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Fiction featuring Care Experience The Buried Life Andrea Goldsmith 2025 The Buried Life (2025) by Australian writer Andrea Goldsmith has an orphan character at the centre of the story. Through 3 characters, Goldsmith explores ideas of uncertainty, friendship, love and death. One of those is 43-year-old Professor Adrian Moor—called Dr Death by his colleagues—who is a well-regarded scholar in Death Studies; he is interested in the social & cultural aspects of death. Adrian Moor was orphaned as a young boy but insists that this early tragedy hasn’t influenced him as a man. Yet he keeps quiet about his childhood, not even telling friends what happened, that he was raised by his grandparents. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir My Name Is Why Lemn Sissay 2020 At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. External Website

Television Shows Shameless 2011 British screenwriter Paul Abbott (b. 1960) was in both kinship care & foster care as a child https://www.careexperienceandculture.com/master/paul-abbott Paul Abbott’s most successful TV series is the critically acclaimed drama, Shameless. The television series is largely based on his own life and the British version ran for 11 seasons beginning in 2004. In the American version of Shameless (2011-2021) - also critically acclaimed – in Season 3, Child Protective Services are called on the Gallagher family and some of the children are forced into foster care. Eventually the eldest Gallagher daughter, Fiona, becomes the legal guardian of the younger children because of their parents’ neglect. External Website

Television Shows The Last Thing He Told Me (TV series) 2023 The Last Thing He Told Me is an American mystery television series (on Apple) based on the popular novel by the same name by Laura Dave. Hannah Hall (Jennifer Garner) is the protagonist of The Last Thing He Told Me. She was raised in the kinship care of her grandfather and, like him, is a wood turner. When Hannah’s husband, Owen Michaels (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), goes missing, Hannah is left with the responsibility for her 16-year-old step-daughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice). The two go looking for Owen and uncover the truth about Bailey’s mother’s death. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Whispering Hope Steven O'Riordan 2015 In this volume, Steven O'Riordan has gathered the stories of 5 women who were incarcerated in Magelene Laundries during the 20th century. The women- Nancy, Kathleen, Diane, Marie & Marina - tell their stories for first the time – not only of being in the Laundries butof how they moved forward in life, told their stories and revealed a dark chapter in Ireland’s history. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Taboo Kim Scott 2017 Taboo (2017) by Kim Scott is set around Albany in the rural South-West region of Western Australia. It tells the story of a group of Aboriginal Australians who visit—some for the first time—a taboo place, the site of a 19th century massacre. At the centre of the story is Tilly, a teenager who has only recently become aware of her Aboriginal heritage. Tilly was fostered briefly by the Hortons when she was a baby. Dan Horton owns a farm called Kokanarup where the massacre happened. Dan is hosting Noongar people on his farm and is thus honouring the memory of his wife who wanted the establishment of a Peace Park. By the time Tilly returns to Kokanarup she has been made a ward of the WA state and is boarding school. External Website

Television Shows Suits 2011 The American legal drama, Suits (2011-2019), features a Care Experienced character. Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) was 11 when his parents died in a car crash and he goes to live with his paternal grandmother, Edith Ross (Rebecca Schull). When the series opens, Mike is making a living and paying for his grandmother's care by taking the Law School Admission Test for others. Prepared to deliver a suitcase of dope for a friend in order to get the $25k he needs to upgrade his grandmother's care, he stumbles into an interview with Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), a successful lawer with Pearson Hardman. In the Season 7 final episode, Mike Ross marries Rachel Zane (Meghan Markles). Patrick J Adams and Meghan Markles also leave the show, Meghan because she is marrying Harry, and Patrick because he wanted to spend more time with his wife, Australian born Troian Bellisario. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignacius Sancho Paterson Joseph 2022 The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignacius Sancho is Paterson Joseph's debut novel. and tells the story of the first Black man in England who could vote - because he owned property. Charles Ignatius Sancho (c1729-1780) who was born on a slave ship in the Atlantic, orphaned at the age of 2, and then 'gifted' to 3 sisters in Greenwich, England. Sancho lived with the sisters for 18 years then year away. He was taken in by John Montagu who educated the young man. Sancho ended up becoming a shopkeeper and involved in the abolitionist movement. He wrote essays, at least one book and 2 plays, and he composed music. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Autobiography of Maxim Gorky: My Childhood, in the World, My Universities Maxim Gorky 2001 Maxim Gorky, like Leo Tolstoy, was primarily an autobiographical author, and the material here is considered amongst the greatest of his writings. Not only do they give the astonishingly varied life of Gorky from his childhood in kinship care, but they also provide us with an unforgettable picture of one of the most crucial generations in Russian life and history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The autobiography begins at the age of five and ends with Gorky secure in his position as one of the leading Russian writers. External Website

Radio & Podcast BBC Radio 4 - Books and Authors, Joyce Carol Oates, Wind in the Willows and Orphans in literature Joyce Carol Oates This program includes a discussion about orphans in literature. External Website

Films/Videos Pan 2015 Pan is an American film telling an alternative origin story for Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Peter is a foundling living in a London orphanage during WWII. He is spirited away to Neverland where children are working in a mine for Blackbeard. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles AOM (Australian Orphanage Museum) CLAN CLAN (Care Leavers Australasia Network) hosted the official opening – by the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Richard Marles - of the Australian Orphanage Museum (AOM) on Saturday 1 April 2023. The AOM is located at 351 Ryrie Street, Geelong, Victoria, and features photographs and memorabilia donated by Australian Care Leavers as well as by organisations that ran orphanages around the country. The collection is also being digitised. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music Archie Roach 2019 Archie Roach: b. 8 January 1956-d. 30 July 2022. A powerful memoir of a true Australian legend: stolen child, musical and lyrical genius, and leader. Roach was only two years old when he was forcibly removed from his family. Brought up by a series of foster parents until his early teens, his world imploded when he received a letter that spoke of a life he had no memory of. External Website

Films/Videos Fathers and Daughters 2015 The 2015 film, Fathers & Daughters, tells the story of a family struggling for the custody of a child. After his wife dies in a car accident while he is driving, writer Jake Davis (Russel Crowe) goes into a psychiatric facility for 7 months to recover. His 5 year old daughter stays with her maternal aunt and family. When Jake returns to collect his daughter, the aunt wants to adopt Kate. Jake refuses and the aunt and her husband begin court proceedings. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Brixton Rock Alex Wheatle 2004 Brenton Brown is a 16-year old mixed race youth who has lived in a children's home all his life. He has never met his mother and is haunted by her loss. The best thing happens: Brenton is reunited with his mother, Cynthia. And then the worst: he falls in love with his beautiful half-sister, Juliet. At the same time, Brenton meets his Nemesis in the shape of Terry Flynn, a South London gangster who scars him for life. Brenton vows to seek revenge leads to an explosive climax, set against the music, humour and Caribbean rhythms of life that survive within the troubled South London landscape of 198's Brixton. External Website

Performing Arts British author, broadcaster, stand-up comedian, and columnist Mark Steel Mark Steel (born 4 July 1960) is an English author, broadcaster, stand-up comedian, and columnist known for his work in The Guardian, The Independent, and Daily Mirror, as well as his radio and podcast series like The Mark Steel Lectures and What the Fuck is Going On?. Early Life: Adopted 10 days after birth, Steel was raised in Swanley, Kent, by loving adoptive parents—his father worked in insurance and his mother supplemented the family income with various jobs. Steel always knew he was adopted and felt no distress about it. His biological mother, Frances, gave him up for adoption through his aunt. Later in life, Steel discovered his mother was a politically active Scottish woman married to an Italian, while his father, Joe Dwek, was an Egyptian Sephardic Jew and a wealthy Wall Street trader and backgammon champion. Steel met Dwek once in 2006 but had no relationship with his biological mother, who declined contact before her death. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience I Couldn't Love You More Esther Freud 2021 Esther Freud (b. 1963) is the daughter of artist Lucian Freud (1922-2011) and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), founder of psychoanalysis. She is also a British novelist. Freud’s most recent novel, I Couldn’t Love You Move (2021), was prompted by her mother’s experience of being 18, pregnant and terrified of being sent to a Mother and Baby Home—what she calls a “workhouse for morally defective women” (368). She, therefore, kept her pregnancy a secret. I Couldn’t Love You Move (2021) tells the story of what might have happened if her mother hadn’t kept her secret. It is about 3 women: a grandmother who doesn’t know that her eldest daughter has given birth to a girl in a Mother and Baby Home; the mother who was in that home and forced to give up her daughter; and the daughter who is looking for her birth mother. External Website

Television Shows The Virtues 2019 After his nine-year-old son leaves for Australia with his ex, Joseph walks away from his present life and boards a boat for Ireland to confront painful memories from his childhood in a children's home External Website

Television Shows Critical Incident 2024 Critical Incident (2024) is an Australian drama series featuring a teenager living in a group home. Dalia Tun (Zoe Boe) is mistaken for a suspect who injured a police officer at an out-of-control house party. Senior Constable Zil Ahmed (Akskay Khanna) pursues Dalia and an innocent bystander is badly injured during the pursuit. An investigation is launched and Zili becomes fixated on Dalia, organising for police to harass her. Dalia subsequently becomes involved in criminal activities. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles BBC Teach - History KS3 / GCSE: Small Axe - Alex Wheatle and the Brixton Uprising Alex Wheatle 2020 Resource for History KS3 / GCSE: Small Axe - Alex Wheatle and the Brixton Uprising. This is the story of Alex Wheatle MBE, an award-winning writer for children and young adults who overcame a challenging start in life. Growing up in a children's home, Alex never knew his family, who were part of the Windrush generation that migrated to Britain after World War II in search of a better life, though it didn’t turn out that way for them. When Alex left the children's home and moved to Brixton, South London, he initially struggled to find his identity, having had little interaction with other Black people. In the 1980s, Brixton was rife with racial tension, worsened by events like the New Cross fire of January 1981, in which 13 young Black people died. The fire, believed by many to be a racist attack, was treated dismissively by the police. Tensions escalated with the police's controversial operation, Swamp 81, which targeted young Black men with widespread stop-and-search tactics. This led to the Brixton uprising on 10 April 1981, when the area descended into violent unrest. Alex was arrested during this time and served a prison sentence. In prison, he discovered his love for literature through the works of authors such as Chester Himes, Richard Wright, and John Steinbeck. This newfound passion set him on the path to becoming the acclaimed writer he is today. External Website