Authors T The Strange Myth of Romulus and Remus, The Founders of Rome ➝ The Curious Fate of Care Leavers in Crime Fiction ➝ Heart of Darkness: Fear and Loathing in the Congo ➝ Transfiguring Adoption ➝ The Transformed You ➝ Alan Turing (1912-1954) - noted Computer Scientist and Mathematician ➝ The Wizardry of Boz ➝ Patricia Cornwell survived her parents’ breakdown, psychosis and neglect by creating her own worlds ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2012-2015) is an Australian television series starring Essie Davies as the wealthy feminist private detective, Phryne Fisher. The show has been adapted from the 15 detective novels written by Australian writer Kerry Greenwood and is set in and around Melbourne. There are some episodes which feature care experienced characters. For example, in Series 1, Episode 2, Miss Fisher takes in a girl who has been an exploitative foster care placement. Unfortunately, in Series 1, too, is a stereotypical serial killer character - Murdoch Foyle -who was raised in foster care. Apart from Murdoch Foyle, most of the conversation is on the side of girls and women oppressed by men, and in some cases, by other women. https://drdee-drdeethinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2022/06/phryne-fisher-foster-care-in-1920s.html External Website

Writers Barack Obama Barack Obama (b. 1961), 44th President of the US from 2009 to 2017 was in kinship care as a child and teenager. Barack's parents divorced when Barack was 2. His mother later married an Indonesian man and Barack lived with them for several years. When Barack was 10, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in Hawaii so he could go to Punahou, a prestigious school. At some point, Barack's mother moved to Hawaii to get her Masters and Barack lived with her and his sister Maya for 3 years. Barack returned to live with his grandparents when his mum went back to Indonesia for a year to do the fieldwork for her Masters. Barack Obama has published 4 books (including Dreams from My Father in 1995) and numerous research and other articles. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Visibly Invisible - The tale of a Black Female Social Worker Rebecca Olayinka 2021 Care Experienced Person Rebecca Olayinka is featured in Outlanders - Hidden Narratives From Social Workers Of Colour with her autobiographical essay "Visibly Invisible - The tale of a Black Female Social Worker". Social workers from Black and other Global Majority Communities showcase a rich and diverse collection of their essays, poems, stories and reflections, providing unique insight. External Website

Radio & Podcast The Foster Friendly Movement The Foster Friendly Podast 2024 The Foster Friendly Podcast is part of the foster-friendly movement in the USA, a movement that encourages communities, workplaces, etc to support foster carers and the children they care for. In their inaugural July 2024 episode, the hosts of The Foster Friendly Podcast discuss how communities can better support foster families. In addition, they talk about their roles as adoptive and foster parents. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women Jenny Hartley 2008 Jenny Hartley's 2008 book, Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women, tells the fascinating story of Charles Dickens setting up a refuge for girls and women where they were trained as domestic servants and then set out to the colonies. Urania Cottage was funded by philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts but Dickens was involved from the outset, organising furniture and detailing how the Cottage was to be run. The Cottage had room for 13 girls (some as young as 14) and young women and on entering Urania they had to agree to migrating after 12 months or so. Jenny Hartley estimates 100 girls emigrated during the 12 years Dickens was involved. Many then disappeared, but she's managed to trace the descendants of some. External Website

Radio & Podcast The forgotten children of the Empire Conversations 2023 In 1986, British social worker, Margaret Humphreys, received a letter from an Australian woman who was looking for her birth certificate. The woman recalled coming to Australia on a ship with other children but without her parents; she was 4 years old and thought she was an orphan. This was the beginning of Humphreys’ investigation into the scandal that was the British Government (with the complicity of other Commonwealth Governments) sending off impoverished white children to other countries, often without their parents’ knowledge. In this interview, Margaret Humphreys reflects on her work since 1986, including setting up the Child Migrants Trust in 1987 and advocating for inquiries, apologies and redress. External Website

Films/Videos Vidal Sassoon: The Movie 2010 Vidal Sassoon: The Movie (2010) recounts the story of Vidal Sassoon ((1928-2012) and his brother being put into a Jewish orphanage when their parent separated and because their mother was impoverished. They were in the orphanage for about 6 years and Vidal fondly remembers being in the choir. He also remembers running away from the orphanage and going to his dad’s house. His dad’s response, however, was to return Vidal to the orphanage as soon as possible. “I think that moment was when I lost any love that I had for him” says Vidal Sasson during the documentary. “I never saw him again.” Like other children during WWII, Vidal Sassoon was also evacuated to the countryside “…where we lived with cows and sheep for the next few years.” External Website

Television Shows Back 2017 On the death of Laurie Nichols, former foster child Andrew visits and upsets the plans of birth child, Stephen. Andrew's memories of growing up are unhappy, whereas Stephen's are the opposite. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai 2006 The Inheritance of Loss (2006) by Indian writer Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize in 2006. Set in 1986, the novel centres around 2 characters: Biju & Sai. Sai was orphaned as a 6-year-old. At the time she was living in a convent school in Russia. After her parents died in an accident, the child was sent to live with her maternal grandfather, retired judge Jemubhai Patel, in Kalimpong a town in West Bengal, India. Sai’s father had also been an orphan. Biju is living in the US during most of the novel. His father is the cook for Sai’s grandfather and since he lives on the ground’s of Jemubhai Patel’s house, Biju lived with his grandmother while growing up. The central theme in The Inheritance of Loss is the effect of colonialism and the way a sense of loss travels down through the generations. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Orphan's Tale Pam Jenoff 2017 In Nazi-occupied Holland, seventeen-year-old Noa snatches a baby from a train bound for the concentration camps, fleeing with him into the snowy wilderness surrounding the train tracks. Passing through the woods is a German circus, led by the heroic Herr Neuhoff. They agree to take in Noa and the baby, on one condition: to earn her keep, Noa must master the flying trapeze – under the tutorage of mysterious aerialist, Astrid.Soaring high above the crowds, Noa and Astrid must learn to trust one another…or plummet. But with the threat of war closing in, loyalty can become the most dangerous trait of all. External Website

Television Shows The Chestnut Man 2021 The Chestnut Man is a 6-part Danish crime thriller which opens with the murder of a family in 1987. There are foster children in the family who are not killed. More than 30 years later, detectives investigate the brutal murder of a young woman whose son is now in the foster care system. As the series proceeds we find out that one man has decided the child protection system is inadequate and he has become a vigilante on behalf of neglected children. External Website

Writers Langston Hughes 1901-1967 James Mercer Langston Hughes (1901 – 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Hughes was born in Missouri. His father abandoned the family soon after the birth. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his maternal grandmother in Kansas as his mother needed to travel for work. When his grandmother died, Hughes lived with family friends for 2 years. Eventually Hughes lived again with his mother after she remarried and settled in Cleveland. There he wrote for his high school newspaper and published his first poetry. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue." In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays, and short stories. He also published several non-fiction works. From 1942 to 1962, as the civil rights movement was gaining traction, he wrote an in-depth weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Orphans | film by Pakula [1987] Michael Barson 2021 A discussion of various films by Alan Pakula includes his 1987 Orphans, an adaption of his play by Lyle Kessler. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles 2016 Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by American writer Amor Towles has an orphan character as the protagonist. It was adapted for an 8 part series in 2024. Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor) was orphaned at about the age of 10. He and his sister, Helen, then go to live with their grandmother. When Count Alexander Rostov is tried by the Bolsheviks in 1922 and sentenced to house arrest, he becomes a ‘Former Person’ and his home is the attic of a hotel. Over the years Rostov makes friends amongst the servants and some of the hotel's regulars, even becoming a waiter. Then in 1938 he is left in temporary care of Sofia, a young child played by Billie Gadsdon. For the rest of the story he takes on the role of being Sofia’s parent. External Website

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Actors Lena Horne (actor) Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn an American singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne was raised mainly by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne. Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne Jr. (1893–1970), left the family when she was 3 years old and moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1894–1976), was the granddaughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron. She was an actress with a black theatre troupe and travelled extensively. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. She belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated black people. External Website

Writers Augusten Burroughs 1965- Augusten Xon Burroughs (born Christopher Richter Robison, October 23, 1965) is an American writer known for his New York Times bestselling memoir Running with Scissors (2002). Burroughs was born Christopher Richter Robison to a philosophy academic, John Robison, and a poet, Margaret Robison. Both parents struggled with mental health problems and alcoholism and they separated when Augusten was 12. Augusten was sent by his mother to live with his parents’ psychiatrist because she was going through a difficult time. In his book, Running with Scissors, Burroughs says he lived with the psychiatrist and his large family for more than 3 years; members of the family say it was about 18 months. Eventually Burroughs’ mother signed over guardianship of her younger son to the psychiatrist, Dr Rodolph Harvey Turcotte. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Meera Mistry Meera Mistry 2021 Meera Mistry, a care-experienced Associate Director at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Meera spent her teenage years in foster care. She was placed in families from different cultures and backgrounds which she says has 'given me a unique perspective'.  She is a Trustee at Become Charity. External Website