Films/Videos Boys Town (Film) 1938 Boys Town (1938) is a film starring Spencer Tracy as Father Edward J. Flanagan. Although mostly fictional, the film is based on an actual man, Father Edward J. Flanagan, and the home he established in 1917 in Omaha, Nebraska. In the film, Father Flanagan visits a convicted murderer who talks about his dreadful childhood as a ward of the state. Flanagan is compelled to do better for homeless boys and builds a sanctuary he calls Boys Town. One boy, Whitey Marsh (Michey Rooney), challenges Flanagan’s belief that there are no bad boys. Boys Town was a box office success, earning over $2million in profit and Best Actor Academy Award for Spencer Tracy. External Website

Non Fiction Every childhood lasts a lifetime: personal stories from the frontline of family breakdown Jan Owens 1996 Stories from young people affected by the state care system in Australia, as told to Jan Owen. External Website

Writers Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson 1830-1913 Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson (1830-1913) was born in Deerfield Massachusetts, the youngest of 7 children. Susan’s mother died when she was 5, and she was raised (with her sisters) in Geneva, New York by an aunt. Susan first visit Amherst when she was 16. She married Austin Dickinson there in July 1856. Throughout her life, Susan wrote essays, reviews and poems, and was published in the Springfield Republican. Susan Gilbert features as Emily Dickinson’s friend and lover in the 1st series of the American drama Dickenson (2019-2021). At the end of that series, she marries Emily’s brother, Austin Dickinson. External Website

Television Shows The Virtues 2019 After his nine-year-old son leaves for Australia with his ex, Joseph walks away from his present life and boards a boat for Ireland to confront painful memories from his childhood in a children's home External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Kiss Kathryn Harrison 1997 American writer Kathryn Harrison (b. 1961) was raised in the kinship care of her grandparents from the age of 6. Harrison was born in Los Angeles, California. Her young parents divorced when Kathryn was 6 months old. At the time, Kathryn and her mother were living with the maternal grandparents and they stayed there until, when Kathyn was 6 years old, her mother left home. In The Kiss (1997) Harrison talks about the absence of her father after her parents’ divorce. She saw him once when she was 10 and then again when she was about 20, after which she and her father embarked on an incestuous ‘affair’. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Winter Solstice Rosamund Pilcher 2000 A loosely connected group end up spending advent together in a house in Scotland. One of them Lucy is an unhappy teenager. By the end of the novel it has been agreed that she will live with her new found family for the next few months, but it is implied that she will actually stay there until she is an adult. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles 7 Novels about Orphans Elizabeth Brooks 2019 From Cinderella to James Bond, via Moll Flanders and Tom Sawyer, there is something about an orphan that appeals to storytellers regardless of era, culture or genre. Perhaps this is because an orphan engages our sympathies before the story even begins: we just have to root for a character (especially a child) who has suffered … External Website

Academic Articles From Folktales to Fiction: Orphan Characters in Children’s Literature Melanie A. Kimball 1999 Orphan heroes and heroines are familiar characters in children’s literature, particularly in the fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This type of protagonist has its roots in folktales. An analysis of fifty folktales from different cultures reveals that, while the details of or- phan stories vary, there are some universal elements. A comparison of these patterns to a literary orphan story, The Secret Garden, demonstrates how the patterns found in orphan folktales were adapted and applied in children’s fiction. External Website

Actors Candi Marie Candi Marie was in foster care for much of her childhood. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and one of her first jobs was working on the Steve Harvey Morning Show, interviewing some of the "biggest names" in the industry, such as Ophrah. After Candi moved to Los Angeles she launched her own digital platform to create opportunities for young people. External Website

Radio & Podcast New Norcia’s nuns and the riddle of reconciliation Veronica Willaway 2021 This is the story of Sister Veronica Willaway, a Yued Noongar woman who grew up at the monastic community of New Norcia in Western Australia. She was in St Joseph's Native School and Orphanage until she became a Benedictine sister herself. External Website

Authors S Barbara Sumner-Burstyn ➝ Jeffrey Seller ➝ Angela Shelton ➝ Back to Top

Authors O David O'Brien ➝ Back to Top

Authors T Faith Thomas ➝ Walter Tull ➝ Professional Boxer ➝ Back to Top

Authors H Michel Houellebecqu ➝ Janet Hitchman ➝ Kerry Hudson ➝ Patricia Highsmith ➝ Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Writer) ➝ Eric Hobsbawm ➝ A. M. Homes ➝ Paolo Hewitt ➝ Ishbel Holmes ➝ Herbert Hoover ➝ Hermann Hesse ➝ Jan de Hartog ➝ David Hill ➝ Kathryn Harrison ➝ Langston Hughes ➝ Rico Hinson-King ➝ Richard Hoggart ➝ Back to Top

Authors W Robi Walters (podcast) ➝ The language we use about children in care ➝ The indestructible nature of Corey White ➝ Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit ➝ Wards of the State ➝ Madam CJ Walker ➝ New Norcia’s nuns and the riddle of reconciliation ➝ Jeanette Winterson: the storyteller's tale ➝ Who does Australia lock up? ➝ ‎The Penguin Podcast: Alex Wheatle with Nihal Arthanayake ➝ Mary Wilson — Dream Girl ➝ Back to Top

Authors A Louise Allen (artist) ➝ Marina Abramović ➝ Al's Art ➝ Frank Auerbach - artist ➝ Maria Amidu ➝ Back to Top

Authors M Back Home ➝ The Children of the New Forest ➝ Anne of Green Gables (adapted) ➝ Lucky Button ➝ Goodnight Mister Tom ➝ Saffy's Angel ➝ A Long Way Home ➝ Henderson's Boys ➝ Delly Duck (4-8 years) ➝ Flying High: The Story of Gymnastics Champion Simone Biles (4-8 years) ➝ Alone On A Wide Wide Sea ➝ The Cherub Series ➝ Back to Top

Fiction featuring Care Experience Not the Swiss Family Robinson Fiona Cooper 1991 Monica Robinson is growing up in the middle of the USA. She already feels different to everyone around her because she is a lesbian but then she discovers that she, unlike her other siblings, is adopted External Website

Authors E Australian singer ➝ Aboriginal Australian, Singer, songrwriter ➝ Back to Top

Authors C 45 Care Leaver Friendly Ways ➝ Care leavers in the ivory tower ➝ Popular perceptions of disrupted childhoods ➝ It’s My Journey: It’s My Life! Care leavers and access to social care files ➝ (Pseudo)motherhood, care constructs and the geography of the nuclear family: class, gender and the suburbs in contemporary fiction ➝ Winnie Woodfern Comes Out in Print: Story-Paper Authorship and Protolesbian Self-Representation in Antebellum America ➝ The Perceived Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Care-Experienced People ➝ Interrogating ‘poor outcomes’ and disrupted care in children’s fiction ➝ Rewriting the Past: Gerard Mannix Flynn's Nothing to Say and James X ➝ Back to Top