Blogs/Web Pages/Articles CELCIS Reach - article on the creative workshops run by Inspired Youth CELCIS 2018 Care Experienced young people have come together to produce a film to challenge negative stereotypes, low expectations and the stigma of having been in care. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Mr Einstein's Secretary Matthew Reilly 2023 Mr Einstein’s Secretary (2023) by Australian writer, Matthew Reilly, features an orphaned character. In 1919, Hanna Fischer is 17 and wanting to study physics. Her neighbour and mentor is Albert Einstein. After her father is murdered, it is Albert Einstein who organises for the teenager to be sent from Berlin to New York to live with her sister’s mother. However, Aunt Penny isn’t keen on having another child at home so Hanna is packed off to a live-in secretarial school - where she learns the skills to become Mr Einstein’s secretary. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett Compton Mackenzie 1918 The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett, is a 1918 novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie. Sylvia was celebrated as one of literature's truly great female characters, known for her vitality and unforgettable spirit. The novel sees Sylvia navigating a life of adventure, cons, and romance after fleeing France with her embezzler father. The heroine of the story had previously appeared in Mackenzie's Sinister Street. It was followed by a sequel Sylvia and Michael in 1919. Sylvia becomes orphaned during the story, losing both parents; her mother dies early on, and her father, Henry Scarlett, dies later, leaving her to navigate life independently with her con-artist companions. Also a film 1935 described as the most famous unsuccessful movie of the 1930s. External Website

Television Shows Agatha Christie's Marple 2004 Agatha Christie’s Marple (2004-2013) is a British television series loosely based on the books and short stories of Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Several of the episodes have Care Experienced Characters: S1 The Body in the Library An adoption theme – an elderly man wants to adopt a young woman but there is opposition from his family to this idea, resulting in the young woman’s death. S1 The Moving Finger The vicar’s nephew is living with him as his parents are in Kenya. Agnes was in an orphanage. She now works for the local lawyer and is the victim of murder. S2 The Sleeping Murder Gwenda Reed was orphaned as a small child & raised by an aunt in India. Her mother had also grown up with her brother looking after her. S2 The Sittaford Mystery Lawrence Fox plays the ward of the prospective PM. The young journalist was orphaned by age 3 and raised by nuns. One of the orphans is a murderer. S3 Ordeal by Innocence Rachel Argyll has 5 adopted children, one of whom is assumed the murderer. S3 Towards Zero Audrey Strange, the 1st wife of tennis player Neville Strange was orphaned when young & raised with cousins & an aunt. Neville Strange was also orphaned and raised in care. One of the 2 is a murderer. S4 A Pocket Full of Rye Gladys the maid who used to work for Miss Marple & who was murdered came to Miss Marple from the orphanage. S4 Murder is Easy. Bridgette Conway is an adoptee, an American in England searching for her birth parents S4 #3 They Do it With Mirrors is set around a reformatory. The woman who runs it adopted a girl – Gina - and then had a daughter of her own – Mildred. S4 Why Didn’t They Ask Evans Abandoned children kill their uncle & plot the death of their mother. S5 The Pale Horse The murderer had been incarcerated @ the age of 12 for murder but was thought to be “cured”. S5 The Mirror Crack’s from Side to Side 2 adopted children, neither of whom are murderers S6 Greenshaw’s Folly Revolves around St Faith’s orphanage where children have been used in polio experiments. None of the once-residents are murderers. External Website

Films/Videos The Windermere Children 2020 The Windermere Children is a movie starring Thomas Kretschmann, Romola Garai, and Iain Glen. This is the story of children repatriated at the end of WWII from Poland and taken to live in a camp in the Lakes District in England. Here, the children are helped to rebuild their lives and integrate into British society. 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

Fiction featuring Care Experience Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 Never Let Me Go follows the lives of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth, three young people growing up in Hailsham — a secluded boarding school that functions like a residential home. The novel explores what it’s like to grow up in a system where choices are limited, and the truth about the 'care' they receive has a disturbing function. External Website

Authors B Sins of the Father ➝ Snow ➝ A Thousand Moons ➝ The Black Tower ➝ The Dictator's Wife ➝ The Promise ➝ Ghost River ➝ I'll Be Right Here ➝ The Heart's Invisible Furies ➝ Grace and Mary ➝ Villette ➝ The Orphan of Salt Winds ➝ Lost for words ➝ To Die For ➝ Quirke (series) ➝ Rocks in the Belly ➝ Mr Timothy ➝ The Birdcage Library ➝ Blood ➝ Christine Falls ➝ The Elements ➝ This House is Haunted ➝ Dust ➝ Jane Eyre ➝ The Other Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria's Goddaughter ➝ Different Genes ➝ Agony of desertion (out of print) ➝ The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel ➝ The Butterfly Lampshade ➝ Common People ➝ The White Girl ➝ The Foster Child: ➝ The Thief of Time ➝ Clade ➝ Death of an Avid Reader ➝ The Chocolate Maker's Wife ➝ The Strange Adventures of H ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast Discovering you are not who you thought you were ABC God Forbid What happens when you find out new knowledge about yourself via DNA and other means? This is the question posed to 2 adoptees in this podcast, Vietnamese born and Australian raised Lynelle Long and Marlene Sciclune, whose heritage is Australian First Nations and Maltese. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Orphan X (novel series) Gregg Hurwitz 2016 Orphan X (2016) is a thriller written by American novelist Gregg Hurwitz. It is the first in a series of books centred around Evan Smoak. At the age of 12, Evan was enrolled in a secret operation to train orphans as assassins for government agencies. Evan or Orphan X maintains access to the program’s funding and weapons after the secret operation is closed and he becomes a vigilante assassin. Other books in the series are Buy a Bullet (2016), The Nowhere Man (2017), Hellbent (2018), Out in the Dark (2019), Into The Fire (2020) and The Prodigal Son (2021). External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Hegel's Owl. The Life of Bernard Smith Sheridan Palmer 2016 Hegel's Owl is a history of ideas as well as a biography of Bernard Smith who, from humble beginnings in foster care, became known as the 'father' of art history in Australia. External Website

Poets Vicki Roach Vicki Roach Aboriginal Australian activist and writer, Vicki Roach (b. 1958), was in an institution and in foster care as a child.Vicki Roach is a Yiun woman and a member of the Stolen Generations. She was taken from her mother—also a member of the Stolen Generations who had been in the notorious Parramatta Girls Home—when she was two years of age. Vicki’s mother had requested the state care for her child while she went into an unmarried mother’s home and had another child. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement ended up with Vicki being made a ward of the (NSW) state and placed into a white foster home in the western Sydney suburb of Carramar. Education has been a significant force in Vicki Roach’s life. She left school at 13, but took on a Bachelor degree with the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University during one stint in prison. From there she went on to do a Masters through Swinburne University, and in 2009 was onto a PhD. Vicki Roach has been publishing poetry and essays since 2000. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Scenes From the Life of Harriet Tubman Sarah Hopkins Bradford 1869 In 1869, four years after the end of the Civil War, Sarah Hopkins Bradford wrote her first of two groundbreaking books, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. Tubman escaped slavery and then returned to help many others escape as well; travelling to the northern United States and Canada before the Civil War, using the Underground Railroad. Bradford wrote the book, using extensive interviews with Tubman, to raise funds for Tubman's support. The two became friends. It was the first Tubman biography of any depth. Bradford was one of the first Caucasian writers to deal with African-American topics, and her work attracted worldwide fame, selling very well. In 1886, she followed up with Harriet Tubman, Moses of Her People, again to assist in supporting Tubman. Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, c. March 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women's suffrage. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate overseer threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another enslaved person, but hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. After her injury, Tubman began experiencing strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God. These experiences, combined with her Methodist upbringing, led her to become devoutly religious. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Kingdom Jo Nesbo 2020 The gripping new standalone thriller from multi-million copy bestseller, Jo Nesbo. When Roy and Carl's parents die suddenly, sixteen-year-old Roy is left as protector to his impulsive younger brother. But when Carl decides to travel the world in search of his fortune, Roy stays behind in their sleepy village, satisfied with his peaceful life as a mechanic.Some years later, Carl returns with his charismatic new wife, Shannon - an architect. T External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Norma Jean: My Secret Life With Marilyn Monroe Ted Jordan 1989 A personal account of the author's twenty-year relationship with the iconic Marilyn Monroe who was in foster care, children's homes and kinship care as a child. External Website

Sport Efe Obada Efe Obada Nigerian born gridiron footballer, Efe Obada (b. 1992), was taken from The Netherlands (where he lived with his mother) with his sister to London when he was about 10 years old. The children were abandoned on the streets. A security guard took the children in and contacted their mother who arranged for them to stay with a friend of hers. Soon after, Obada and his sister ended up in the foster care system, living in more than 10 different homes.(where they'd been living with their mother for 2 years). The children were abandoned on the streets of London. A security guard looked after them and contacted their mother who arranged for a friend to care for the 2. Soon after, Obada and his sister ended in the foster care system, living in more than 10 different homes. Obada's life changed when he began playing American football in London. He eventually moved to the States and is currently playing for the Washington Commanders. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Whatever happened to the little girl who played Annie? Lisa Flowers 2018 Since its inception in 1924, Little Orphan Annie has become an American icon. Actress Aileen Quinn adopted the role in 1982 for the John Huston-directed film, forever cementing her place in pop culture. This article explores what happened to Aileen Quinn later in her life. External Website

Films/Videos Take Care of Maya 2023 Take Care of Maya (2023) is a documentary (on Netflix) telling the story of what happened to Maya Kowalski when she was 10 and admitted to the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St Petersburg, Florida. Hospital staff expressed concern about the treatment Maya was already receiving (under medical guidance) and alerted the child protection team. Dr Sally Smith, the medical director the child protection team, decided that Maya’s mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. May Kowalski was then removed from the care of her parents and held in state custody (while remaining in hospital). The Kowalskis have filed a lawsuit against Johns Hopkins, with a trail set to start in September 2023. External Website

Sport Dele Alli Dele Alli b.1996 Bamidele Jermaine "Dele" Alli (b. 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Premier League club Everton and the England national team. Alli was born in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, to a Yoruba Nigerian father Kehinde and English mother Denise. Kehinde moved to the United States a week after Alli's birth. Alli was initially brought up by his mother, who suffered from alcohol problems. At the age of nine, he moved to Nigeria with his father, where he spent two years in an international school before returning to Milton Keynes to live with his mother. Alli went to Stantonbury Campus and The Radcliffe School in Wolverton. At the age of 13, he moved into the family home of Alan and Sally Hickford, parents of another young footballer with MK Dons and whom he refers to as his "adoptive parents" although he was never legally adopted by them. In the summer of 2016, Alli elected to stop wearing his surname on his match shirts because he felt no connection with the Alli family name, instead opting for "Dele". External Website

Television Shows Bones 2005 Bones is an American crime procedural featuring forensic anthropologist, Dr Temperance "Bones" Brennan. Temperance was put into foster care when she was 15 years of age. The foster system was unstable and abusive. Despite going to 12 different schools while in foster, Temperance ended up with 3 doctorates and does occasional contract work with the FBI External Website