 yeas. In 1885, and against the advice of his family, James Barrie set off for London. Based in Bloomsbury, Barrie earned (at first) a modest living as a freelance journalist, writing for various periodicals and gradually making a name for himself. He published his first novel, Better Dead, in 1987. By 1888, Barrie had won the support of three influential magazine editors and was the author of 3 novels. James Barrie married Mary Ansell (1861-1950) in 1894 and around 3 years later, while walking the family dog, Barrie met the Llewelyn-Davis family. As Barrie invented stories to entertain the 5 Llewelyn-Davis boys, he developed the character of Peter Pan. The first appearance of Peter Pan was in The Little White Bird in 1901, followed by the stage play, Peter Pan, in 1904. After Arthur (1863-1907) and Sylvia (1866-1910) died, Barrie became one of the guardians of the 5 boys. External Website

Authors S The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat ➝ The Case of Mary Bell ➝ The Altar Boys ➝ Motherless Child: The Definitive Biography of Eric Clapton: ➝ The House on Teacher's Lane ➝ Women of Power: The Life and Times of Catherine de' Medici ➝ Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The story of Mary Bell ➝ Kerry Stokes: Self-Made Man ➝ An Uncontrollable Child ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Frozen 2013 Frozen (2013) is an American animated musical loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen (1844). The film follows Anna (Kristen Bell), the princess of Arendelle, who tries to find her estranged sister Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel). Accompanying Anna is the iceman Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), the snowman Olaf (Josh Gad) & Kristoff’s reindeer Sven (Frank Welker). Elsa & Anna have been separated since Elsa accidentally injures Anna with her powers. King Agnarr (Maurice LaMarche) & Queen Iduna (Jennifer Lee), die in a shipwreck early in the film. Elsa was 18 years old & Anna 15 at the time. External Website

Television Shows A Gentleman in Moscow (TV series) 2024 A Gentleman in Moscow (2024) is a British historical drama based on the eponymous novel by American writer Amor Towles The protagonist Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor) was orphaned as a boy. As a young man he is tried by the Bolsheviks in 1922 and sentenced to house arrest. Now a ‘Former Person’, he lives in the attic of a hotel Over the years Rostov makes friends amongst the servants and some of the hotel's regulars, even becoming a waiter. Then in 1938 he is left in temporary care of Sofia (Beau Gadsdon), a young child. For the rest of the story he takes on the role of her parent. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Meet Karen Menzies, Australia's first Indigenous Matilda Karen Menzies 2021 Karen Menzies was taken from her parents when she was an eight month old baby and made a ward of the state. She was raised by a loving non-Aboriginal family in Sydney, who thought they had adopted her, but when she was 13, Karen ended up in institutions, including a girls' home in suburban Newcastle where she was encouraged to play soccer. Karen didn't find out about her Aboriginal heritage until she was 16. When she was selected to play soccer for Australia in 1983, she was the first Indigenous woman to do so. Karen is now a lecturer at the University of Newcastle and is a member of Football Australia's first Indigenous Advisory Group. External Website