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Fiction featuring Care Experience Swimming for beginners Nicola Gill 2023 Loretta has her life all planned out – challenging job, engaged to a nice but dull man – and it definitely doesn’t include children. Then, an unexpected tragedy at an airport throws six-year-old Phoebe, complete with glitter fairy wings, into her life and upends it completely. The perfect mix of funny, poignant and heartwarming. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home Murray et al 2017 Authors: Suellen Murray, John Murphy, Elizabeth Branigan, Jenny Malone. While there is much literature on the experience of growing up in an orphanage, very few books examine life after institutional care. After the Orphanage is the first book to address how care-leavers adjust to life in the outside world. External Website

Authors W Wild Rose ➝ Wash My Soul in the River's Flow ➝ Walkabout ➝ White Oleander (film) ➝ What are you doing at Christmas? ➝ The Wizard of Oz ➝ Without Gorky ➝ Where the Crawdads Sing (film) ➝ We Have a Ghost ➝ Back to Top

Authors L Pippi Longstocking ➝ The Willoughbys ➝ Back to Top

Authors F A Fortunate Life - Fremantle Press ➝ The Scent of my Mother's Kiss ➝ Predators' Paradise. A Journey of Survival and Resilience ➝ Brutal-Surviving Westbrook Boys Home ➝ The Golly in the Cupboard ➝ The Foundling (2018) ➝ Ootlin ➝ Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots ➝ Finding Fish: A Memoir ➝ News From the World ➝ The Love that Remains ➝ A Search For Belonging: A story about race, identity, belonging and displacement ➝ Freedom of Angels: Surviving Goldenbridge Orphanage: Childhood in Goldenbridge Orphanage ➝ Who Cares?: Memories of a Childhood in Barnardo's ➝ Along the Way ➝ Borrowed Findery ➝ Shadow child: a memoir of the stolen generation ➝ Back to Top

Children's Fiction Don't Ask The Dragon Lemn Sissay (Author) Greg Stobbs (Illustrator) 2022 This is the story of Alem, a curious little boy who realises today is his birthday. The only problem is that Alem does not know where to celebrate, and who to celebrate with. He goes on an adventure all on his own, meeting exciting animals along the way. He befriends a bear, a fox, a treefrog, a bulldog and more. Every new friend he makes, he asks the same question: where shall I go? And every time he’s met with the same warning: ‘don’t ask the dragon . . . OR HE WILL EAT YOU’. The only thing Alem never speaks to is the tiny worm who sits on each page, perhaps it’s because the worm is so small! All alone at the top of a hill, Alem grows frustrated and helpless as he doesn’t know where to go. But someone – or something – does and Alem comes face-to-face with the dangerous dragon he was warned about. But just how dangerous is it? External Website

Children's Fiction I was a Rat! Or, The Scarlet Slippers Philip Pullman 2018 I was a Rat! Roger insists, and insists . . . In fact, when Bob the cobbler and his washerwoman wife, Joan, find the young boy abandoned on their doorstep, these are the only words he says. And he does have ratty behaviour, it's true. Staying with Bob and Joan, however, Roger learns quickly to behave more like a human child. They try to find his parents, but the orphanage, police and hospital all have nothing on their records about a lost boy in the city. What is the truth? As more and more people find out about Roger the mysterious rat-boy he faces more and more danger. But sometimes help comes from the most unexpected of places . . . External Website

Academic theses What’s the story? Sociological explorations of the life course narratives of adults with care experience Catriona Hugman 2018 This thesis extends understandings of people who experienced care by making use of sociological approaches and concepts. This approach highlights how previous research and cultural representations of young people in care produce individualised understandings and psychological explanations of difference. This is compounded by a lack of research on care leavers over the age of 25 and the omission of the voices of people with care experience within what little research there is. These absences may contribute to the depiction of the deficit, ascribed identity of being a child in care. External Website

Authors R Victoria Rowell ➝ Margaret Rutherford ➝ Back to Top

Authors S Writer ➝ Poet, musician, and author ➝ Australian, opera singer ➝ Composer ➝ British singer-songwriter ➝ Blues singer ➝ Singer-musician ➝ Judee Sill ➝ British author, broadcaster, stand-up comedian, and columnist ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Foster Care Films - Community Engagement Project 2018 A series of documentary films, currently in production, these films gives a voice to youth in the system. An opportunity for foster youth to share their voice thru storytelling, writing and art An outlet for foster youth to work behind the scenes on a film A social media campaign focused on reframing the discussion about foster care A community engagement project, which connects current/former foster youth to those who have an opportunity to make a difference within the system. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Into the Water Paula Hawkins 2017 Into the Water (2017) by Paula Hawkins is a thriller. Nell Abbott's dead body has been retrieved from the river that runs through Beckford and Nell's sister, Jules, arrives from London to care for her 15-year-old niece, Lena Abbott. The story is about 'troublesome' women and the men who get rid of them. One man decides that it would be better for him to avoid prison for his crime otherwise his son "would have put in care. I've seen what happens to kids who grow up i care, there's not one of them that doesn't come out damaged and perverted." An odd comment from a man "damaged and perverted" enough to kill a woman and who didn't grow up in care. External Website

Performing Arts USA, songwriter Eden Ahbez ➝ Violinist, teacher, composer Anna Maria della Pietà ➝ German, composer, musician Johann Sebastian Bach ➝ Presenter, writer, singer and politician Floella Benjamin ➝ Jazz drummer Art Blakey ➝ Singer, songwriter, pianist, composer Ray Charles ➝ Puppeteer Marcus Clarke ➝ Chinese Australian ballet dancer Li Cunxin ➝ Australian singer Karise Eden ➝ Rap Artist, motion graphic designer Ric Flo ➝ Musician, music producer, DJ, visual artist and actor. Goldie ➝ American Singer, songwriter, actress Debbie Harry ➝ Singer, Songwriter US Jimi Hendrix ➝ Jazz and swing music singer Billie Holliday ➝ British Singer Mo Jamil ➝ British Pianist Brad Kella ➝ Comedian, writer, director Stewart Graham Lee ➝ AUS, Singer, Songwriter Joy McKean ➝ Irish, Singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor ➝ Rapper, singer, songwriter, philanthropist Pitbull ➝ Australian singer-songwriter Archie Roach ➝ Composer Erik Satie ➝ British singer-songwriter Seal ➝ Australian, opera singer Stephen Smith ➝ American-Swiss singer, songwriter, actress Tina Turner ➝ Country Music, Singer-songwriter Buddy Williams ➝ Comedian & TV Presenter Dara Ó Briain ➝ US, Singer-songwriter Aimee Allen ➝ TV Presenter, antiques collector Ronnie Archie-Morgan ➝ American singer-songwriter Anita Baker ➝ Pauline Black Pauline Black ➝ Singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader James Brown ➝ Radio Presenter Pandora Christie ➝ Singer, songwriter, American Keyshia Cole ➝ Singer, entertainer, Australian Smoky Dawson ➝ Aboriginal Australian, Singer, songrwriter Kutcha Edwards ➝ Comedian, author, screenwriter Deborah Frances-White ➝ TV Presenter Larry Grayson ➝ Singer, musician Donny Hathaway ➝ Musician, Songwriter James Hetfield ➝ Singer, dancer, actress, activist Lena Horne ➝ Model Grace Jones ➝ Guitarist-singer-songwriter B B King ➝ Singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist John Lennon ➝ Bandmaster and academic Charles Nalden ➝ US Singer-songwriter Angel Olsen ➝ Singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, actor. Prince ➝ Actor, producer Kamari Roméo ➝ Singer-musician Bon Scott ➝ Judee Sill Judee Sill ➝ British author, broadcaster, stand-up comedian, and columnist Mark Steel ➝ Blues singer, songwriter, musician Muddy Waters ➝ American singer, founding member Supremes Mary Wilson ➝ Australian Rock Singer Diana Anaid ➝ Trumpeter, composer, singer, actor Louis Armstrong ➝ Mezzo-soprano singer Maroochy Barambah ➝ Tenor and Aboriginal Australian activist Harold Blair ➝ Comedian, writer, tv presenter Rhona Cameron ➝ Guitarist, singer, songwriter Eric Clapton ➝ Australian, singer, entertainer Sharyn Crystal ➝ Sierra Leonean-American Ballet dancer Michaela DePrince ➝ Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald ➝ Choir director, gospel musician Kirk Franklin ➝ Rapper, songwriter Professor Green ➝ Dancer, Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins ➝ Singer, record producer Faith Hill ➝ Singer, songwriter, guitarist Ruby Hunter ➝ New Zealand, Opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa ➝ Singer, comedienne, activist Eartha Kitt ➝ Radio & TV personality Art Linkletter ➝ Musician, actor, activist Willie Nelson ➝ French singer-songwriter, cabaret performer, actress Edith Piaf ➝ singer, songwriter, record producer, composer Trent Reznor ➝ Writer Charles Ignatius Sancho ➝ Poet, musician, and author Gil Scott-Heron ➝ Blues singer Bessie Smith ➝ Record producer, rapper Tricky (Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws) ➝ USA, Singer, Songwriter Jimmy Wayne ➝ Welsh Singer Gruffydd Wyn ➝ Back to Top

Authors C The Elephant to Hollywood ➝ One of the Family: Why A Dog Called Maxwell Changed My Life ➝ The Sixteenth Round ➝ Cher: The Memoir, Part One ➝ Before and After: the heartbreaking true stories of a notorious adoption scandal ➝ Mini & Me ➝ Shaped by Silence: Stories from Inmates of the Good Shepherd Laundries and Reformatories ➝ Finding Otipemisiwak: The People Who Own Themselves ➝ John Callahan ➝ Steering the Mothership (2014) 'Like a Duck to Water'. ➝ My Autobiography ➝ The Brightness of Stars: Stories of Adults Who Came Through the Care System ➝ Eric Clapton: The Autobiography ➝ The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Foundling's Story ➝ Forgotten ➝ The WOTS Family ➝ Sleepers (memoir) ➝ Jack Charles: A Born-again Blakfella ➝ Searching for Charmian ➝ Windswept and Interesting. My Autobiography ➝ Mommie Dearest (autobiography) ➝ Li Cunxin ➝ Back to Top

Writers Shannon Burns In his 2022 memoir, Childhood, Dr Shannon Burns describes the considerable disruption he experienced as a small child - from going into respite care with a church group, to being in foster care with a couple who thought starving their dog was a good thing, to being in kinship care with his extended Greek Australian family, to finally staying with his father and stepmother from the age of 10. Along the way, Shannon discovered a welcome escape through reading, and a talent with writing. External Website

Authors W Care Left Me ➝ Poems From a Runaway. A true story ➝ Blackberry's Child ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos For Love 2021 For Love, directed by Matt Smiley, is a documentary which tells stories from across Canada about the (often devastating) effects of the Canadian child welfare system on Indigenous communities and families. The film, narrated by Shania Twain, makes connections between Canada's current system of caring for children and the historic residential school system. External Website

Poets Yusuf P. McCormack (poet) Yusuf P. McCormack Yusuf Paul McCormack was an Artist, Poet, Writer/Author and Trainer, based in Rugby, Warwickshire. He took early retirement from the civil service in 2015 and wrote his first verse in November of that year. It was an epiphany moment and, consumed, Yusuf wrote solidly for the next 12 months about his childhood growing up in children's institutions. In December 2016 he began to translate his written work on to canvas, where he attempted to explore the emotions that he was unable to voice as a child. His work explores the world he experienced, felt and witnessed as a child who was illegitimate, mixed raced and rejected. Yusuf’s art was his intuitive way of working using memory and imagination as a way to develop his own style. He used his combined experiences as an artist, a child of the state, to inform those who genuinely want to improve and sustain better outcomes for those who never chose their start in life. Yusuf died in January 2021, one of the over 150,000 deaths in the UK from Covid-19 during the world pandemic. External Website

Actors Frances McDormand McDormand was born Cynthia Ann Smith in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted at one and a half years of age by Noreen (Nickelson) and Vernon McDormand and renamed Frances Louise McDormand. Her adoptive mother was a nurse and receptionist while her adoptive father was a pastor; both were originally from Canada. McDormand has said that her biological mother, to whom she proudly referred, along with herself, as "white trash," may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church. She has a sister, Dorothy A. "Dot" McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain,[4] as well as another sibling, both of whom were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children. McDormand is known for her portrayals of unique, quirky, and headstrong female characters, She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. She is one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting." McDormand was educated at Bethany College and Yale University. She has starred in a number of films by the Coen brothers, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). For her portrayal of Marge Gunderson in Fargo, McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film roles include Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing a troubled single mother in Good People. On television, McDormand played the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2020, she starred in and produced the acclaimed independent western drama film Nomadland and recently won a BAFTA, best actress for her portrayal as Fern. External Website

Authors R Shattered Paths ➝ Back to Top