Television Shows McDonald & Dodds 2020 McDonald & Dodds (2020-2024) is a British crime drama set in Bath, Somerset. Tala Gouveia stars as DCI Lauren McDonald, a former Metropolitan Police investigator who teams up with DS Dodds (Jason Watkins) to solve murders. DS Dodds was raised in kinship care with his aunt from around the age of 5. There are also 2 episodes with other Care Experienced Characters in the 1st 3 seasons. In Series 1, Ep1, the victim of murder is a man who was raised in the care system. In Series 3, Ep3, a young man (not previously displaced from his parents) who was imprisoned at the age of 16 for 5 years for theft becomes a serial killer after he is released. External Website

Television Shows High Country 2024 High Country (2024) is an Australian police procedural set in the magnificent Victorian Alps region in the small town of Jamieson. Sergeant Andra Whitford, known as Andie (Leah Purcell), is transferred from Melbourne to the town of Brokenridge in the Victoria High Country (as the Victorian Alps is also known). When she begins to investigate 5 missing people, she realises the disappearances might be part of a pattern. *Spoiler alert* At the heart of the case is baby trafficking dating back to the 1970s External Website

Non Fiction Thomas Coram, Gent.: 1668-1751 Gillian Wagner 2015 Thomas Coram is forever identified with the foundling hospital he established in 1739. His mother died when he was 3 years old and he was sent to sea aged 11 so he had much in common with the abandoned children he helped save and give a home to. A strong believer in women's rights and equal opportunities for girls, he believed that it was due to the unique support of a group of aristocratic women - twenty-one ladies of quality and distinction - that he was granted a royal charter for his foundling hospital. Within two years of the establishment of the hospital, Coram fell out with the governors and was ejected from the governing body. His last years were clouded by disagreements and poverty, but a pension, granted in 1749, finally signalled recognition of his achievements. He died in 1751 and was buried in the chapel of his hospital. External Website

Performing Arts Blues singer, songwriter, musician Muddy Waters Muddy Waters (1913-1983) was the professional name of McKinley Morganfield, a singer-songwriter in the Blues tradition. He was born in the Mississipp Delta to Berta Grant and Ollie Morganfield. Berta died soon after McKinley was born and the boy was raised in kinship care with his grandmother, Della Grant, on the Stovall cotton plantation. Delta apparently nicknamed him "Muddy" because he liked playing the mud. As a child, Muddy sang in church. He bought his first guitar when he was 17 and started playing locally. By his late 20s he was able to earn a partial income this way. Waters' first recording was done by a professor from Fisk University in Nashville. The young man then moved to Chicago, putting together a band and he was a national blues star during the 1950s. Then, during the 1960s, he began playing for a new audience of white people and rocks bands like the Rolling Stones made Muddy Waters' music known internationally. External Website

Radio & Podcast Jenni Fagan Take Four Books 2026 Scottish writer Jenni Fagan (b. 1977) was in the Scottish Local Authority care system as a child. She was adopted twice & moved 26 times. In this episode of the BBC’s Take Four Books, Jenni Fagan talks to host James Crawford about her new novel, The Delusions, & about her childhood & some of her literary influences. She also reads from the work of Jeanette Winterson. External Website

Children's Fiction The Circus is Coming Noel Streatfeild 1938 The Circus is Coming by Noel Streatfeild tells the story of 11-year-old Santa and her 12-year-old brother Peter, who face the threat of being sent to separate orphanages after the death of their strict, snobbish aunt. Determined to stay together, they set out to find their mysterious Uncle Gus, who travels with Cob’s Circus. The novel explores themes of orphanhood, the search for belonging, and the ways children adapt to alternative forms of family. External Website

Poets Tychique Ciamala Tychique Ciamala Tychique Ciamala was in care from the age of 15 and moved into semi independent when he was 18. He then moved into full independent living when he was 22. Tychique was on his council's youth panel for 3 years and he volunteers with their Virtual Schools. Virtual schools work with children and young people in care and education. Since 2015 Ty has been writing spoken word poetry. External Website

Television Shows This is Us 2016 This Is Us is an American family drama. The series follows the lives and families of two parents, and their three children, in several different time frames. It includes the story of Randall who was adopted at birth by a white couple. In Season 2, Deja was introduced. Deja has been in and out of the foster care system, but comes to live with Randall and his wife and they adopt her. External Website

Television Shows Dexter: Original Sin 2024 Dexter: Original Sin (2024) is a prequel to the Dexter (2006-2013) series. The series has vigilante killer Dexter Morgan thinking back to 1991 with Patrick Gibson as Dexter and Christian Slater as his adoptive father and homicide detective at the Miami-Metro Police Department. Dexter Morgan was a 20 year old graduate from the University of Miami in 1991 and begins work as a paid intern at the local police department. The series reaffirms what fans would already know, that it was his adoptive father who helps Dexter channel is “Dark Passenger”. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles After I was taken off my birth parents, my foster carers became the family I needed Kirsty Capes 2022 ‘You and your family look so alike.’ We get this a lot – especially myself, my mum and my sister. All of us are under five feet two inches, with similar builds, small noses and dark hair. Whenever we get a comment like this, we exchange a knowing smile. My mum and sister are related to one another by blood, but I don’t share a single data point of DNA with either of them. External Website

Behind the Scenes Peter Llewelyn Davies English publisher and a muse for J.M. Barrie, Peter Llewelyn Davies (1897-1960), was in foster care. Peter Llewelyn Davies was the middle of 5 boys born to Sylvia du Maurier and Arthur Llewelyn Davies. In 1897, celebrated writer J.M. Barrie, met the eldest 3 Davies boys—George, then 4, 3-year-old Jack and baby Peter in his pram - while walking his dog in the local park, and the 4 became good friends. Later that year, Barrie met the boys’ parents and they became friends too. In 1907, Arthur Davies died of cancer. In 1910 Sylvia also died of cancer. Barrie then “informally adopted” or fostered the 5 boys, which included the youngest, Michael and Nicolas. At 17 Peter joined up and served in the British Army, service for which he received a Military Cross. 6 years after the war ended, Peter Davies, with Barrie’s help, set up as a publisher and made his business a success. A majority share of Peter Davies Ltd was bought by William Heinemann in 1937. Heinemann Ltd fully incorporated Peter Davies Ltd in 1977. Peter Davies killed himself in 1960. By then he was in his early 60s and chronically depressed. Davies’ eldest son, Ruthven, believed that his father felt exploited by Barrie and resented not being included in Barrie’s will when he died in 1937. External Website

Films/Videos Never Let Me Go (film) 2010 Based on the 2005 novel by Kasuo Ishiguro, the film tells the story of orphan children raised exclusively in a boarding school or children's home and whose task in life is to provide organs for members of the community the children rarely if ever see. External Website

Authors W Care Left Me ➝ Poems From a Runaway. A true story ➝ Blackberry's Child ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Lord of the flies (film) 1990 Since 1954, the Lord of the Flies (1954) novel - about the displacement of a group of British school boys being evacuated during war - has been adapted for other mediums. For example, it has been adapted for film 3 times, the most recent being in 1990. In the 1990 adaptation, it is an aircraft carrying 24 American military school cadet boys whose displacement occurs when their place crashes onto an uninhabited jungle island in the Pacific Ocean. The pilot of the plane and only adult survivor is seriously injured and delirious. First, in 1963 and directed by Peter Brook. Second, in 1975 a Filipino film Alkitrang Dugo was directed by Lupita Concio. Third, in 1990 the adaptation was directed by Harry Hook. The film was not a box office success. External Website

Television Shows The Good Witch's Gift 2020 The Good Witch's Gift premiered on November 13, 2010 and is the third installment in the Hallmark Channel's series of The Good Witch television films, the first of which premiered on the Hallmark Channel on January 19, 2008. The film stars Catherine Bell as Cassandra "Cassie" Nightingale whose parents died when she was a child and who grows up in the US foster care system. Cassie became accustomed to travelling and moving as she was passed through foster homes. She ran away and continued travelling the world and learning about many different cultures, all the while honing her special gifts. Cassie is psychic and uses her intuition (and at times, a little magic) for good reasons. She always has a few tricks up her sleeve but is surprised when her handsome sweetheart, Police Chief Jake Russell, proposes. Getting into the spirit of the season, they set their wedding date for Christmas Eve--only six days away! As the two hurry to plan the wedding, trouble clouds their happiness when a mysterious man from Jake's past returns to town. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Strangers Katherena Vermette 2021 Cedar has nearly forgotten what her family looks like. Phoenix has nearly forgotten what freedom feels like. And Elsie has nearly given up hope. Nearly. After time spent in foster homes, Cedar goes to live with her estranged father. Although she grapples with the pain of being separated from her mother, Elsie, and sister, Phoenix, she’s hoping for a new chapter in her life, only to find herself once again in a strange house surrounded by strangers. From a youth detention centre, Phoenix gives birth to a baby she’ll never get to raise and tries to forgive herself for all the harm she’s caused (while wondering if she even should). Elsie, struggling with addiction and determined to turn her life around, is buoyed by the idea of being reunited with her daughters and strives to be someone they can depend on, unlike her own distant mother. These are the Strangers, each haunted in her own way. Between flickering moments of warmth and support, the women diverge and reconnect, fighting to survive in a fractured system that pretends to offer success but expects them to fail. Facing the distinct blade of racism from those they trusted most, they urge one another to move through the darkness, all the while wondering if they’ll ever emerge safely on the other side. External Website

Performing Arts Singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader James Brown James Joseph Brown (1933 – 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. James Brown was born to Joe Brown and Susie Behling, an impoverished couple living in Barnwell, South Carolina. When James was four, his mother left. Joe looked after James, although when he had “road work or picked vegetables on a farm”, James would be cared by “aunts or one of Joe’s girlfriends”. In the late 1930s (it’s not clear if it was 1938 or 1939), Joe, James and Joe’s aunt, Minnie Walker, walked 72km north-west to Augusta, Georgia. Initially the three moved into a house with relatives in a neighbourhood called ‘the Terry’ which housed 30% of Augusta’s black population. But when he was about nine, James was left with Aunt Honey who beat her nephew. In 1949, when he was sixteen, James Brown was arrested for stealing cars. Without legal representation, the boy was sentenced to between 8 and 16 years of incarceration, but only served three years. He was initially remanded to an adult prison but later shifted to the Alto Reform School. It was in reform school that Brown formed a gospel which he later secularized and called the Flames. Little Richard spruiked the group and Brown’s first recording “Please, Please, Please” in 1956, and Brown’s career was on its way. James Brown went on to become known as the Godfather of Soul. His recordings during the 1960s were associated with the civil rights movement and during the 1980s he appeared in several films. External Website

Sport Richie Bray Richie Bray Aboriginal Australian footballer Richie Bray (c. 1938 - 2017) was a member of the Stolen Generations, Richie Bray lived in a group home, St Francis House, at Semaphore in South Australia. He went on to play Australian Rules Football for the Port Adelaide football club, in the state competition between 1959 and 1965. External Website

Writers Deidre Michell Deidre (Dee) Michell was born in 1956. She, along with her 5 siblings, was made a Ward of the South Australian State in 1960. Deidre was in foster care for 15 years with one of her sisters; her other siblings she did not see for 30 years. Deidre worked as an administrator for a multi-national corporation before going to university in her 40s, when she combined study with primary care for her three children. Deidre began publishing in academic journals in 2000 and from 2003 has worked in the university sector. She was awarded a PhD in 2008 and appointed as Lecturer at the University of Adelaide in 2011. External Website

Writers Charles Ignatius Sancho Charles Ignatius Sancho (c1729-1780) was born on a slave ship in the Atlantic After he was orphaned at the age 2 he was taken from New Granada to England where he was "gifted" to 3 sisters. He stayed with the sisters for 18 years, but then ran away, not wanting to be a servant. Sancho was taken in by John Montagu who taught the young man to read. He worked as a butler in the household before leaving to set up in business as a shopkeeper. while beginning a career as a writer. He became involved in the abolitionist movement and wrote to Laurence Sterne, trying to encourage him to join the movement. He write 2 plays, a variety of essays, and at least one book, A Theory of Music. External Website