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Non Fiction The reason why so many Disney characters are orphans is SO sad Claire Hodgson 2015 A discussion about why there are so many characters in Disney films who are orphaned or separated from their parents. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles FamilyConnect Family 2023 FamilyConnect helps adults who have been adopted or in care find answers to questions about their origins. Finding out about your background and family members can help you understand inherited health risks, make important life choices and understand more about why you were separated from your birth family. Lots of people aren’t aware of their legal rights when accessing their birth and care records, or what they can expect to receive and how to go about searching for information in the first place. Family Action’s FamilyConnect website helps people explore these issues, providing information, guidance, support and signposting to help. External Website

Films/Videos The Sea Beast ​ 2022 The Sea Beast (2022) is an animated adventure film which tells the story of a young orphan girl - Maisie Brumble - who runs away from an orphanage and stows onboard the ship of a group of sea monster hunters. Captain Crow is the captain and he has an adopted son, Jacob Holland. Crow is financially supported by the Crown to hunt sea beasts. Maisie decides that the sea beasts shouldn't be hunted and that if they attack a ship, they do so in self-defense. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: class prejudices, the convict stain and a corpse-bride The Conversation 2022 An interesting analysis of the classic Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Says author Sascha Morrell (Monash University, Australia), the novel exposes "...the material underpinnings of elevated social status. In turn, it exposes the arbirariness of class prejudice" such as when Magwitch's co-accused, Compeyson, receives better treatments because he's dressed better. Also via Magwitch, Pip's benefactor, Dickens highlights "...the structural dependence of the British ruling classes on the explotation of oppressed groups at home and abroad." 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

Non Fiction Unexpected Forces Lotus Place 2022 Unexpected Forces (2022) is a beautiful collection of illustrated stories and poems written by Forgotten Australians. It was published by Lotus Place & Micah Projects Queensland. Forgotten Australians is a term used by many to remember the estimated 500k Australians who were in ‘out of home’ care during the 20th century. Forgotten Australians came together in a series of creative writing workshops in 8 locations across Queensland to share their stories. Writes Katie McGuire, Project Coodinator for Lotus Place & Micah Projects: “This anthology will contribute to the legacy of Forgotten Australians, and those who are survivors of institutional child abuse. It serves as a testimony to their strength and resilience, imaginations, and compassionate hearts.” External Website

Performing Arts Seal Seal ​ Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel (1963), known professionally as Seal, is a British singer-songwriter. He has born to a Nigerian mother and Brazilian father. He was in foster care for about four years from when he was born, remaining with the one foster family. He was then returned to one of his parents (some sources say his father, some his mother, some his father and stepmother). Whatever the situation, he remembers the experience of having been in foster care as a positive one and was intensely moved when he was reunited with a foster sister on Oprah in 2007. Seal initially planned to be an architect, and has a degree in that field. However, he pursued a career in music and scored a major hit in 1990 with “Killer”. A debut album was released in 1991 and he’s since become an internationally renowned singer/songwriter. Seal has sold over 20 million records worldwide, with his first international hit song, "Crazy", released in 1991; his most celebrated song, "Kiss from a Rose", was released in 1994. Seal has won multiple awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards; he won Best British Male in 1992, as well as four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. As a songwriter, he received two Ivor Novello Awards for Best Song Musically and Lyrically from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for "Killer" (1990) and "Crazy" (1991).. External Website

Films/Videos Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story ​ 2022 During the 2 part documentary (on Netflix) Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, Welsh journalist Meirion Jones, speaks of being concerned as a small child at the free access Jimmy Savile had to Duncroft Approved School in Surrey. He would visit his aunt there; she was the Head of the School which housed girls aged between 15 & 17 who were regarded as "emotionally disturbed". Surrey police in 2015 said there were 46 sexual assaults by Savile of 22 of those girls while Savile was visiting there. There are other allegations of Savile sexually abusing children in other children's homes too. External Website

Films/Videos Hysteria ​ 2011 According to the 2011 film, Hysteria, a former foster child invented the vibrator. Dr Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) was taken in by the St. John-Smythe family after his parents died. He becomes a physician, works with Dr Dalrymple who specialises in treating 'hysterical' women by masturbating them, gets RSI (as we'd call it today), and with his foster brother (Rupert Everett) develops the vibrator. In fact, it is Mortimer Granville (1833-1900) who is credited with inventing the vibrator, but we're not certain about the foster care story. External Website

Films/Videos Housesitter ​ 1992 Newton Davis builds his dream house and presents it to Becky with a proposal of marriage. She turns him down. He leaves the house, still with a ribbon around it and returns to the city, smitten with Becky. He meets Gwen, an orphan who was in foster care as a child and who has an interesting relationship with the truth. He spends the night with her, but leaves while she is sleeping. She takes his description of the house, searches it out, and moves in. The residents of Newton's hometown become curious and Gwen invents a marriage, a courtship, and and an entire history. Newton's parents meet Gwen and are immediately taken with her. By the time Newton finds out, the whole town thinks he's married, and Becky tells him that Gwen has made her see him in a whole new light. Gwen and Newton agree that she can pretend to be his wife and get free rent while Newton works on Becky until they can announce a divorce. The trouble is that nobody in the town wants them to separate and they keep trying to help them reconcile. External Website

Performing Arts Charles Nalden CBE (musician) Charles Nalden ​ Charles Nalden CBE (1908-2002) was born John Leslie Simpson. He was renamed when he was taken to the London Foundling Hospital at the age of 29 days. When he was 14 he went into the British Army, becoming the bandmaster. After 25 years in the army, Charles Nalden arrived in Auckland, New Zealand and became an academic at the University of Auckland. He became a professor in 1956, and professor emeritus on his retirement in 1974. Charles Nalden was also a conductor and writer about music. In the 1976 Birthday Honours, Nalden was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to music. External Website

Films/Videos The Changeling (1980) ​ 1980 The Changeling was a 1980 Canadian horror film. After the tragic death of his wife and daughter, a music professor, John Russell (played by George C Scott) is staying at a Seattle mansion and becomes involved in an old mystery. Investigating the history of his house (which seems to be haunted), John finds out that a boy was murdered there in 1906 by his father. The father then replaced the dead boy with one from an orphanage, then took the lad off to Europe claiming to be seeking a cure for his son’s illness. The adopted boy is now an old man, a US Senator, and patron of the historical society which owns the house where John Russell is living. External Website

Non Fiction Public Hostage Public Ranson: Ending Institutional America William Bronston 2021 Public Hostage Public Ransom tells the story of William Bronston's activist work within the infamous Willowbrook State School in New York. Bronston documents the activist work that led to media exposure in 1972 and the closure in 1987 of the facility, and sets out the reasons for why so many workers - 2000 - did not speak out about the appalling practices within the institution. External Website

Films/Videos The Life Ahead ​ 2020 Based on a 1975 novel, The Life Before Us by Romain Gary, The Life Ahead is a 2020 Italian drama film with a boy in foster care at its heart. 12 year old Momo is a Sengalese migrant to Italy who was orphaned at the age of 6. He's been in foster care with Dr Coen but is struggling to care for the boy and run his practice from home. Dr Coen asks one of his patients, Holocaust survivor Madam Rosa, to take care of Momo. Rosa and Momo develop a deep bond and Momo cares for Rosa as her health declines. External Website

Films/Videos Us to You ​ 2021 Us to You is a spoken word performance from Care Experienced People to the non-care experienced. The message is Stop It - stop assumptions, stop the bad rap, stop using us, stop speaking over us. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Tasmania's connection to author Joseph Conrad remembered on anniversary of his death Carol Raabus 2016 Before Joseph Conrad wrote novels, he sailed merchant ships. The only ship he captained was the Otago, the remains of which lie on the banks of the Rivert Derwent in Tasmania, only 20 minutes out from Hobart. On the anniversary of his death in 1924, fans of Conrad's work continue to gather around the remains of the Otago to pay homage to him. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Peter Mullan’s Orphans find a new ‘home’ Kenny Smith 2019 The film, written and directed by Mullan, told the story of the four Flynn siblings – three brothers and a sister – who after the death of their mother are torn apart during a long dark night, on the eve of her funeral, of mishaps and understandings. Such was the cult of the movie that it even spawned its own catchphrase – ‘She ain’t heavy she’s ma mother.’ External Website

Films/Videos Urban Hymn ​ 2015 Set against the backdrop of the 2011 England riots, the film follows a neglected and volatile female offender, Jamie, who possesses an amazing singing voice and is torn between her loyalties toward her inspiring, unconventional care worker, Kate, and her possessive and volatile best friend, Leanne. External Website

Poets Shelton Lea Shelton Lea ​ Iconic Melbourne poet, Shelton Lea (1946-2005) was born Philip Anthony Roberts to 20 year Gwyneth Roberts at the Haven in North Fitzroy, Melbourne. At 13 months baby Philip was adopted by the famous Darrel Lea family and renamed Shelton Giles Kimball Lea. At age thirteen, Shelton Lea was locked up Turana, a detention centre and then sent to a boys home. After two stints in the notorious Pentridge Prison as a teenager, Shelton Lea became a poet. He published many collections of books and was mentored by Barrett Reid. External Website

Performing Arts Kirk Franklin Kirk Franklin ​ Kirk Dewayne Franklin was born in 1970. He is an American choir director and gospel musician. Kirk was raised in Fort Worth, Texas by his aunt, having been abandoned as a baby. He was taking piano lessons from the age of four and became of the director of an adult choir when he was eleven. In 1992, Franklin organised a choir with friends and they released their first album in 1993. He became a solo artist from 2001. External Website