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Films/Videos He Even Has Your Eyes ​ 2016 Sali and Paul and a married French-African call who finally receive a call that a 4 month old baby is available for them to adopt. Because the baby, Benjamin, is a white baby, much drama ensues as Sali's family will not accept a white baby as their grandson, the social worker subjects the couple to more surveillance that she does white couples, and the wider community assume Sali is the child's nanny, not her mother. External Website

Films/Videos Slumberland ​ 2022 Slumberland (2022) is an American film based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. It tells the story of Nemo (Marlow Barkley) who lives with her father Peter (Kyle Chandler) in a lighthouse. After her father disappears at sea, Nemo is sent to live with her uncle Philip (Chris O’Dowd) who, though kind and well-intentioned, doesn’t have any experience in caring for a young girl (9 years of age perhaps?). Nemo struggles adjusting to her new situation, including being at a school. She is also grieving, longing for her father and her dream life becomes more real than her waking life. After Nemo sees her father again in Slumberland (many adventures later), she can begin adapting to her new life. External Website

Films/Videos Finding Neverland (film) ​ 2004 Finding Neverland is a biographical drama exploring the relationship between playwright JM Barrie (1860-1937) with the family of Sylvia and Arthur Davies who inspired him to create Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up. Barrie was a guardian for the Davies' boys when their mother died. External Website

Films/Videos Gemini Man ​ 2019 Gemini Man is the story of a retiring government assasin, Henry Brogan (Will Smith), being targeted by a much younger clone of himself, 'Junior'. Junior has been raised in an informal foster care or adoption arrangement by the man who organised the cloning, Clayton Varris (Clive Owen). External Website

Films/Videos Orphans of Isis ​ 2019 Orphans of Isis tells the story of a courageous Sydney grandmother trying desperately to get her 3 orphaned grandchildren back to Australia from a refugee camp in Syria. ABC Four Corners reporter Dylan Welch and producer Suzanne Dredge documented the family's experience over a 4 year period. External Website

Films/Videos Limbo ​ 2023 Limbo (2023) is an Australian film starring Simon Baker as Detective Travis Hurley. Hurley is despatched to an outback town to investigate the disappearance and suspected homicide of an Aboriginal girl, Charlotte Hayes, 20 years previously. Charlotte’s sister, Emma (Natasha Wanganeen) and her brother, Charlie (Rob Collins) don’t expect much from the inquiry. Nothing comes from Hurley’s questioning except the sad knowledge that the police have never treated the Aboriginal people in town very well. By the time he’s summonsed back to town, however, Charlie seems more willing to care for his children, who have been living with Emma. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Run Ann Patchett 2008 Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving possessive and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his adoptive sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children--all his children--safe. External Website

Films/Videos Philomena ​ 2013 The film tells the story of Philomena Lee's long search over 50 years for the son who was forcibly taken from her and adopted. The film is based on the 2009 book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, by Martin Sixsmith. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Flying Troutmans Miriam Toews 2008 The Flying Troutmans by Canadian writer, Miriam Toews, is the heartbreaking yet hopeful story of Hattie’s courageous efforts to care for her niece and nephew while their mother, Min, is in a psychiatric ward of the local hospital. It’s 11 year old Thebes who calls her aunt, 28 year old Hattie, in Paris and begs her to return to Canada to help (as she often has in the past). Hattie is well aware that the children are at risk of being taken into state care; the hospital social worker has already alluded to that. But she’s also unsure about what part she wants to play in their upbringing. Hattie decides the best thing to do is take Thebes and 15 year old Logan on a road trip to locate their long missing father, Doug Cherkis. . External Website

Films/Videos One Good Turn starring Norman Wisdom ​ 1955 This British comedy is set in an English children's home. Norman grew up there and stays on after he grows up as a carer. For Norman, the children and staff at the home are his family. When his home is threatened, he sets out to help save it. External Website

Films/Videos Oranges and Sunshine ​ 2010 Oranges and Sunshine is a 2010 Australian drama film directed by Jim Loach as his directorial debut. Film about the forced migration of children from England to Australia. The film is based on Margaret Humphrey's 1994 book, Empty Cradles. Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered the scandal of "home children", a scheme of forcibly relocating poor children from the United Kingdom to Australia and Canada. Margaret reunites 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

Films/Videos The Unforgivable ​ 2021 The Unforgivable (2021) starring Sandra Bullock covers kinship and foster care. The film is based on the 2009 miniseries, Unforgiven, written by Sally Wainwright. Sandra Bullock plays Ruth Slater who has served time for a violent crime and is now desperately trying to get her life back on track. She's also trying to locate her sister, Katie, but the child protection system isn't helpful and the foster parents would prefer Katie not be told anything about her past. The film explores the topic of how some people are willing to give a former prisoner a second chance, but many others arent. External Website

Films/Videos Foster ​ 2020 Foster (2011) British comedy-drama. After their son is killed in an accident, Collette & Gruffudd decide to adopt a child. 7-yr-old, Eli arrives on their doorstep claiming to be from the adoption agency. He helps them process their loss. Film is also known as Angel in the House. External Website

Films/Videos Lion ​ 2016 Lion is a movie starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara. A five-year-old Indian boy is adopted by an Australian couple after getting lost hundreds of kilometers from home. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family in India. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Starlings Miranda Gold 2018 Struggling to bear the legacy of her grandparents' experience of the Holocaust and her mother's desperate fragility, Sally seeks to reconnect with her brother Steven. Once close, Steven seems a stranger to her now that he has left London for Brighton. The echoes of their history once bound them but it is an inheritance Steven can no longer share. Starlings reaches back through three generations of inherited trauma, exploring how the impact of untold stories ricochets down the years. As Sally winds her way back to catch the moment when Steven slipped away, she collects the fractured words and sliding memories that might piece together her grandparents' journeys. Having always looked through the eyes of ghosts she cannot appease, she at last comes to hear what speechless mouths might have said: perhaps Before may be somewhere we can never truly leave behind and After simply the place we must try to make our home. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Orphan Stories | Encyclopedia.com Anon 2000 Orphan stories: works of children's literature that either feature orphaned children as protagonists or that examine orphans and child abandonment from the perspective of a young child. External Website

Films/Videos Pray for Our Sinners ​ 2022 Pray for Our Sinners (2023) is a documentary by Irish film-maker and journalist, Sinead O’Shea. In the documentary, O’Shea speaks to those people in her home town of Navan in Co Meath who spoke up about abuse by the Catholic church during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when challenging church authorities was an extraordinary thing to do. In particular, O’Shea speaks to those who campaigned against the Magdalene Laundries, and against several corporal punishment meted out in Catholic schools. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Broken Shore Peter Temple 2005 Before the Jimmy Savile scandal broke, South African born Australian writer, Peter Temple, tells an eerily similar (fictional) story in the award-winning The Broken Shore (2005) Detective Cashin is investigating the murder of a prominent philanthropist and discovers the well regarded old man ran a charitable organisation to provide a cover for a group of paedophiles - including himself. The misnamed 'Moral Companions' would organise camps for boys in foster care and children's homes to give them "a bit of fun" (Temple, 320). External Website

Films/Videos Seriously Funny [the story of Corey White] ​ 2015 The story of Corey White. The son of a hustling, drug-addicted mother and a violent father, Corey spent much of his childhood in foster care. As a young man Corey pulled himself out of drug addiction. His salvation - comedy mining his traumatic past to create a biting and hilarious stand-up act. External Website

Films/Videos Proud Mary ​ 2020 Proud Mary is the story of an assassin (who as a teenager was living on the streets before she was taken into a gangster family) who must look after an orphaned teenaged boy after a hit job goes wrong. External Website