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Films/Videos A Mother Finds Her Lost Child After a 40-year search ​ 2021 This is the moving story of Nanncy Davis Womac whose daughter finally found her 40 years after mom and baby were forcibly separated and the baby adopted. There's a larger story in the video of an evangelical pastor setting up homes for 'troubled' teenagers. Lester Roloff (1914-1982) is written of positively in Wikipedia, but there were complaints from some that he was running a 'private prison', brainwashing and brutalising girls. In 1973 Roloff signed an agreement with the State of Texas that he would stop handcuffing girls - which he did to prevent them running away. External Website

Films/Videos Two Heads Creek ​ 2019 Two Heads Creek (2019) is an Australian and British horror film. While grieving their mother, Norman (Jordan Waller) and Anna (Kathryn Wilder) find out that Gabrielle had adopted them. They also discover that their birth mother, Mary (Kerry Armstrong), lives in a small, remote Australian town called Two Heads Creek. Arriving in Two Heads Creek, the siblings learn Mary owns all the local businesses. Although Mary had sent Norman and Anna away, she had kept up with their lives and was proud of them. External Website

Films/Videos Ladybird, Ladybird ​ 1994 Ladybird, Ladybird (1994) is a British film directed by Ken Loach. Set in 1987, the film tells the story of Maggie Conlan (Crissy Rock) who has had 6 children removed by Social Sciences and is trying to get the children back. We learn that Maggie was in a violent relationship and escapes into a women’s refuge with 4 children. She locks them in her room when she goes out when night. There’s a fire. One child is badly injured and given to foster parents. Maggie returns to the abusive man and her other 3 children are taken into the care system. Maggie has 2 more children with Jorge (Vladimir Vega) who is a refugee from Central American. Both children are removed by state authorities Yet the authorities allow Maggie and Jorge to keep 3 more children. According to Loach, the film is based on a true story. External Website

Films/Videos Goodnight, Mister Tom ​ 1998 Goodnight, Mister Tom is a TV movie starring John Thaw, Nick Robinson, and Annabelle Apsion. A shy and quiet World War II evacuee is housed by a disgruntled old man, and they soon develop a close bond. External Website

Films/Videos The Wizard of Oz ​ 1939 This American musical film is an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's children's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The film tells the story of Dorothy Gale who is living in kinship care on a Kansas farm. After she is knocked unconcious, Dorothy has many adventures on her way to asking the Wizrd of Oz for help to find her way home. External Website

Films/Videos Cruella ​ 2021 Inspired by Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, American crime comedy film Cruella (2021) features an alternate origin story for Cruella. Set in London during the punk rock movement of the 1970s, the film revolves around Estella Miller, an aspiring fashion designer, who renames herself as Cruella de Vil. In 1964 England, Estella develops a talent for fashion. She suffers stigma due to black and white hair and is portrayed as having criminal tendencies. Her mother, Catherine, decides to move to London, but not before stopping at a mysterious mansion called Hellman Hall on the Suffolk coast to ask the host for money. Sneaking inside, Estella is chased by the host's ferocious Dalmatian dogs and loses her mother’s necklace. The dogs push Catherine off a balcony to her death. Orphaned, Estella runs away to London and befriends street urchins Jasper and Horace. Ten years later in 1974, Estella practices thievery and confidence tricks with Jasper and Horace, honing her fashion skills by designing their disguises. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Language of Flowers Vanessa Diffenbaugh 2012 The Victorians used flowers to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. For Victoria Jones, flowers and their meanings are her only connection to the world – although for her, they are most useful in expressing feelings such as grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood in the foster care system, Victoria – now eighteen – has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes a meeting with a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realize what's been missing in her own life. As she starts to fall for him, though, she must confront a painful secret from her past – and decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. 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

Films/Videos Changing The Narrative ​ 2019 A film about the use of language in social work. Inspired youth and North Yorkshire county council have made a film about changing the narrative of social work lingo! Funny, powerful and provocative. Produced by inspired youth in collaboration with Scott Akoz, written by Jonny Hoyle. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience This House is Haunted John Boyne (2) 2013 This House is Haunted (2013) by John Boyne is a ghost story. The year is 1867 and Eliza Caine decides to leave London to take up a position in Norfolk as governess of 2 children at Gaudlin Hall. What she doesn't know is that she's not employed by the parents – they aren’t around – but the lawyer of the estate. What she also doesn’t know is that there is a malevolent presence at Gaudlin Hall, a presence that wants Eliza gone, like the governesses before her. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Former Cranbrook student says he was sexually abused at private Sydney boys' school ABC News 2024 In a story which broke on 4 March 2023 we found that a former ward of the West Australian state, Travis Matthews, was allegedly sexually abused as a 13-year-old while at boarding school. Travis was sent to the prestigious Cranbook School in Sydney after his mother died; his sister was working near Cranbrook. The WA state paid for Travis’ fees at Cranbook. What should have been a good opportunity for the boy turned into a nightmare. Travis Matthews, now serving in the Australian Defence Force, is currently suing Cranbrook. External Website

Films/Videos Stolen Spirits ​ 2022 Stolen Spirits is a story from Australia's ABC Foreign Correspondent program about residential schools for Native Americans during the 19th and 20th centuries. Similar to the residential schools program in Canada, the intention was forced assimilation of First Nations peoples, and the estimate is 80% of Indigenous children were enrolled in the network of schools by 1926. The discovery of thousands of graves at the sites of these schools in Canada has prompted concern about the possibility of mass graves on the sites of American schools too. ABC journalist Stan Grant, tells the story of one such school, Genoa, in Nebraska. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience What She Left Behind Ellen Marie Wiseman (2) 2014 The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane is the setting for What She Left Behind (2014). Willard closed in 1995 and what most people know about the facility is that 429 suitcases were found in the attic during an inventory to determine what was worth keeping. The employee who found the suitcases called the New York State Museum and the museum’s historians then “catalogued and wrapped every item in the suitcases which turned out to date from 1910 to 1965” (Purcell). What Wiseman does in What She Left Behind is tell 2 stories, one of which is about Clara Cartwright who is confined to Willard after her father can no longer afford to keep her at a private institution. Clara’s suitcase is amongst those found in 1995 and it’s Isabelle Stone, or Izzy—a 17-year-old in foster care because her mother killed her father—who takes an interest in Clara’s story. As the novel unfolds, we find out why Clara—who is not insane—was locked up in Willard, what life was like for her there (including the various ‘treatments’ she was forced to undergo), and what happened to Clara’s child. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Worst Case Scenario Helen Fitzgerald 2019 There is some discussion about child protection in Worst Case Scenario as Helen Fitzgerald is exploring the life of a seasoned social worker who once worked in that area. Mentioned in passing is Vanessa, a young Care Experienced woman Mary knew as a baby and who was going on to college at 18 (p. 66) having been adopted as a child. The other Care Experienced Person in the story is John Paul O'Donnell, a drug-addicted young man Mary takes advantage of. External Website

Films/Videos The Last Tree ​ 2019 Growing up with his foster mother amongst the rolling fields of rural Lincolnshire, Femi’s young life seems as idyllic as the landscape. But when he returns to London to live with his birth mother he begins to struggle with the culture and values of his new environment. External Website

Films/Videos Shazam! ​ 2019 Shazam! is a 2019 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name. The plot follows teenager Billy Batson (Angel) as he is chosen by the ancient wizard Shazam (Hounsou) to be his new champion by saying the name "Shazam", allowing him to transform into an adult superhero (Levi) with various superpowers. Billy and his foster brother Freddy Freeman (Grazer) must discover Billy's new powers in order to stop the evil Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong) and the Seven Deadly Sins. External Website

Films/Videos Dorian Gray ​ 2009 Dorian Gray is a movie starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, and Rebecca Hall. A corrupt young man - who grew up in the kinship care of his grandfather - somehow keeps his youthful beauty eternally, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles After I was taken off my birth parents, my foster carers became the family I needed Kirsty Capes 2022 ‘You and your family look so alike.’ We get this a lot – especially myself, my mum and my sister. All of us are under five feet two inches, with similar builds, small noses and dark hair. Whenever we get a comment like this, we exchange a knowing smile. My mum and sister are related to one another by blood, but I don’t share a single data point of DNA with either of them. External Website

Films/Videos Wild Rose ​ 2018 Wild Rose (2018) is a British musical drama with kinship care as a subtheme. The film begins with Rose-Lynn being released from a 12-month stint in prison. Her mother (Julie Walters) has been caring for her 2 children during that time. One of the major themes in the movie is about women managing their responsibilities to their children while not giving up on their own dreams. External Website