Writers Joseph Livesey Joseph Livesey (1794-1884) was orphaned at the age of 7, from which time he lived with his grandfather and an uncle. As an adult, Joseph became involved in local (Preston, Lancashire in England) politics, kicking off the Temperance Movement, publishing a monthly magazine The Moral Reformer (1831-1883) for 4 years, and then The Struggle as he agitated against the Corn Laws. In 1844 Joseph set up the Preston Guardian (which is still going but is now the Farmers Guardian), the Teetotal Progressionist in August 1851 (which lasted until May 1852), and the Staunch Teetotaller which lasted 2 years. In addition to many tracts (short treatise) and lectures he wrote, Joseph Livesey published his autobiography in 1881. External Website

Writers Leslie Thomas 1931-2014 Leslie Thomas, OBE (22 March 1931 – 6 May 2014) was a Welsh author best known for his comic novel The Virgin Soldiers. Thomas was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales. He was orphaned at the age of 12, when his mariner father was lost at sea and his mother died only a few months later from cancer. He was subsequently brought up in a Dr Barnardo's home; the story of this upbringing was the subject of his first, autobiographical, book, This Time Next Week. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Lying Beside You Michael Robotham (2022) 2022 Michael Robotham 4 Lying Beside You (2022) is the 3rd in the Michael Robotham Cyrus Haven series. Cyrus Haven is a forensic psychologist who was in kinship care with his grandparents after his older brother murdered his parents and twin sisters. In Good Girl, Bad Girl (2019) he is introduced to Evie Cormac who has been in foster care and is now living in a youth detention centre. The sequel, When She Was Good (2020), included a Care Experienced characters who runs a paedophile ring and another is an enabler who transports children from paedophile to paedophile. With Lying Beside You there are a range of dodgy characters (including a cop and a forensic scientist) in addition to a vengeful serial kidnapper, none of whom have been in informal care or the formal care system. Evie, now living in Cyrus' home, helps to solve the crime. External Website

Poets Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (poet) Eliza Hamilton Dunlop Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (1796-1880) was raised by her paternal grandmother in Ireland. She migrated to Australia with 2nd husband, Duncan Dunlop in 1838. By the time she was in her teens, Eliza Hamilton Dunlop was already a published poet. Her lament, “The Aboriginal Mother”—published in The Australian on 13 December 1838—was provoked by her outrage at the Myall Creek massacre. On 10 June 1838, around 28 (the total death toll was never established) Wirrayaraay people were slaughtered at Myall Creek Station in NSW. Seven men were publicly hanged for the massacre on 18 December 1838. Unsurprisingly, there was more anger at the execution of British citizens than there was at the slaughter of Wirrayaraay people. But Dunlop was astonished at the backlash against her and her poem. Although she continued to have her poetry published in colonial newspapers, her work was largely neglect after her death in 1880. External Website

Writers Robert Dessaix Robert’s birth mother, Yvonne, was coerced by her mother into giving up her baby in 1944.Jean and Tom Jones adopted Yvonne’s baby son and took him back to their home in Lane Cove on Sydney’s north shore. They were an older working couple, and they loved their son. As a child and on into his adulthood Robert studied Russian, eventually teaching this at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. For ten years from 1985, Robert Dessaix presented the weekly ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio National program 'Books and Writing'. He became a full time writer in 1995. Robert Dessaix was into his 30s before he located his birth mother. He’d always known that he was adopted, Jean and Tom were open about that, but living in Melbourne after his marriage had collapsed he decided it was time “to do something about Yvonne” and so he wrote to her. This was the beginning of a continuing gentle relationship between the two. External Website

Writers AUTHORS Q External Website

Children's Fiction Homecoming: Volume 1 Cynthia Voight 2012 “It’s still true.” That’s the first thing James Tillerman says to his older sister, Dicey, every morning. It’s still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillermans in a mall parking lot somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It’s still true that they have to find their own way to Great-aunt Cilla’s house in Bridgeport. It’s still true that they need to spend as little as possible on food and seek shelter anywhere that is out of view of the authorities. It’s still true that the only way they can hope to all stay together is to just keep moving forward. Deep down, Dicey hopes they can find someone to trust, someone who will take them in and love them. But she’s afraid it’s just too much to hope for.... Originally published 1973 External Website

Films/Videos Easy A 2010 Easy A (stylized as easy A) is a 2010 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Will Gluck, written by Bert V. Royal, starring Emma Stone, Stanley Tucci, and others The screenplay was partially inspired by the 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Olive Prendergast is an average student until rumours fly that she has had sex. Teen comedy about peer pressure. Olive has an adopted brother which is very normalised. In one scene, it gets mentioned by the brother and the father has this whole silly speech asking who told him and how they were going to keep it a secret. Quite clearly a family joke. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Borrowed Findery Paula Fox 2001 When Paula Fox was born to 19 year old Elsie and her partner, Paul - both screenwriters - she was immediately put into a foundling hospital. Paula's maternal grandmother, however, retrieved the baby and so began a nomadic childhood for Paula as she was moved around from foster care to kinship care and back again. Paula Fox reflects on this unusual childhood from the perspective of being in her 70s and after a late starting but long career as a successful writer. External Website

Actors Tiffany Haddish Eritrean-American actor and comedian, Tiffany Haddish (1979) was in residential, foster and kinship care as a child. Tiffany Haddish was born in Los Angeles, California. She was around 3 years old when her father, a refugee from Eritrea, abandoned the family. When Tiffany was nearly 9, her mother, Leola, had a car accident and suffered brain damage which made it difficult to care appropriately for her children. Tiffany therefore spent several years in the foster care system from the age of 12 or 13 before going to stay with her grandmother. Tiffany’s social worker encouraged the girl to attend the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp to learn how to do stand-up comedy. Haddish credits the Comedy Camp with having changed her life. After guest-starring on several television series, Haddish gained prominence with her role as Nekeisha Williams on the NBC sitcom The Carmichael Show. After appearing in the 2016 comedy film Keanu, her breakthrough came in 2017 with her role as Dina in the comedy film Girls Trip, for which she garnered critical acclaim. In 2017, she published her memoir, The Last Black Unicorn.Haddish currently stars in the TBS series The Last O.G. and recently voiced Tuca in the Netflix animated series Tuca & Bertie. External Website

Sport Colin Kaepernick Colin Kaepernick African American Colin Kaepernick (b. 1987) was adopted into a white family when he was a baby. He moved with his family from Wisconsin to California at the age of 4 and began playing sport at the age of 8. In high school he played football, basketball and baseball and excelled in all codes. Wanting to play football, he accepted a scholarship from the University of Nevada in 2006 and he began playing professional football in 2011. He played with the San Francisco 49ers for 6 years. Colin Kaepernick is the recipient of many awards including a 2018 WEB Du Bois Medal from Harvard University. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Who was Thomas Coram? Thomas Coram 2022 Thomas Coram was a campaigner whose greatest achievement, that he called his ‘darling project’, was the Foundling Hospital. But this was just one of many charitable projects he pursued throughout his life. He had an interrupted childhood when his mother died, he was just 3 years old and the only one of his siblings to survive. He was sent to sea at 11 years old so further childhood disruption. Thomas Coram was a determined campaigner and that he could not and would not ignore destitute children on London’s streets. Thomas Coram was also a passionate advocate for girls’ education until late in life. During his time in America, he produced a scheme that promoted the education of native American girls in the American colonies. External Website

Academic Articles As a former foster kid, I'm giving Tracy Beaker a second chance Sophia Alexandra Hall 2021 Sophia Alexandra Hall went into foster care as a teenager and was cared for by her local authority until leaving at 18 to attend the University of Oxford. Here she writes about the new Tracy Beaker TV series, 'My Mum Tracy Beaker'. The original series is often cited as inadvertently paving the way for negative stereotypes and labels to be attached to children in care. Hall explains: "Tracy Beaker and I have a complicated relationship. When I told my friends growing up that I was in foster care, I’d often be compared to the fictional character. At first, I didn’t understand the comparison. Tracy was a pre-teen living in a children’s home, while I was living in a foster placement and revising for secondary school exams. But it was easier to shrug off my care experience as ‘like Tracy Beaker’ than to explain the complexities of the system to my peers." External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Billy Connolly: ‘I’ve been scared my whole life’ Billy Connolly 2021 Billy Connolly: ‘I’ve been scared my whole life’ The comedian recalls his early years in an exclusive extract from his new autobiography. "When I was told I was going to live with my aunts and my Uncle James, I was delighted. The children’s home scared me. Everything scared me after my mother left. And I’ve gone on being scared my whole life.” Billy Connolly on the impact care can have. External Website

Television Shows The Asset 2025 The Asset (2025) is a Danish thriller. Newbie police officer, Tea, is invited to become an agent for the Danish Security & Intelligence Service (PET). She is required to befriend the partner of drug smuggler Miran. As Tea/Sarah gets to know Ashley & her 8-year-old daughter, Sophia, she becomes concerned about the control Miran has over Ashley. Towards the end of the series, child protection becomes involved and remove Sophia. PET then use the threat of keeping Sophia from her mother so that Ashley will inform on Miran. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Before We Were Yours Lisa 2018 Memphis, Tennessee, 1939 Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge, until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth... Aiken, South Carolina, present day Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. ********************* Based on one of America's most notorious real-life scandals, in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country, Before We Were Yours is a riveting, wrenching and ultimately uplifting global bestseller. External Website

Films/Videos A Walz Through the Hills (Film) 1988 Two children are orphaned while living in a country pub in the West Australian bush where their mother has been working. They set out to work over 130miles to Perth so they can sail to England and live with their grandparents. External Website

Performing Arts Singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon was born at Liverpool Maternity Hospital to Julia (née Stanley) (1914–1958) and Alfred Lennon (1912–1976). He was in kinship care with his aunt for most of his childhood. His father was often away from home. When he eventually came home, he offered to look after the family, but Julia, by then pregnant with another man's child, rejected the idea. After her sister Mimi complained to Liverpool's Social Services twice, Julia gave her custody of Lennon. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited her and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them – with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins – and after a heated argument, his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. In one account of this incident, Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. Lennon had no further contact with Alf for close to 20 years. Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, with Mimi and her husband George Toogood Smith, who had no children of their own. His aunt purchased volumes of short stories for him, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and John often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, taught him the banjo, and showed him how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino. On 15 July 1958, she was knocked down and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman, close to her sister's house at 251 Menlove Avenue. Lennon was traumatised by her death and wrote several songs about her, including "Julia" and "Mother". His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued a career as a solo artist and as Ono's collaborator. Starting with 1967's "All You Need Is Love", his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture. In 1969, he held the two week-long anti-war demonstration Bed-Ins for Peace. After moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him. In 1975, Lennon disengaged from the music business to raise his infant son Sean and, in 1980, returned with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. He was shot and killed in the archway of his Manhattan apartment building by a Beatles fan, Mark David Chapman, three weeks after the album's release. External Website

Performing Arts Guitarist-singer-songwriter B B King African American blues singer-song writer, BB King (1925-2015), was born Riley B King to sharecroppers in Mississippi. His father deserted the family when Riley was young and his mother died when he was 10. It’s not clear with whom Riley lived from then, some sources say his grandmother, others say other relatives. In 1949, King left for Memphis then went on to Chicago where he soon was regularly performing at a nightclub. The following year, King signed with a Los Angeles based label, Modern Records, which specialised in jazz. From the 1960s, BB King toured all over the world. He continued touring and recording until shortly before his death in 2015. External Website

Authors M Cassidy Mack ➝ Samantha Morton ➝ Nina Mae McKinney ➝ Frances McDormand ➝ Lee Majors ➝ Ronald Magill ➝ Charlie Murphy ➝ Candi Marie ➝ Marilyn Monroe (actor) ➝ Eddie Murphy ➝ Monroe Martin III ➝ James McAvoy ➝ Neil Morrissey ➝ Back to Top