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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

Autobiography/Memoir Labeled: Ward of the State Kenisha E Anthony 2021 An abandoned child of drug-addicted parents and Florida’s broken child-welfare system, Kenisha E. Anthony was left to wonder if anyone would ever want her. As a young girl, desperate for love and belonging, she bounced from one unstable home to the next, packing only resentment, abandonment, and heartbreak to take with her. Still, Kenisha found her way, ultimately breaking barriers and shattering statistics. Against advice to “just get a GED,” she earned both an undergraduate and graduate degree with the aid of tuition exemption per Florida Statute 1009.25(1)(d), a resource for children aging out of foster care. As an advocate for change in the child welfare system, she found her voice in the presence of state legislators and earned a name as a dynamic professional and change-maker in the field of social work. External Website

Authors G Jade Green ➝ Melissa Gilbert ➝ Madge Gill ➝ Arshile Gorky ➝ Goldie (artist) ➝ Back to Top

Fiction featuring Care Experience Half A World Away Mike Gayle 2020 Kerry Hayes is a single mum, living in a tough London estate. She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot forget her past. Noah Martineau is a successful barrister with a beautiful wife, daughter and home in fashionable Primrose Hill. Adopted as a young child, Noah never looks back. When Kerry contacts Noah, the sibling she lost on the day they were torn apart as children, she sets in motion a chain of events that will change both of their lives forever. 'Kerry is not depicted as less able than Noah, despite growing up in care. So often cared for characters are a shorthand for an emotional mess and actually in this novel that was reversed.' External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Shadow child: a memoir of the stolen generation Rosalie Fraser 1998 Shadow child describes Rosalie Fraser's childhood experiences of separation from her parents while a State Ward in Western Australia and child abuse within a foster family. The story also documents Rosalie's search for her natural family following her marriage, including information obtained from official records. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Bea's Witch Daniel Ingram-Brown 2021 Beatrice Crosse is nearly 12 years ago. She was adopted from the care system but is not happy and she runs away from home, only to encounter a witch who offers her treasure. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles I was a ward of the state. The horrors of the Parramatta Girls' Home were legendary The Conversation (Parramatta) 2023 According to this article, the Australian government has recently announced it will nominate the Parramatta Female Factory for World Heritage listing. However, a call is also being made for the entire site on which the convict-era Parramatta Female Factory (built in 1821) stands to be nominated for World Heritage listing. The argument is that other notorious institutions have existed on the site: “This precinct is by no means merely a relic of the convict era. Only 15 years ago, part of the site was a women’s prison. And from 1887 to 1974, it housed the notorious Parramatta Girls’ Home” writes Jacqueline Z. Wilson. External Website

Authors F Jazz singer ➝ Choir director, gospel musician ➝ Rap Artist, motion graphic designer ➝ Comedian, author, screenwriter ➝ Back to Top

Non Fiction What Happened to You? Ophrah Winfrey 2021 With trauma expert, Dr Bruce Perry, Oprah Winfrey discusses the impact of trauma and insists that conversations must begin with asking: "what happened to you" instead of "what's wrong with you". Throughout the book, Oprah shares some of her traumatic experiences, including her time in kinship care as a small girl. External Website

Authors M The Foundling Boy ➝ Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett ➝ Rembering Babylon ➝ North Woods ➝ 1989 ➝ The Sun Walks Down ➝ As Swallows Fly ➝ Fugitive Pieces (Novel) ➝ The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy Book 1) ➝ The Bee Sting ➝ Mad Mabel ➝ Goodnight Mister Tom (novel) ➝ Auē ➝ Amy's Children ➝ Insidious Intent ➝ That They May Face the Rising Sun ➝ The Ruin ➝ Long Bright River ➝ The Chaperone ➝ The Homes ➝ Lamb ➝ Harland's Half Acre ➝ Song of the Sea Maid ➝ Jamaica Inn ➝ Glasgow Boys ➝ The Orphans (2022) ➝ How the Dead Speak ➝ Long Bright River (novel) ➝ War Horse ➝ Lying Beside You ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir A Tertiary Moment Ryszard Szablicki 2015 Ryszard Szablicki explains in this chapter why he accepted a Victoria Government scholarship to attend university but had difficulty attending class because he felt so alienated from other people's experience of family. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Cuckoo in the Nest Fran Hill 2023 Cuckoo in the Nest follows 14-year-old Jackie Chadwick, a sharp-witted, poetry-loving teenager forced into foster care after her abusive, alcoholic father’s violence lands her in A&E, as she navigates life with a new family full of secrets during the sweltering summer of 1976. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles CELCIS blog on superheroes from the care system Charlotte Armitage 2018 Charlotte Armitage writes about how society often portrays Care Experienced People as the 'baddies'. Stan Lee's representation of Spider-Man, however, is very different. External Website

Radio & Podcast Mary lawson: Crow Lake BBC Book Club (Crow Lake) 2023 In this podcast, James Naughtie talks with a group of readers as they all discuss Crow Lake (2002) with Canadian writer Mary Lawson.Crow Lake centres on the Morrison family whose parents died when the eldest sibling was 18 and the youngest only a toddler. The narrator is Kate who was 7 when her parents died; she is now a zoologist. External Website

Radio & Podcast Why my father was abandoned and the empathy I now have for his mother Conversations 2026 In this episode (15 April 2026) of Conversations, Australian writer Jane Messer talks with host Richard Fidler about what she found about her Jewish German grandmother, Bella, when she went on a multi-country search for information. Jane’s father & aunt were born in Berlin. When Michael (b. 1927) was 8, & his sister 13, Bella took her children to England & abandoned them to a boarding school. There were some initial brief visits to the school by Bella, but then a long gap of 13 years. In order to understand Bella’s actions, Jane visits Berlin, Tel Aviv & Melbourne. She finds out that, even though Michael thought he was abandoned because he wasn’t loved, that wasn’t the case at all. External Website

Sport Jamie Baulch Jamie Baulch b.1973 James Stephen Baulch (b.1973) is a retired Welsh sprint athlete and television presenter. He won the 400 metres gold medal at the 1999 World Indoor Championships. As a member of British 4 × 400 metres relay teams, he won a gold medal at the 1997 World Championships, and silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games. He represented Wales at the Commonwealth Games where he won an individual silver and a bronze medal in the 4 × 400 m relay. Baulch was born in Nottingham, but raised by adoptive parents in Risca, near Newport, Wales. Baulch is mixed race, his biological parents being a white English mother and a black Jamaican father. In 2014 Baulch made a TV documentary for the BBC, Being Jamie Baulch: Looking for My Birth Mum, where he tracked down and was reunited with his birth mother. He then made a follow-up documentary for the BBC, Being Jamie Baulch: The Search for My Birth Dad, in 2016. External Website