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Fiction by Care Experienced authors Ruth Elizabeth 1853 Ruth is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in three volumes in 1853. Ruth Hilton is an orphaned young seamstress who catches the eye of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter, only to cruelly desert her soon after. External Website

Activists Accessing Social Services Child Care Files: The Life and Importance of Graham Gaskin (1959 – 2002) Graham Gaskin 1959-2002 It is not widely known, amongst people who grew up in care before 1989, that we owe our rights to access our child care files to a fellow care leaver. With legal help, Graham took the council to court for negligence and sought access to his file as part of this process. He lost his initial case but kept trying. Eventually, the legal case ended up in the European Court of Human Rights in 1989. This time, he won. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Tortured Victoria 2015 The truth about one of Britain's most sadistic mothers by the daughter who survived her reign of terror. As a child, Victoria Spry was brutally beaten, neglected and starved by the woman she called Mummy. To the outside world Eunice Spry was a devoted parent, but behind closed doors she was an evil tyrant. Instead of protecting, loving and caring for Victoria, she forced bleach and urine down her throat, knocked out her teeth, tied her up naked and made her live in squalor. It took eighteen years of heartache and despair before she found the courage to expose her mum. Due to severe mental health problems from the abuse Victoria took her own life in 2020, aged just 35 years old. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Child Migrant Trust Child Migrant Trust 1987 The Child Migrants Trust was founded in 1987 by its Director, Margaret Humphreys CBE, AO, to address the devastating impact of British child migration schemes. In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottinghamshire Social Worker, received a letter from a woman who claimed that at the age of four she was shipped to a Children's Home in Australia, and now wanted help to find her parents or relatives in Britain. Gradually, the enormity of child migration was exposed. Incredibly over 130,000 children had been deported from Britain and shipped off to a "new life" originally to distant parts of the Empire and, more recently, across the Commonwealth. This long history of forced migration ended in 1970. The Trust campaigns to raise public awareness of the long-term impact of child migration schemes for former Child Migrants overseas and their families in Britain. External Website

Children's Fiction Great Expectations (adapted) Charles Dickens 2002 Great Expectations is one of the best-loved stories of all time, reissued in Puffin Classics, bringing classic literature to each new generation. As a small boy at Joe Gargery's forge, orphan Pip meets two people who will affect his whole life - an escaped convict he is forced to help, and the eccentric Miss Haversham, whose beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella young Pip adores. But when a secret benefactor pays for him to go to London to become a gentleman, Pip never dreams he will meet the dreadful Magwitch again, nor just how wrong his expectations are. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Sins of the Father Sharon Bairden 2020 Lucas Findlay thinks he has struck gold when he marries Rebecca (who grew up in state care), but she married him for one reason only - to destroy him. Trauma runs deepWhen her past comes back to haunt her, Rebecca begins to disconnect from herself and the world around her. As secrets are unearthed, she begins to fear for her sanity ... and her life.Truth will outWith her world unravelling around her, Rebecca clings to her determination to make Lucas pay, whatever the cost.Forgive his sinsBut someone must pay for the sins of the father... External Website

Television Shows The Glass Dome 2025 The Glass Dome (2025) is a Swedish drama. When criminologist Lejla (Leonie Vincent) returns to a small Swedish town for her adoptive mother’s funeral she is confronted with the trauma of having once been held captive in a glass dome. The trauma is compounded by the disappearance of a local girl. Lejla and her adoptive father, retired police commissioner Valter (Johan Hedenberg), join in the search for the child. *spoiler alert* we find out at the end of the series that it was Valter who had kidnapped Lejla. After she escaped his glass dome, he and his wife adopted the child. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Transfiguring Adoption 2018 Transfiguring Adoption develops media, resources, and tools that nurture growth in foster and adoptive children – strategically we focus on resourcing foster and adoptive parents. External Website

Television Shows Dark Winds 2022 Dark Winds (2022-2025) is an American thriller series based on the Leaphorn & Chee novels series by Tony Hillerman. Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn and Kiowa Gordon as Jim Chee lead a mostly Native American cast. The show is set in the 1970s Four Corners area of the American Southwest and features the work of Navajo tribal police. In Series 1, we find out that Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten), a Navajo Police Sergent, was taken in by Joe Leaphorn and his wife, Emma (Deanna Allison) as a teenager. During this series, the Leaphorns also take in pregnant teenager Sally (Elva Guerra). The 3rd Care Experienced Character in Series 1 is extremist James Tso (Jeremiah Bitsui) who hated being in one of the notorious American Indian boarding schools so much he killed his grandfather because his grandfather sent him back to the school after he’d run away. In Series 2, we’re not sure if the Caucasian American character, Colton Wolf (Nicholas Logas) was in the foster care system because his mother was imprisoned after murdering his father & sister, or whether he killed his mother because of what she’d done. Dark Winds presents Colton Wolf as a dangerous man still troubled by this early trauma. External Website

Films/Videos America 2020 America is a 2009 American made-for-television drama film. A biracial 17-year-old boy named America (Philip Johnson), who has experienced a difficult life of foster care and sexual abuse, undergoes counseling with psychiatrist Maureen Brennan (Rosie O'Donnell) to help him come to terms with his painful past of childhood trauma, including growing up with (and abandoned by) a crack-addicted mother (Toya Turner) and being shuffled through a series of foster homes. The film is based on the young adult novel America by E. R. Frank. External Website

Radio & Podcast My long-lost sister was a surrogate mother to my twins BBC Outlook 2022 Canadian adoptee Mark MacDonald found out as an adult and after a happy childhood that his 16year old birth mother went on to marry his biological father and have 3 more children. More than that, his only recently found sister, Rachel Elliott (who lives in the US) offered to be a surrogate for Mark and his partner, for whom having children was medically problematic. External Website

Academic Articles Revealing the Profile of Foster Parents, Biological Parents, Foster Children and the Triadic Relationship amongst them Vasiliki Baltsioti & Ignatia Farmakopoulou 2024 Revealing the Profile of Foster Parents, Biological Parents, Foster Children and the Triadic Relationship amongst them (2024) by Vasiliki Baltsioti and Ignatia Farmakopoulou investigates foster care in Greece. In particular, the researchers are interested in the “triadic relationship among foster carers, biological parents, and foster children” “The study concludes that well-structured support, the empowerment of children through resilience building, and a stable legal framework are foundational to successful application of the institution of fostering.” The researchers also suggest that more research is needed to “understand the long-term effects of foster care on children…” External Website

Writers Susannah McFarlane 1965- In 2016, Australian writer Susannah McFarlane and her birth mother Robin Leuba published Heartlines, the story of their written after 50 years since Susannah had been given up for adoption. Before publishing Heartlines, Susannah McFarlane was already a popular writer of children’s books. Her EJ series is published by Scholastica Australia and follows the adventures of Emma Jacks, or EJ12 who is a special agent with code cracking skills. More recently Grumble Boats (2022) has been published internationally as well as in Australia and is a “gentle story about the power of grandmothers. External Website

Behind the Scenes David Akinsanya David Akinsanya was born to a Nigerian father and English mother in Essex. After 18 months in a private foster home, his mother was forced to stop paying and he was put into care. Akinsanya stayed in the same family group children’s home run by 'Auntie Betty'. He later learned that she had been told not to reply to his letters and cards (they were given back to him by her family at her funeral). Akinsanya spent time in youth custody but determined to prove he was a 'good person'. He worked for 25 years in broadcasting, making current affairs programmes. He now delivers well being training for the NHS. External Website

Television Shows Based on a True Story 2023 Based on a True Story (2023) is an American comedy drama series which includes a kinship care character. Ava Bartlett (Kaley Cuoco) and her husband Nathan Bartlett (Chris Messina) have been caring for Ava’s sister, Tory Thompson (Liana Liberator) since her mother died. Tory is a college student, preparing for her final exams. She watches on bemusedly as Ava and Nathan become involved in making a podcast with a serial killer. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir A Chip Off What Block? Laurie Humphreys 2007 Tells of the life of Laurie Humphries, a child migrant who lived his early life without a family, an orphan who lost touch with his brothers and sisters when he came to Australia, and of his subsequent hard life of ' work, eat, and sleep'; then rise to become an long-time active council member. External Website

Radio & Podcast Betty, Queen of Donks Betty Klimenko 2018 Betty Klimenko was adopted at seven weeks old and grew up as an heiress to the Westfield fortune. Then she turned her back on it all to marry the man of her dreams. She talks about this and how she founded a major motor racing team. External Website

Behind the Scenes Robert Harris Robert Harris (1829-1904) arrived in Tasmania with his convict mother, Elizaeth in 1831. 2 year old Robert was admitted to the new Orphan School in 1832 and not released to his mother until he was 12. At the age of 34, Robert Harris set up his own printing and publishing business and started a newspaper. With his sons, Robert Harris and using a family business, The Harris Compnay, launched the North Western Advocate in 1899, which became the Advocate in 1918, with 3 of Robert's grandsons running it, and great-grandsons after that. Harris & Company bought the Launceston Examiner in 1990 but was taken over by Rural Press at the end of 2003. Rural Press was incorporated into Fairfax Media during 2007. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors All Our Shimmering Skies Trent Dalton 2020 Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain down, orphan Molly Hook is looking to the skies and running for her life. Inside a duffel bag she carries a stone heart, alongside a map to lead her to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer who she believes put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress, and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Angelina Jolie's casting game with Cambodian orphans sparks outrage Harriet Alexander 2017 Angelina Jolie has come under fierce criticism for describing the casting of Cambodian children in her new film, in which the team gave the impoverished youngsters money and then pretended to take it away from them, awarding roles to the children who looked the most upset. External Website