Fiction featuring Care Experience Sword Catcher Cassandra Clare 2023 The Sword Catcher tells the story of Kel. Kel is an orphan stolen from the orphanage he is living in to be the body-double of heir to the throne, Prince Conor Aurelian. Kel and Conor grow up together and become close friends. Except that Kel lives with the knowledge that his role is to die for Conor. External Website

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Children's Fiction Runaways E.L. Norry 2025 Runaways follows July, recently returned from foster care to live with her struggling young mother, and Jamie, a lonely boy dealing with family upheaval and an uncaring stepfather. Both, feeling lost and unsupported, run away from home and face challenges such as poverty, danger, and isolation. As they navigate the world on their own, they discover inner strength, the importance of trust, and that even in hardship, hope remains. Themes include family struggles, addiction, survival, racial profiling, and growing up too soon. External Website

Films/Videos Luck 2022 Luck (2022) is an animated fantasy film centred around Sam Greenfield, an 18-year-old orphan who has been forced out from her foster home. Sam’s life has been plagued with misery; she is the unluckiest person in the world. One day, everything changes. Sam finds a penny and a cat who can talk. Sam follows the cat through a portal to the Land of Luck where various creatures – such as leprechauns – create luck for people on Earth. After a series of adventures, Sam accepts that not all bad luck is bad, that she can find solutions to her problems. External Website

Films/Videos Sleepers 1996 Sleepers is a 1996 American legal crime drama film written, produced, and directed by Barry Levinson, and based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's 1995 novel of the same name. In the summer of 1967, 4 friends living in Hell's Kitchen, New York, accidently injure a man while they are stealing from a hot dog vendor. The boys are sentences to Wilkinson Home for Boys where they are brutalised. 13 years later, 2 of the boys, confront one of the former guards, killing him in front of witnesses. 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

Academic Books & Book Chapters Cultural, autobiographical and absent memories of orphanhood Delyth Edwards 2017 This book offers an empirically informed understanding of how cultural, autobiographical and absent memories of orphanhood interact and interconnect or come into being in the re-telling of a life story and construction of an identity. The volume investigates how care experienced identities are embedded within personal, social and cultural practices of remembering. The book stems from research carried out into the life (hi)stories of twelve undervalued ‘historical witnesses’ (Roberts, 2002) of orphanhood: women who grew up in Nazareth House children’s home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Several themes are covered, including histories of care in Northern Ireland, narratives and memories, sociologies of home, and self and identity. The result is an impressive text that works to introduce readers to the complexity of memory for care experienced people and what this means for their life story and identity. External Website

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Academic Articles Care leavers in the ivory tower Kirsty Capes 2019 Interrogating the care experience in creative-academic research. What is it like to be a care experienced person in higher education – particularly in doctoral study? As a writer and researcher, Kirsty Capes' work deals with the care experience through intersecting dimensions of reflective creative work and practice-based research. Being care experienced in higher education comes with its own unique set of problems and opportunities. Higher education continues to be a privilege afforded to those who are well-supported – with money, a supportive family and other strong support networks, and access to the educational resources they need. External Website

Children's Fiction Anna Casey's Place in the World Adrian Fogelin 2003 After losing her family, Anna Casey struggles to adjust to life in foster care with Miss Dupree, feeling abandoned and alone. She finds comfort in an explorer journal where she maps the places she has called home. Determined to belong to a real family, Anna forms unexpected friendships—including a new friend, Eb, and a group of unconventional adults and neighborhood kids—who help her discover connection and belonging. Told with warmth and humor, Adrian Fogelin’s novel traces Anna’s journey toward finding her place in the world. External Website

Poetry Gold from the Stone: New and Selected Poems Lemn Sissay Gold from the Stone is a collection of both new poems and selected ones previously published by Lemn Sissay. External Website

Television Shows The Inheritance (TV series) 2023 The Inheritance (2023) is a four-part British drama television series, first broadcast in the UK on Channel 5. Three siblings are left reeling after an unexpected death in the family. When father-of-three Dennis (Larry Lamb) dies unexpectedly, his adult children are left bereft. But their grief is quickly overshadowed by anger, confusion and suspicion when they learn that he recently changed his will and they won’t be receiving any part of his estate. (Spoiler alert: the storyline features a homicidal character who was in foster care.) They embark on a journey to figure out whether this death was truly a tragic accident, or whether it was murder. Also features a foster care stereotype. See Dr. Rosie Canning's review: https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2024/10/22/not-another-one/ External Website

Performing Arts British singer-songwriter 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

Fiction featuring Care Experience Darkly Dreaming Dexter Jeff Lindsay 2006 Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) is the first in a series crime novels by Jeff Lindsay (pen name for Jeffry Freundlich) and featuring Dexter Morgan. It won the 2005 Dilys Award and the 2007 Book to TV award. There are 6 books in the series, concluding with Dexter is Dead (20025). In both the novels and the Dexter series which followed, Dexter works as a forensic analyst for Miami-Metro Police Dept. When he’s not working, he’s a vigilante serial killer. Dexter has a code of ethics he follows which was taught to him by his adoptive father: only kill those who are guilty of murder and don’t get caught. Dexter Morgan was adopted about the age of 3. When he was 2 he saw his mother being murdered and he & his older brother, Brian, were left sitting in a crate surrounded by body parts & blood for 2 days. External Website

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Poets Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (poet) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) was well known in 19th century America. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland and, orphaned at the age of 3, raised by an aunt and uncle. Her unce was an abolitionist, a Methodist minister and ran his own school called the Watkins Academy for Negro Youth. Frances attended the Watkins Academy until she was 13 and then took up paid work, as a nursemaid and seamstress for a family that owned a bookshop. In her spare time, Frances read and wrote, and she published her first volume of poetry at the age of 21. Frances Harper had a long career as a poet, a short story writer, and a lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society. In addition, she published 3 novels and several essay collections. External Website

Actors George Lopez George Edward Lopez (born April 23, 1961) is an American comedian and actor. He is known for starring in his self-produced ABC sitcom. By the age of ten he was living with his maternal grandmother, having been deserted by both parents. Lopez's stand-up comedy examines race and ethnic relations, including Mexican American culture. Lopez has received several honors for his work and contributions to the Latino community, including the 2003 Imagen Vision Award, the 2003 Latino Spirit Award for Excellence in Television and the National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award. He was also named one of "The Top 25 Hispanics in America" by Time magazine in 2005. External Website

Writers Walter Tevis 1928-1984 Walter Stone Tevis (1928 – 1984) was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in San Francisco and boy contracted rheumatic fever when he was ten. Hospitalised and given heavy doses of drugs, Walter was left there while his parents went to live in Kentucky with Walter’s paternal aunt. Walter was left in the hospital for 12 months before he travelled to Kentucky on his own to join his family. Tevis served 2 years in WWII, after which he attended the University of Kentucky, earning both a Bachelor & Masters degree in English. He then taught at various local high schools, and for 12 years from 1966, at Ohio University. Tevis’ first book, The Hustler, was published in 1959 and adapted for film in 1961. The film, starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, became a classic. External Website

Children's Fiction Hetty Feather (novel) Jacqueline Wilson 2010 London, 1876. Hetty Feather is just a tiny baby when her mother leaves her at the Foundling Hospital. The Hospital cares for abandoned children - but Hetty must first live with a foster family until she is big enough to go to school. Hetty's happiness is threatened when she must return to the Foundling Hospital to begin her education. The new life of awful uniforms and terrible food is a struggle for her, and she desperately misses her beloved Jem. But now she has the chance to find her real mother. Could she really be the wonderful Madame Adeline? Or will Hetty find the truth is even more surprising? Featuring a brand-new feisty Victorian heroine in this historical novel, Hetty Feather, is compelling, moving and funny. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Runaway Orphans Pam Weaver 2022 The Runaway Orphans (2022) by Pam Weaver tells the story of Amy and Lillian. Sisters, they are desperate to escape their stepfather’s house, so they board a train full of children being evacuated from London during WWII. When they arrive in the seaside town of Worthing, they are taken in by a kindly couple, Norah & Jim. External Website