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Films/Videos De Tweeling (Twin Sisters) 2002 De Tweeling (Twin Sisters) based on the novel The Twins by Tessa de Loo. Twin sisters Lotte (Thekla Reuten) and Anna Bamberg (Nadja Uhl) are raised separately after their parents die. Lotte goes to live with rich relatives in the Netherlands, while Anna stays in Germany, enduring poverty on the farm of her stoic uncle. As adults, the pair long to reunite. But the outbreak of World War II, as well as growing social differences between them, risk keeping the two sisters permanently divided -- especially when Anna marries a Nazi officer. Only in her old age, when they meet again at a spa and after Anna's death, does Lotte reconcile herself to their divergent lives and reclaim the tender sibling feeling of her childhood. The two girls/women are each played by three different actors from the Netherlands and Germany. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles I'll never know where I'm from': plight of the adopted children of Bangladesh's Birangona women Thaslima Begum, Rosie Swash 2023 In this article, Thaslima Begum and Rosie Swash report on the Bangladeshi children who were taken from Bangladesh in the 1970s. As a consequence of the Bangladesh Liberation War 1971, and the birth of thousands of babies born to women who had been captured and raped by Pakistani troops, an international adoption campaign was launched. Thousands of “war babies” were adopted overseas, for example, in Denmark, England, Sweden and Canada. External Website

Television Shows Marriage 2022 Marriage (2022) is a British television series starring Nicola Walker as Emma, a solicitor, and Sean Bean as Ian, her unemployed husband of 27 years. Emma and Ian have a 22-year-old adoptive daughter, Jessica, played by Chantelle Alle. The adoption of Jessica is not talked about in the family because of the tragedy of Emma and Sean losing their son before. Jessica does, however, tell her new friend that her parents are white and that she has no interest in finding out about her biological family. External Website

Television Shows Vera 2011- Vera is a long running British (since 2011) crime drama based on the Vera Stanhope series of novels by Ann Cleeves. Vera Stanhope is played by Brenda Blethyn. In Series 2, Episode 2, the victim of murder and perpetrator of it were both in children's homes. However, the story is complicated by a 'respectable' member of the community stealing a child. In Series 3, Episode 1, a young girl who was adopted from Afghanistan is kidnapped from her home. This is a ‘cuckoo in the nest’ story. In the Deer Hunter (Series 4, Episode 3), Shane Thurgood is killed on a remote Northumberland Moor. Thurgood grew up in the area with his grandfather but left as a young man to live in Newcastle where has published a novel. He returns to live on his grandfather’s farm after the old man’s death, but is killed. In Series 5, Episode 4, a well-loved family man plummets from a multi-story car park just after picking up his foster daughter Lila from her school prom. It looks like a case of foul play but his wife Ellie insists he was a good man and loving father to their children, a son who they adopted and their foster daughter. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Codename Villanelle Luke Jennings 2017 Codename Villanelle is a 2017 thriller novel by British author Luke Jennings. Villanelle is a Russian orphan who, after murdering the killers of her gangster father, is rescued from prison and trained as a hitwoman by a shadowy group called The Twelve. Codename Villanelle is the basis of the BBC America television series Killing Eve (2018–2022). External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Everlasting Sunday Robert Lukins 2018 England, 1962. Seventeen-year-old Radford arrives at Goodwin Manor, a home for boys who have ‘been found by trouble’. Watched over by the enigmatic Teddy. Life at the Manor offers a fragile peace at best, as the coldest winter in three centuries sets in. Radford learns that the boys are to care for each other, since their families and the law have been unable to do so. But will this be enough when tragedy strikes? At once both beautiful and brutal, The Everlasting Sunday is an unforgettable debut novel about growing up, growing wild and the shifting nature of friendship. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Cane Warriors Alex Wheatle Moa is fourteen. The only life he has ever known is toiling on the Frontier sugarcane plantation for endless hot days, fearing the vicious whips of the overseers. Then one night he learns of an uprising, led by the charismatic Tacky. Moa is to be a cane warrior, and fight for the freedom of all the enslaved people in the nearby plantations. But before they can escape, Moa and his friend Keverton, a CEP character, must face their first great task: to kill their overseer, Misser Donaldson. Based on the historical Tacky’s War in Jamaica, 1760. External Website

Films/Videos August Rush 2007 August Rush (2007) is a musical drama film starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. When cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) gives birth to a son, her father secretly organises the baby to be adopted. The baby, Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) is a musical prodigy. Because he is bullied in the orphanage where he’s been living since birth, he runs away to New York City. In New York, Evan meets a Fagan-type character, ‘Wizard’ Wallace (Robin Williams), who takes in homeless and orphaned children and teaches them to busk. He gives Evan Taylor the name August Rush. External Website

Films/Videos Trade Secrets 1: Maria Amidu on making a living and working internationally 2012 Maria Amidu talks about her practice as a socially engaged artist - walking, talking and making something. External Website

Non Fiction East West Street Philippe Sands In East West Street (2016) Philippe Sands tells how 2 Jewish men came up with the terms "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" which were then used in the 1945-1946 Nuremberg trials. Along the way, we find out that Philippe’s grandfather was in kinship care as a teenager for several years after WWI, and his mother, born in 1938, was taken from Vienna to Paris in 1939 by a stranger, a woman who was determined to save Jewish babies. External Website

Radio & Podcast The unusual life of Elizabeth Macarthur Conversations 2022 One of Australia's most esteemed writers, Kate Grenville, tells the story of Elizabeth MacArthur in A Room Made of Leaves (2020). After her mother remarries, 12 year old Elizabeth (1766-1850) is put into foster care with a local clergyman. Elizabeth MacArthur was, with her husband John, one of the first settlers in NSW. In this podcast, Kate Grenville talks about her latest book, in which she has released the letters Elizabeth wrote, the letters on which she imagined Elizabeth's life in A Room Made of Leaves. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later Literary Hub 2005 In this LitHub article, Kazuo Ishiguro writes about his motivation and influences for writing the novel Never Let Me Go (2005), including Dolly the Sheep and young writers willing to challenge what it means to write literary fiction. External Website

Behind the Scenes Lennie James Lennie Michael James (born 11 October 1965) is a British actor, screenwriter, and playwright. James was born in Nottingham, the son of African-Trinidadian parents. He lived in South London and attended school at Ernest Bevin College. James' mother, Phyllis Mary James, died when he was 10, after which he and his brother, Kester, chose to live in a children's home instead of being sent to the United States to reside with a relative. James remained in foster care for eight years. He is best known for playing Tony Gates in Line of Duty, Morgan Jones in The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, and has appeared in many films including Snatch (2000) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). Among James' more notable roles in television is Glen Boyle in the medical drama Critical on Sky 1. On American television, he portrayed the mysterious Robert Hawkins in the CBS series Jericho and Detective Joe Geddes in the AMC television series Low Winter Sun. External Website

Sport International Cricketer Yashasvi Jaiswal Indian cricketer, Yashasvi Jaiswal (b. 2001), was in kinship and informal foster care as a child. Mumbai cricket coach Jawala Singh met a young Yashasvi Jaiswal when Yashasvi was only about 12 years of age, was living in a tent and wanting to play cricket. The boy had travelled with his father 2 years previously from his hometown of Suriyawan to visit Mumbai and ended up staying because of cricket. He lived first with an uncle and then moved into the groundsman’s tent at a sports ground with 22 cricket pitches. Yashasvi moved into Singh’s house in 2013 and the cricket coach built up the boy’s confidence through hours of practice at the nets. Yashasvi Jaiswal made his international debut in the first Test of the Indian team against the West Indies in July 2023. He scored double centuries in two consecutive test matches against England in a 5-match Test series in 2024 and 161 against Australia in the Perth 2024 Test Series. External Website

Writers Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie 1837-1919 Anne Isabella, Lady Ritchie ( 1837 – 1919), the eldest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, was an English writer, whose several novels were highly regarded in their time and made her a central figure on the late Victorian literary scene. Anne's mother became unwell during the pregnancy of Anne's youngest sister, Harriet, and William's attempts to help his wife recover included a trip to Paris. Anne and Harriet lived with their grandparents for several years while their father returned to London. As an adult, Anne Thackeray recalled her time in Paris in two of her novels, The Story of Elizabeth, her first successful publication serialised in 1863, and The Village on the Cliff (1867). It was not until 1846, 4 years later, that the girls returned to live with their father in Kensington Square. William encouraged Anne’s ambitions to write and by the 1860s her literary career had taken off. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Not Forgotten Samilya Bjelic 2021 Not Forgotten: They called me Number 10 at Neekol Orphanage is the story of Samilya Bjelic who in 1954 was left by her recent migrant parents at St Joseph's Neerkol orphanage, near Rockhampton, Queensland. The book was written with the help of Anne Moorhouse, a psychologist. Samilya was at the orphanage - well known now as a place where nuns regularly inflicted brutal punishments on children - from age 2 for 8 years. She was then returned to her mother where the trauma continued. Samilya became friends with Anne and began recounting her story. By telling Samilya's story in Not Forgotten, Anne says she is speaking for others too who have felt silenced by horrific experiences. External Website

Films/Videos Christmas Story 2007 Did you know *Father Christmas* was an orphan? Well in 'Christmas Story' (2007 Finnish film) he is! It is the story of how orphan, Nikolas became Santa Claus. In Lapland, they raise him communally. with each family taking him for one year and then moving him on to the next. Grateful, Nikolas makes toys for each family that cared for him and so it grows. It becomes a tradition from then, with Nikolas never forgetting the children of those families that received him each year. When a blight hits the village, and none of the families can afford to take him in for the next year, he is taken in by grumpy hermit Iisakki as his carpenter's apprentice. Iisakki works him hard but Nikolas is clever and quick to learn, and Iisakki gradually grows to love Nikolas as his own son. Nikolas begins to live more and more for the spirit of Christmas with each passing year and it becomes his life and as he grows old he becomes the figure known as Santa Claus. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir It's about Healing: Our Story Margot O'Byrne 2011 Recipes for Survival: Stories of Hope and Healing by Survivors of the State ‘Care’ System in Australia is a collection of stories by those who have grown up in care in Australia during the 20th century and is therefore contribution to a growing body of literature on the experiences of the Forgotten Australians. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Alone in the world | The Spectator Philip Hensher 2018 A review of Jeremy Seabrook's book, Orphans: A History External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Charlie, the ratbag orphan: an orphan survivor in Australia Alan Walker Walker et al. 2010 Charlie was born in 1936. He was abandoned and raised in orphanages from when he was four days old. At age 15, Charlie was made to leave the only home he knew at St Augustine’s and had to take up what he described as slave labour. Because of the extreme abuse he suffered, Charlie fled his abusers and survived on the streets of Melbourne. Charlie worked hard to improve his life. He became an A grade jumping jockey, and later worked various jobs including being a bird smuggler. After his wife died, he was left to raise four daughters on his own; he was determined to give his daughters the love and protection he never experienced. External Website