Autobiography/Memoir Our Fathers Cleared the Bush: Remembering Eyre Peninsula Jill Roe 2016 Renowned historian Jill Roe, whose grandparents were early settlers of South Australia's west coast, revisits her mid-century childhood in what was one of Australia's most remote regions, including living in kinship care with her grandparents. Rhythms of work and play were punctuated by moments - the annual show, a visit from young Queen Elizabeth - that connected farming lives, however briefly, to a changing world.With urbanisation comes uncertainties. As her story unfolds, Jill Roe contemplates the future of Eyre Peninsula and the role of regional Australia. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Comment: Is ‘lived experience’ a change-maker or ball and chain? Kenny Murray 2021 Kenneth Murray on the stigma associated with 'lived experience'. External Website

Television Shows Surface 2022 Surface (2022) is an American thriller series created for Apple TV by Veronica West. In Series 1, Sophie Ellis (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is suffering from amnesia after, apparently, jumping from a San Francisco bridge. As she struggles to recall her past life, she finds out that she has been embezzling money from her husband’s employer and hiding it an account under the name of Tess Caldwell. In Series 2, Sophie Ellis returns to England as Tess Caldwell. There she finds out she is the half-sister of a former lover, a member of the powerful Huntley family. After her mother was killed, the young Sophie/Tess was sent off by her father, Henry Huntley, to grow up in the UK care system. External Website

Radio & Podcast Patricia Cornwell This Cultural Life 2024 American crime writer Patricia Cornwell (b. 1956) talks in This Cultural Life about her time in foster care as a child. She also talks about her mother having been orphaned as a child too, and how that experience deeply impacted on her mother’s life, causing considerable distress over the years. External Website

Television Shows Clark 2022 An explanation for the origin of the term ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, forms part of the drama series Clark on Netflix. Clark includes the events of the 1973 Norrmalmstorg, Sweden heist during which a hostage rings the Prime Minister and says she feels safer with the bank robbers than with the police. The hostages went so far as to, apparently, raise money for their captors when the robbers were finally apprehended. Criminologist and psychiatrist, Nils Bejerot, coined the phrase ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ when he was asked for assistance by the Stockholm police. The rest of the series tells the story of career criminal Clark Olofsson, (b.1947, played by Bill Skarsgard), who, despite claiming to want freedom, has spent around half of his life in gaol. Clark was in foster care after his brutal father left the family and his mother was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. External Website

Films/Videos Santa Claus: The Movie 1985 Santa is exhausted by his ever-growing workload & he enlists an assistant, Patch. Santa befriends homeless orphan boy Joe & takes him for a ride in his sleigh. They meet wealthy orphan girl Cornelia, who befriends Joe. Patch designs a machine which falls apart & he resigns. External Website

Television Shows Land of Sin 2026 Land of Sin or Synden (2026) is a Swedish crime drama directed by Peter Gronlund. Krista Kosonen stars as Dani Anttila, a detective in Malmo, Sweden. One day she receives a phone call from the father of her former foster child Silas (Alexander Persson) to say he has gone missing. Ivar (Mats Mårtensson) doesn’t want the police involved but Dani & her new police partner, Malik (Mohammed Nour Oklah), travel to Bjare Peninsula to investigate. Silas’ body is found in a river but forensics determine he was forcibly drowned in the ocean & his body moved to the river to give the appearance of a suicide. As Dani & Malik investigate the crime, they talk to young people in a youth detention centre as Silas was there at some point. They also discover ongoing conflict between Ivar’s family & that of his brother, Elis (Peter Gantman) who wants the community to solve the murder & deal out retribution rather than have the case solved by the police. External Website

Films/Videos Intimate Relations 1996 Intimate Relations is a (1996) Canadian-British film, starring Rupert Graves as Harold Guppey, Julie Walters as Marjorie Beaslie and Laura Sadler (1980-2003) as 14-year-old Joyce Beaslie. When Harold first appears in the film after leaving the Merchant Navy, he tells his brother Morris, who hasn’t seen him since he was a child that he was in Australia for a bit and had been travelling ever since he left the 'home'. Morris’ wife tells Harold that he’s not welcome in their lives - he’s just not the sort of person they want around their child. The viewer discovers Harold's father died when he was 10 years old and he was 'sent away' - about 1933 (presumably to Australia, which would make him one of the migrant children) as his mum couldn't cope with his 'unruly behaviour'. The film is a black comedy about a young man who has an affair with the middle-aged housewife he is lodging with. The film takes place in the 1950s in the suburbs of London and is based on the true story of Albert Goozee who killed his landlady and her daughter, and either was or became a paedophile. He was sentenced to death but had a reprieve days before on grounds that he had been "provoked beyond reason", and the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and detained at Broadmoor. After he was released, he went on to commit more crimes including at aged 73, the indecent assault of two girls aged 12 and 13. This brings into question why this disturbing film was made into a black comedy. External Website

Films/Videos Superman Superman was first created as a comic book character in the 1930s. He was born on Krypton, named Kal-El and sent to Earth to save him before Krypton exploded. He was taken in by farmers Martha and Jonathan Kent who named him Clark Kent and knew that he was not 'normal'. His foster parents advised him to use his powers for good. Superman on film began in the 1940s with animated short film. The first big-budget film starring Christopher Reeves came in 1978. It spawned 3 sequels in 1980, 1983 and 1987. Superman Returns appeared in 2006 with Brandon Routh as Superman. External Website

Films/Videos Hugo 2011 Hugo is a 2011 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese, with a screenplay adapted by John Logan. Hugo follows the story of Hugo Cabret, a young orphan secretly living in a Paris train station after losing both his father and neglectful uncle. As he maintains the station’s clocks and tries to repair a mysterious automaton linked to his father, Hugo’s search for meaning leads him to Georges Méliès, a once-renowned filmmaker, and Isabelle, a spirited girl who helps him uncover forgotten histories and find connection, hope, and a sense of belonging. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Quiet No More Nikki Barthelmess 2020 After surviving sexual assault by her father and six months in foster care, college freshman Victoria Parker is trying to move on with her life. She’s focusing on the positives—attending college, living on her own, repairing old relationships and making new ones, and getting involved with an abuse survivors activist group on campus. But everything’s thrown into disarray when a strange woman shows up, claiming to be Victoria’s aunt and asking Victoria to lie about what happened to her. With her father’s sentencing in a few months, Victoria’s nervous about having to share the truth of what happened with a judge. She’s not even sure if she has the strength to go through with it. But when her fellow club members begin pressuring her to speak out, Victoria has to decide how to share her story while remaining true to herself. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles The Vatican's Children 60 Minutes 2024 The Vatican’s Orphans is a 60 Minutes (America) segment on the thousands of Italian babies shipped to American on an “orphan visa” even though most of the babies weren’t actual orphans. 60 Minutes interviewed Maria Laurino who uncovered the orphan program from examining hundreds of documents in the Vatican’s archive. Sometimes the ‘consent’ form was signed by doctors and nurses who never told the mother; mothers were pressured to give up their babies and “in the worst cases [mothers] were told their child had died”. Laurino read letters in the archive from distressed mothers who had been told they could get their children back. According to 60 Minutes, the church charged $475 per child, “about $4500 today”. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir I've been bloody lucky: the story of an orphan named Jimmy Butt Felicity Dargan 2006 Jimmy relives each colourful episode of his childhood as an orphan growing up in the 1920s and 30s in Australia. He was fostered to 16 different families across Melbourne and country Victoria. Some families treated Jimmy well, others poorly. External Website

Films/Videos The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes 2022 The documentary was directed by filmmaker Emma Cooper for Netflix. It features Irish journalist and Marilyn Monroe expert going through archival footage and interviews he conducted with people over a 3 year period 20 years after Monroe's death. Summer's conclusion is that Marilyn Monroe accidentently or deliberately killed herself with an overdose of drugs and alcohol. External Website

Authors B German, composer, musician ➝ Presenter, writer, singer and politician ➝ Jazz drummer ➝ Guitarist-singer-songwriter ➝ American singer-songwriter ➝ Pauline Black ➝ British Singer, voice of an angel ➝ Mezzo-soprano singer ➝ Tenor and Aboriginal Australian activist ➝ Singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader ➝ Back to Top

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Shadow of the Lynx Victoria Holt 1971 Set in the Victorian era, this is the story of Nora Tamsin sent to boarding school. Nora is orphaned when her father dies in Australia searching for gold. This gives Nora a hatred of gold. Now, she is to travel there to become the ward of her father’s business partner Charles Herrick, who because of his startling eyes, is known as the Lynx. She is attracted to his son, Stirling, a handsome man who is kind to her. But the Lynx has other plans and his effect upon her is overwhelming. Holt does a great job of bringing us interesting characters. We see Australia as it was, the rough life on the edge of the bush. And we see the country life in an English mansion where secrets reside. This story takes you from England to Australia and back again with complex relationships. Those who end up together will surprise you. Treachery lurks in England and the White Ladies estate where the Lynx was sent away in shame that was not of his doing. He wants revenge and will do much to achieve it. External Website

Films/Videos First Christmas 2020 First Christmas (2020) Given up for adoption and placed in fostercare at a young age. Writer Halle, has come to spend Christmas with the biological family she never knew she had. Everyone's happy to see her, but Halle struggles to find her place in this new chaotic family. External Website

Television Shows Queens of Mystery 2019 Queens of Mystery (2019) is a British crime comedy series starring Olivia Vinall as 28yr old Detective Sargent Matilda Stone. We find out in the 1st episode of Series 1 that Matilda was raised in kinship care with her 3 aunts after her mother mysteriously disappeared when Matilda was a small child. Matilda’s aunts (played by Julie Graham, Sobhan Redmond & Sarah Woodward) all write crime mystery stories & Matilda was immersed in these & other crime stories they sold in their Murder Ink bookstore in the village of Wildemarsh. American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) – who was in foster care as a child - is referenced in episodes 5 & 6 of Queens of Mystery & acknowledged as the inventor of detective fiction with his stories of C. Auguste Dupin “The Raven” is a narrative poem by Poe first published in January 1845 & its publication made him popular; it remains one of the most famous poems ever. One of the mysteries in the Queens of Mystery series is that an Edgar Allan Poe manuscript has been stolen from a library & been replaced by a raven feather. This is connected to the disappearance of Matilda’s mother & ravens are regularly featured in each episode. External Website

Children's Fiction Pippi Longstocking Astrid Ross Lindgren et al. 2002 Pippi is nine years old, lives alone with a horse and a money, and does exactly as she pleases. She has no mother and her father is king of a cannibal island, so she has learnt to look after herself. She gets up when she likes, never goes to school, talks a great deal, keeps a chest of gold coins under the bed, and is unexpectedly strong. The book is full of her marvellous escapades. External Website

Films/Videos Instant Family 2018 Instant Family is a movie starring Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, and Isabela Merced. A couple find themselves in over their heads when they foster and finally adopt three children. External Website