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Actors Adam Beach Adam Beach (born November 11, 1972) is an Aboriginal Canadian actor. Adam Beach was born on the Dog Creek Reserve near Ashern in Manitoba, Canada. Adam’s parents, Sally and Dennis Beach, died within forty-one days of each other. Adam and his brothers first went to live in Winnipeg with their paternal aunt. Five years later, they began living their paternal uncle, Chris Beach. Adam Beach became interested in drama during High School and he didn’t complete his final year. However, he did find work in film and television. Most recently he has starred in Hostiles (2017) as Black Hawk, and the Netflix original film, Juanita (2019) as Jess Gardiner. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Seven Sisters Alex Wheatle 2003 Inspired by personal experience, the Seven Sisters explores the lives of children in care. Glenroy, Bullett, Curvis and Carlton – the best of friends, as tight as blood brothers. They all live in Pinewood Oaks, a home for orphans and children in care, besides the great forest named after the legend of the Seven Sisters. At the home they are looked after by ‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunts’, go to the local school and try to live like normal children. But, of course, they’re not. The four friends decide to run away from the horror of their everyday lives in a children's home in the English countryside. They head for the woods, their sense of freedom surprises them, and for the first time they feel the exhilaration of adolescence. Yet the forest slowly asserts its own power and what happens there will affect the four boys' lives forever. External Website

Children's Fiction I was a Rat! Or, The Scarlet Slippers Philip Pullman 2018 I was a Rat! Roger insists, and insists . . . In fact, when Bob the cobbler and his washerwoman wife, Joan, find the young boy abandoned on their doorstep, these are the only words he says. And he does have ratty behaviour, it's true. Staying with Bob and Joan, however, Roger learns quickly to behave more like a human child. They try to find his parents, but the orphanage, police and hospital all have nothing on their records about a lost boy in the city. What is the truth? As more and more people find out about Roger the mysterious rat-boy he faces more and more danger. But sometimes help comes from the most unexpected of places . . . External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Hidden women of history: 'how 'lady swindler' Alexandrina Askew triumphed over the convict stain Janet McCalman 2021 Historian Janet McCalman has written about the “Lady Swindler”, Alexandrina Askew nee Grant. According to McCalman: “Alexandrina’s story illustrates in extreme personal form the pain of perceived inferiority and stigma felt by those transported to Van Diemen’s Land: the daily humiliations of being a nobody, without a family let alone a lineage. If her secrets and lies were spectacular, they were nonetheless reflective of the desperation of the socially thwarted and ignored.” Among the Scottish women transported to Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land), Alexandrina Grant was a success. Says McCalman: “Few of the 1636 Scottish women transported to Van Diemen’s Land achieved anything like [Alexandrina’s] ordinary triumph over poverty, stigma and marginalisation.” https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-how-lady-swindler-alexandrina-askew-triumphed-over-the-convict-stain-169023 External Website

Actors Ice-T Tracy Lauren Marrow (born February 16, 1958), better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper, actor, songwriter, and producer. He was orphaned at the age of thirteen after which he lived with relatives. He began his career as an underground rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album Rhyme Pays -- the second hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker (following Slick Rick's La Di Da Di). The following year, he founded the record label Rhyme $yndicate Records (named after his collective of fellow hip-hop artists called the "Rhyme $yndicate") and released another album, Power, which would go Platinum. He co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count, which he introduced on his 1991 rap album O.G. Original Gangster, on the track titled "Body Count". As an actor, he played small parts in the films Breakin' and its sequels, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo and Rappin', during the 1980s, before his major role debut, starring as police detective Scotty Appleton in New Jack City (1991). In 2018, he began hosting the true crime documentary, In Ice Cold Blood, on the Oxygen cable channel, which as of 2020, is in its third season. External Website

Non Fiction The Market in Babies Marian Quartly 2013 The Market in Babies (2013) by Marian Quartly, Shurlee Swain & Denise Cuthbert tells the history of adoption in Australia and is the result of a 5 year-long research project. As the authors point out in the introduction, 50 years ago (from the time of writing) the generally accepted view in Australia was that adoption was a permissible way to form a family, and it was a means of providing for orphans. It was also a secret within many families. That view is now contested as support groups formed from the 1980s and exposed the pain of separation felt by mothers and children. The number of adoptions per year has declined significantly. The Market in Babies includes excerpts from the stories people contributed to the project website. External Website

Non Fiction Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Child in Foster Care Jennifer Toth 1997 In this book, journalist Jennifer Toth has spoken with the children and young people caught up in America's foster care system. A 1997 review in the New York Times made the observations: "Orphanages and foster homes are sometimes called substitute care, but Jennifer Toth makes it heartbreakingly plain in "Orphans of the Living" that there is no substitute for the love and security of a family... Ms Toth is outraged by society's failure to care properly for its victimized children..." External Website

Radio & Podcast The babies of Holnicote House Deborah Prior 2021 Deborah Prior was one of 1000s of mixed-race children born in the United Kingdom after the Second World War. Because of social stigma, many of those children were separated from their parents. Deborah was raised in Holnicote House from when she was a 2 week old baby until she was 5. She was then adopted. Deborah did not meet her birth mother until she was 50. External Website

Television Shows Death in Holy Orders 2003 PD James’ 2001 book Death in Holy Orders was adapted for television in 2003 with Martin Shaw playing the role of Adam Dalgliesh. There is less attention paid to the care experience of Ronald Treves & Kate Miskin in the adaptation than in the novel. *Spoiler Alert* Raphael Arbutnot (Jesse Spencer) is represented as a ‘troubled’ young man, but he is not a murderer. External Website

Academic Articles The Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations Project: Phase Two Report Zoe Baker 2024 The report presents the key findings from the second phase of the Care-Experienced Graduates' Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations project. It also presents a series of recommendations for policy and practice which intend to better support care-experienced graduates' transitions out of higher education and into employment and/or further study. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles The Pale Blue Eye The Conversation 2023 This is a fascinating article about the ongoing relevance of Care Experienced Writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), not only as the initiator (many say) of the detective fiction genre. Hannah Murray, University of Melbourne, tells us about Austrian singers Teya and Salena—they will represent Austria at the Eurovision Song Context this year in Liverpool—who say their song writing talent is a result of being possessed by Poe. Murray goes on to say there is a long tradition of such “possession”. She gives the example of a group of “young female spiritualists” who, “in the 1850s and 1860s…wrote and published poetry from the “spirit of Edgar A. Poe”. Hannah Murray concludes with a discussion about Poe’s fascination with human consciousness surviving death, long before the “spiritualist boom” from the late 19th century. External Website

Television Shows Black Earth Rising 2018 The drama series Black Earth Rising (2018) explores the experience of Kate Ashby (Michaela Coel) who was born in Rwanda and adopted by English lawyer, Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter). When Eve decides to prosecute Rwandan Simon Nyamoya (Danny Sapani) - who was significant in ending the Rwandan massacre - Kate feels betrayed and pulled into a history she'd prefer to forget. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Your Honour Can I Tell You My Story? Brierley et al 2019 Brierley Andi (Author), Hopkinson Jim (Foreword). The challenging story of a young person’s progress through care, prison and social rejection to youth justice specialist. It charts failures to connect with and modify the author’s chaotic early life moving from place to place, school to school, fragmented parenting and poor role models. Encircled by crime, drugs and baffling adults, Andi Brierley ended up first in a young offender institution then prison where he learned to think like a prisoner for his own survival, making everything harder for everybody on release. Until he determined to change and others saw his unenviable past could be put to good use. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Belle: The Slave Daughter and The Lord Chief Justice Paula Byrne 2014 Belle (2013) is a British film inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804) who was born to an enslaved woman and a captain of the British Royal Navy. British writer Paula Byrne was commissioned to write a biography of Dido Elizabeth Belle and the book was published to coincide with the release of the film. Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804) was born into slavery. Her father, Captain John Lindsay of the British Royal Navy, took Dido with him when he returned to England in 1765 and left her to be raised by his uncle Willam and aunt Elizabeth. The Earl and Countess of Mansfield lived at Kenwood House in Hampstead. They were already raising another great-niece, Lady Eliabeth Murray. Dido Elizabeth Belle lived at Kenwood House for 31 years. Because so little is know about Dido’s life, for her book Paula Byrne included information about slavery and the position of women in the 18th century. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Panopticon Jenni Fagan 2013 The Panopticon is a circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times. Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car, headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She cannot remember the events that led her here, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and there is blood on Anais' school uniform. Smart, funny and fierce, Anais is a counter-culture outlaw, a bohemian philosopher in sailor shorts and a pillbox hat. She is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. The residents of the Panopticon form intense bonds, heightened by their place on the periphery, and Anais finds herself part of an ad hoc family there. Much more suspicious are the social workers, especially Helen, who is about to leave her job for an elephant sanctuary in India but is determined to force Anais to confront the circumstances of her birth before she goes. Looking up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais knows her fate: she is part of an experiment, she always was, it's a given, a liberty - a fact. And the experiment is closing in. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Vivaldi's Virgins Barbara Quick 2007 Vivaldi’s Virgins (2007) is a novel by American writer Barbara Quick The novel is set in the Ospedale della Pieta during the lifetime of Anna Maria della Pieta (c1696 - 1782). According to her website, Vivaldi’s Virgins took Barbara Quick 4 years to write and 4 trips to Venice to conduct research. In the novel, Anna Maria della Pieta – who was abandoned as a baby – longs to find out who her parents are. On several occasions she manages to escape the orphanage to go exploring the city and to find out who she is, but each time she is caught and punished. Eventually, however, she founds out the truth about herself. External Website

Sport Faith Thomas Faith Thomas Aboriginal Australian cricketer, Faith Thomas (1933-2023), was in a children’s home during her childhood. Faith Coulthard was born to an Adnyamathanha woman and a German migrant. Faith’s mother, Ivy, did not think the Nepabunna Aboriginal mission—which ran from 1931-1977 when it was handed back to the traditional owners—was the right place for her daughter, so she took her to the Colebrook Children’s Home in Quorn, over 340km north of Adelaide in South Australia. It was at work as a midwife that Faith found out it was possible for women to play cricket. By then she was one of the first 6 Aboriginal nurses in Australia and South Australia’s first Aboriginal public servant. She trained in Adelaide at the Queen Victoria Hospital and then worked at the Point McLeay Aboriginal Reserve. After going out to play for the first time with a workmate on a Saturday, she was soon playing for the state and the country. In 1958, Faith Coulthard became the first Aboriginal Australian woman to play cricket for Australia—against England at the Gabba in Brisbane. Indeed, Faith was the first Aboriginal Australian woman to represent Australia in any sport. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir In My Own Time: Almost an Autobiography Nina Bawden 1995 Nina Bawden's career spans 20 adult novels and 17 for children. Here, and in simple vignettes she takes the reader through her life, revealing the inspirations of many of her books. It describes her childhood evacuation to Suffolk and Wales, and her years at Oxford, where she met Richard Burton and Margaret Thatcher. And, she gives an account of her oldest son, Niki, who was diagnosed schizophrenic. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Mother and Baby Homes - Sorting the 'Sinful from the Righteous' Katherine Waugh 2020 Mother and Baby Homes like Hopedene, established by the Salvation Army, were presented as support for unmarried mothers but often served to conceal illegitimacy, coerce women into giving up their babies, and reinforce societal stigma. Though such homes have closed, their legacy of forced adoption, discrimination, and lasting emotional trauma continues to affect individuals and families worldwide. External Website

Comics, Comic books & Graphic Novels Orphan Black Orphan Black 2015 Orphan Black is a limited series of comic books based on the television series Orphan Black, which airs on BBC America in the United States and Space in Canada. Sarah's life was changed dramatically after witnessing the suicide of a woman who looked just like her. Sarah learned that, not only were she and the woman clones, but there were others just like them, and dangerous factions at work set on capturing them all. External Website