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Films/Videos Atomised 2006 Adaptation of controversial French author Michel Houellebecq's novel Les Particules élémentaires. Bruno (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Michael (Christian Ulmen) half-brothers who are very different from each other. They both had an unusual childhood because their mother was a hippie, instead growing up with their grandmothers and in boarding schools. The film implys their upbringing has led them to develop complex and unsatisfactory sex lives. While Bruno can only find satisfaction in meaningless sex with prostitutes, Michael seems to reject sex altogether, focusing his attention instead on his work in genetics. When Michael meets Annabelle (Franka Potente), a woman who turns into the love of his life, he seems to have the chance at a normal relationship, but one that might threaten the world-changing impact of his scientific studies. In the credits the viewer is led to believe that Michael was awarded the nobel prize and Bruno spent the rest of his life in psychiatric institutes. External Website

Performing Arts Musician, actor, activist Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American musician, actor, and activist. His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Nelson and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents, who taught singing back in Arkansas and started their grandchildren in music. Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, and taught him a few chords, and Nelson sang gospel songs in the local church alongside Bobbie. He wrote his first song at age seven, and when he was nine, he played guitar for local band Bohemian Polka. During the summer, the family picked cotton alongside other Abbott residents. Nelson disliked picking cotton, so he earned money by singing in dance halls, taverns, and honky tonks from age 13, which he continued through high school. His musical influences were Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Django Reinhardt, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Rocks in the Belly Jon Bauer 2012 You're eight years old. An only child. You love your parents, but you're convinced you're not enough for your mother because she fosters other people's kids. You've learnt to cope, just about, with how this makes you feel -- but then a boy called Robert arrives, and he and your Mum seem to connect in a way you never have. You hate him for it. And her. And one day you do something really bad to teach them both a lesson. At twenty-eight, you return home to face your mother, who is now chronically ill. Despite the intervening years, you haven't forgiven her - or yourself - for what happened. Ultimately, though, it's her forgiveness you crave, even after all this time - because you need to know, finally, that you were enough for her. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver 2023 Demon Copperhead is a 2022 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and won the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Kingsolver was inspired by the Charles Dickens novel David Copperfield.[While Kingsolver's novel is similarly about a boy born into poverty, Demon Copperhead is set in Appalachia and explores contemporary issues.[3][4][5] The protagonist and narrator is born Damon Fields to a teenage mother in a trailer home. He is raised in Lee County, located in Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, and nicknamed "Demon Copperhead" for the color of his hair and his attitude. As Demon grows up, he must use his charms and wits to survive poverty in the contemporary American South. External Website

Films/Videos No Reservations 2007 No Reservations (2007) is an American rom-com directed by Scott Hicks and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. When top Manhattan chef, Kate Armstrong, takes in her 9 year old niece, Zoe, after the death of Kate's sister, her life changes. Zoe needs a home, and Kate realises she needs what Zoe brings to her home. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles ‘12 Mighty Orphans’ film to premiere in Fort Worth, TX in 2020 | Fort Worth Star-Telegram Stefan Stevenson 2019 The film “12 Mighty Orphans,” which is based on Jim Dent’s book about a high school football team made up of orphans at Fort Worth’s iconic Masonic Home in the 1930s, will have an authentic Fort Worth look. The filmmakers insisted on it. External Website

Films/Videos Symposium: The Impact of Lived Experience on Care Associated Research by Care Experienced Researchers 2025 Visual and audio recordings of an online symposium with presentations from care experienced researchers and a discussion. The presentations include historical methods and resources, autoethnographic research, an anthology of care experienced stories, and creative writing with a care experience perspective. External Website

Writers Andi Brierley Andi Brerley is based in Leeds, UK. Since he was released from prison in 2005, he has become a Youth Justice Specialist and published author of two books on that subject. In addition to writing, Andi is also a public speaker and he works with young people using the PACT (Presence, Attunement, Connection & Trust) approach he has developed. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Damaged: Heartbreaking Stories of the Kids Trapped in Britain's Broken Care System Chris Wild 2018 Chris Wild lost his dad aged 11, leaving him to grow up in the care system. There, he witnessed the incessant physical and sexual abuse of children, with the only escape leading to the streets. So many others like him, failed by the systems put in place to protect them, ended up with nothing but drink, drugs, prostitution, and crime as their normality. Later, working in a care home himself became the only way Chris could help, but he was shocked to discover little had changed and vulnerable children were still being failed. In Damaged, he shares heartbreaking memories of the care system along with the stories of all the boys, girls, men, and women he met along the way—exposing why we must take action now to protect all of Britain's forgotten children. External Website

Films/Videos The Last Jedi 2017 The Last Jedi follows the character Rey, an orphan character, as she seeks help from Luke Skywalker. External Website

Actors Jack Charles Jack Charles (1943-2022) was an Australian actor, musician, potter, and Aboriginal elder. A member of the Stolen Generation, Jack was removed from his mother as a baby, sexually abused in Box Hill, and rejected by his foster mother when he told her he had made contact with Aboriginal family members. As a consequence of his childhood suffering, Jack was a drug addict for decades, often financing his habit through petty theft. He's been imprisoned something like 22 times. His screen credits include the landmark Australian film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), Bedevil (1993), Blackfellas (1993), Tom White (2004) and Pan (2015), among others. External Website

Academic Articles Foster Focus Mag Foster Focus Mag 2021 Foster Focus is a monthly magazine dealing exclusively and entirely with the Foster Care Industry. The core of the magazine are seven monthly featured sections, Anonymous Faces, Ask a Pro, Editor’s Notes, Family Adventures, Guest Speaker, What Do They DO? A nonprofit profile, Alumni Perspectives and Lawmakers. These sections coupled with cover stories and coverage of events focused on foster care will, in fact make for the most in depth view of the Foster Care Industry ever published. Accomplished doctors, attorneys and psychiatrists and New York Times bestselling authors make up the writing staff for Foster Focus they add credibility and project a sense of understanding to our readers. A range of stories and subjects are covered, highlights include; interviews with Country star Jimmy Wayne and from the NFL's New Orleans Saints Jimmy Graham & Actress Nia Vardolas, exclusive stories by Dr. John DeGarmo, Rhonda Sciortino, FCAA CEO Adam Robe and Casey Family Programs CEO William Bell. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Alex Cross (Novel Series) James Patterson 1993 Alex Cross is a crime thriller novel series created by American writer, James Patterson (b. 1947). There are more than 30 novels in the series – which began in 1993 - and the protagonist is an African American detective who was raised in the kinship care of his grandmother. Alex Cross was born in Winston-Salem in North Carolina. His mother died when he was 9 and his father a year later. After his father died, Alex was sent to live with his grandmother in Washington, DC. Nana Mama, as she is known, was an English teacher. Alex Cross has a PhD in Psychology from Johns Hopkins University. He has worked for the Washington DC Police Department and for the FB. In the 18th novel of the Alex Cross series, Kill Alex Cross, James Patterson adds an additional character to the Cross family. Nana Mama – the grandmother who raised Alex Cross and who now lives with Alex and his family – is robbed by a homeless girl living on the streets. Ava is taken in by Nana Mama and Bree, Alex’s wife, and they agree to adopt the girl. Later, in Alex Cross, Run, Ava is sent into foster care because of doing drugs at home. At the end of that novel Ava is (apparently) killed by the last in a long line of Alex’s nemeses. Ava returns to the series in 19th novel, Merry Christmas. External Website

Films/Videos Continuous Voices 2020 In this video, Australian artist Robert House discusses how the trauma of being sexually abused as a boy in an orphanage during the 1960s has become integrated into his practice of art. External Website

Artists Edmonia Lewis Mary Edmonia Lewis, "Wildfire" (c. July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907), was an African American sculptor, of mixed African-American and Native American (Ojibwe) heritage. Born free in Upstate New York, Edmonia was orphaned when young, some sources say at age five, some say at age nine. After her parents died it seems she was taken in by her mother’s family until she was twelve (although her older brother, Sunrise or Samuel W. Lewis claimed he’d taken care of her too). Samuel did finance Edmonia’s education, first in New York, where she was fostered with a Captain Mills and later at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1859.she worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She was the first African-American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence. She began to gain prominence in the United States during the Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only Black woman artist who had participated in and been recognized to any extent by the American artistic mainstream. In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to Black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture. 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

Radio & Podcast Christmas with Charles Dickens BBC You're Dead to Me 2022 Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is included amongst our Care Experienced Writers because he was living in a foster care type arrangement at the age of 11 or 12 while his family was in a debtors' prison. In the podcast, there's a discussion about the influence Dickens has had on Christmas celebrations in the UK and beyond. For some he’s even “the man who invented Christmas”. Even the idea of a ‘white Christmas’ has been influenced by the fact that the first 8 Christmas’ Dickens experienced as a child were indeed icy cold. According to Greg Jenner, "A Christmas Carol is the most famous Christmas story ever" (it sold out in 5 days when it was 1st published) with many adaptations including something like 30 films. External Website

Writers Gene Siskel 1946-1999 Eugene Kal Siskel (1946 – 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. He was born in Chicago to Russian Jewish immigrants, but was orphaned by the age of nine and living with relatives. Gene graduated from Yale University in 1967 and began work at the Chicago Tribute two years later. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, Gene hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his death in 1999. External Website

Radio & Podcast Stupid crooks, crooked cops and honest John Conversations 2021 Adoptee John Shobbrook was an agent with the Australian Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the 1970s. In this conversation he talks about his new book, Operation Jungle, which describes what happened when he caught drug trafficker John Edward Milligan. He found that Milligan was acting for Queensland former detective Glen Hallahan, and that the police and judiciary protected Hallahan while Shobbrook's career stalled. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell 2000 Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and grew up in kinship care. He died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy, was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. External Website