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News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Care leaver Kerry Littleford: 'I want to give opportunities to people who haven’t had them' The Guardian 2017 Kerry Littleford was the eldest of nine siblings, and the last to be taken into care. She recalls how social services failed her mother and explains how she’s helping others avoid a similar fate External Website

Films/Videos Sex in a Cold Climate ​ 1998 Sex in a Cold Climate (1998) is an Irish documentary about the treatment of girls and women in the now infamous Magdalene Laundries. The documentary formed the basis of the 2002 film, The Magdalene Sisters, by Peter Mullen. Sex in a Cold Climates includes interviews with 4 women - one of whom was sent to a laundry from an orphanage at 15 because she was thought "too pretty". The women told of abuse by clergy and the grinding work routine. RTE, the state broadcaster in Ireland, refused to broadcast the document, so it was 1st shown on the UK's Channel 4. External Website

Films/Videos Redress: Breaking The Silence ​ 2020 Redress: Breaking The Silence is an Irish documentary broadcast by RTE in 2020. The purpose in making the documentary was to speak with survivors of abuse in Irish institutions and assess the state’s response to these survivors. External Website

Films/Videos Dr. No ​ 1962 Dr. No features three orphans! James Bond orphaned at 11 yrs old. His parents were killed in a mountain climbing accident Honey Rider orphaned at age 5, when her parents' house was burnt down. Dr. No was the unwanted son of a German missionary & a Chinese girl of good family. In the film, James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the disappearance of a fellow British agent. The trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American space launch from Cape Canaveral with a radio beam weapon. External Website

Non Fiction Steering the Mothership: The Complexities of Mothering Lisa Cherry 2014 What if you didn't get the mother you wanted? What if you weren't able to be the mother you planned to be? The stories in this book illustrate the real-life complexities of motherhood. They help every reader to understand their own journey, both as a child and as a mother, and help them investigate the single relationship that affects us most throughout our lives, whether it has been a positive or a negative experience. This book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand this profound relationship, especially those working in Early Years Development, Social Work or Education. Most importantly, from both a personal and professional perspective, Steering the Mothership will help every reader to develop compassion, for themselves and for others. Includes chapters from authors with care experience. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles An evening with your life your story Amanda Knowles 2021 This poetry led discussion explores the experiences of children raised in the care of the state and their caregivers, the impact of abuse and the importance of truth. External Website

Films/Videos Lucky ​ 2011 How could a recently orphaned, 10-year old homeless South African boy ever be called Lucky? Over the grave of his dead mother, Lucky makes a promise to make something of himself. Leaving the security of his remote Zulu village for the big city with the hope of going to school, he arrives on the doorstep of an uncle who has no use for him. Lucky then falls in with Padma, an elderly Indian woman with an inherent fear of Africans, who takes him in as she would a stray dog. Together, unable to speak each other's language, they develop an unlikely bond. Through an odyssey marked by greed, violence, and, ultimately, belonging, Lucky shows how a child's spirit can bring out decency, humility and even love in adults struggling to survive in the new South Africa. External Website

Non Fiction Abandon All Hope Bonney Djuric 2011 Abandon All Hope (2011) by Bonney Djuric is a history of the Parramatta Girls Industrial School The book explores the history of the Parramatta Girls Industrial School as the nation’s first (Catholic) orphanage in 1841 during the colonial period to its closure in 1983 by which time it was an institution run by NSW child welfare agency. Abandon All Hope includes testimony from former inmates of Parramatta Girls Home and tells the story of feminist Bessie Guthrie’s attempt to expose the institution for the horrors visited on girls there. External Website

Films/Videos Film | DrumCamFilms ​ 2019 Be-Longing is the story of Khoji, a 9-year ‘looked after’ boy living within a foster family. External Website

Non Fiction Empty Cradles Margaret Humphreys 1994 Empty Cradles (1994). In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Margaret and her team reunited thousands of families before it was too late, brought authorities to account, and worldwide attention to an outrageous miscarriage of justice. Margaret continues to reunite estranged families, who are situated in Australia and the UK; and brings worldwide attention to the cause. Deported children were promised oranges and sunshine but they got hard labour and life in institutions such as Keaney College in Bindoon, Western Australia. Many were given to the Congregation of Christian Brothers, where they suffered physical and sexual abuse. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Denmark says sorry to children of failed experiment Inuit Greenlander 2022 In 1951, 22 Inuit Greenlander children were separated from their families in Greenland and sent to Denmark, part of an experiment to raise children who could 'bridge' Danish and Greenlander cultures. 6 of the 22 children are still alive and the Danish Government has agreed to pay damages to each of them External Website

Films/Videos The Power of One ​ 1992 There's an orphan at the centre of The Power of One (1992) who is neither a super villain nor a super hero. Young PK has his mother for a while after his father dies, but she sends him to a boarding school. And then she dies too. Living with his grandfather, the boy is well mentored by a German pianist and a Zulu prison inmate, men who teach him how to stand up for himself because he is bullied by Afrikaan South Africans (he's English). The film concludes with PK joining forces with Black South Africans to campaign against the rampant racial injustice. External Website

Films/Videos Bessie ​ 2015 Bessie (2015) is an HBO film which tells the story of Bessie Smith's transformation of a young woman struggling to make a living from her singing to becoming a widely known and renowned blues singer. There are flashbacks to Bessie's difficult childhood in kinship care with an abusive older singer, and the film explores the mentoring role by External Website

Films/Videos Mr Church ​ 2016 Care Experienced actor, Eddy Murphy (who was in foster care for about 18 months at about age 4 while his mother was sick) stars in the 2016 film, Mr Church. Mr Church is a cook who cares for a single mother who has breast cancer, and her daughter Charlie. There are 2 Care Experienced characters in the film: Poppy who is Charlies best friend is in kinship care with her sister while her parents are in prison, and Eddie Larson who was in juvenile detention after a car accident in which a 4-year-old child was killed. External Website

Performing Arts Erik Satie Erik Satie ​ French composer and writer, Erik Satie (1866-1925), was in kinship care from the age of 6 for 6 years. Erik was born in Honfluer, in France’s Normandy region, about 198km north-west of Paris. His father, Alfred, was French and his mother, Jane, was English. When Erik was about 4, the family moved to Paris, but Jane died 2 years later, in 1872. Erik and his young brother, Conrad, were sent back to Honfluer and lived with their paternal grandparents until their grandmother died in 1878. Alfred then had the children return to him in Paris and home schooled them. Satie lived in Paris during his adulthood. His eccentricities—which included wearing 1 of 7 identical grey suits for 10 years (purchased on receipt of a small inheritance in 1898) and a claim that he only ate food that was white—alienated him from the ‘establishment’. Where during his 20s he’d hung out with the ‘who’s who’ of Paris, in 1898 he moved into the unfashionable working class suburb of Arcueil, living there for 27 years in a small flat. Satie’s work did not catch on for some years, not until long-time friend Claude Debussy made popular his Gymnopedies in 1911, by which time Satie was 45 years old. Erik Satie is now regarded as a significant influence on 20th century music. External Website

Films/Videos Jedda ​ 1955 Jedda is an Aboriginal girl. She was born in the Northern Territory and given to a white woman after her mother die in childbirth. Jedda is forbidden from learning Aboriginal culture and instead is instructed in Anglo-European culture. Jedda was the first Australian film to feature Aboriginal Australians in principal roles. External Website

Children's Fiction Madeline Ludwig Bemelmans 1996 "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines." Our first introduction to the twelve little girls and Miss Clavel. Something is not right with Madeline. She wakes up with a terrible pain one night - it's her appendix! She has to go to hospital to have it taken out. Her friends are sad and miss her very much. But when they visit and find her surrounded by all her presents - and, best of all, see her new scar - they all decide they want their appendixes out too! External Website

Films/Videos Mr Pip (film) ​ 2012 Mr Pip (2012) is an adaption of Lloyd Jones' 2006 novel, Mister Pip. Hugh Laurie stars as Mr Watts and Matilda is played by Xzannjah Matsi. The film was shot in Bourgainville, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand and is set during the civil war in Bourgainville. Mr Watts - the only white man lived on the island - becomes the village school teacher and reads a chapter of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations everyday. Matilda finds the story an escape at a time when there is serious conflict happening in Bourgainville. External Website

Films/Videos The Personal History of David Copperfield ​ 2019 Based on the novel 1850 novel by Charles Dickens, young David Copperfield goes from a happy childhood to being sent to work in a factory by his new stepfather. While working in the factory he 'boards' or is fostered by the Micawber family. David escapes his life of drudgery after his mother's death when he is taken in by his wealthy aunt. External Website

Films/Videos Lilo & Stitch ​ 2021 Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 animated science fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film's story revolves around two eccentric and mischievous individuals: a six-year-old Hawaiian girl named Lilo Pelekai, who is raised by her older, young adult-aged sister Nani after their parents died in a car accident, and a blue extraterrestrial animal-like creature called Experiment 626, who is adopted by Lilo as her "dog" and renamed "Stitch". Stitch, who is genetically engineered by his mad scientist creator to cause chaos and destruction, initially uses Lilo to avoid being captured by an intergalactic federation, but the two individuals develop a close bond through the Hawaiian concept of ʻohana, or extended family. This bond causes Stitch to reconsider and later defy his intended destructive purpose in order to keep his family together. External Website