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Fiction featuring Care Experience Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is the best-known novel of the 4 written by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). The novel tells the story of Janie Crawford who was raised in the kinship care of her maternal grandmother, Nanny. Janie Crawford is a confident, middle-aged Black woman who returns to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida after being away for years. She explains that she was raised by her grandmother, who, influenced by her life as a slave and what happened to her daughter, wants Janie to marry an older man, a farmer named Logan Killicks, who can provide Janie with security and social states. But Jane is miserable with Logan and runs off with another man. According to the Zora Neale Hurston website: “When first published in 1937, this novel about a proud, independent black woman was generally dismissed by male reviewers. Out of print for almost thirty years, but since its reissue…in 1978, Their Eyes Were Watching God has become the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.” External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Baby stolen during Argentina's military rule found after 48 years BBC 2025 The Grandmothers of Plaza De Mayo is a human rights organisation founded in 1977 to locate children who were stolen during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship in Argentina. In this BBC article, Vanessa Buschschluter talks about the 140th baby the Grandmothers of Plaza De Mayo have located. The man, whose name has not been given but instead who is referred to as “Grandchild 140”, was born while his mother, a political activist, was being held in detention. Graciela Romero and the man’s father, Raul Metz – also a political activist - were apparently both tortured while in detention before they were ‘disappeared’. The couple’s daughter, Adriana, who was 1, was raised in kinship care. Both the Romero & Metz families looked for Graciela & Raul and their son for decades. A recent DNA test confirmed Grandchild 140 as Adriana’s brother. External Website

Actors Cassidy Mack Spending her early years in the Foster Care system, Cassidy was adopted at the age of six. At the age of fourteen, Cassidy found her own foundation to encourage young people in the foster care system to reach their potential. After a meeting with actor Ryan Goslind, Cassidy to become an actor. Some of her favourite roles are playing Zoey in Zoey to the Max and Jen in The Storyteller. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles ‘Next time bring my daughter’: Barbara Demick reunited a Chinese family with the stolen ‘missing twin’ adopted in the US The Conversation 2025 In this review of Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (2025) by American journalist Barbara Demick, Australian academic Kathryn Shine recounts Demick’s journey through rural China in 2009 and how this eventually led to the reunion of Zanhua and her lost daughter, Fanfang/Esther. Shine writes: “Demick outlines the population growth that led to the introduction of the One Child Policy in 1979 and the rise of the State Family Planning Commission, set up to enforce the law limiting most Chinese families to one child.” Kathryn Shine also covers Demick’s account of Chinese babies became part of the lucrative international adoption business. She concludes: “Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a testament to dogged reporting. Demick’s skills as a researcher, interviewer – and effectively, a detective – imbue the book with substance and credibility.” External Website

Non Fiction Stella's Story Louise Allen 2020 The first in the series, Stella's Story, tells the story of a young girl scarred by an abusive past. Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised by instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes, and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better. Things seem to be going well - but when Stella has a startling response to having her photo taken, it becomes clear the scars of her abuse run deeper than anyone could have ever guessed. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Schindler's Ark Thomas Keneally 1982 Schindler’s Artk (1982) by esteemed Australian writer Thomas Keneally tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party who saves the lives of 1200 Jews during the Holocaust and who therefore becomes an unlikely hero. Along the way, Keneally includes accounts of many of the Jews forced to live in the Krakow (Cracow in Keneally, a common spelling until the 1990s) Ghetto and in the Plaszow concentration camp. Among them are 3 orphans: There is the 3-year child being cared for by the Dresner family after a Polish couple decided they couldn’t “keep a Jewish child in the countryside any more” This child loved to wear red: “red cap, red coat, small red boots (Keneally, Schindler, 100). There’s also Rebecca Tannenbaum who at least “had not been bereft of kindly aunts and uncles” (Keneally, Schindler, 232). At nineteen she is a manicurist for the brutal commandant and marries Joseph Bau. Then there’s a 13-year-old orphan who was able to save himself “with that infallible instinct which had once characterised the movement of the red-capped child…And as with Redcap, no one had seen him (Keneally, Schindler, 259). Schindler’s Ark won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was adapted for the multi-award film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg in 1993. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors Eden's lost Sumner Locke Elliott 1970 A family saga. 16 year old Angus Weekes goes to live with the St James family when his guardian dies. External Website

Authors K Pom Klementieff ➝ Keegan-Michael Key ➝ Rajesh Khanna ➝ Barry Keoghan ➝ Eartha Kitt ➝ Back to Top

Writers Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) Frederick Douglass (c 1818-1895) was born to an enslaved woman in Maryland. He was separated from his mother as a baby and lived with his maternal grandmother, who was enslaved, and his maternal grandfather, who was free. At the age of 6, Douglass was removed from the care of his grandparents and given to a Lucretia Auld who gave him to another woman, Sophia. Sophia treated the boy well, even teaching him to read. In 1838, Douglass escaped and made it to New York. He got married that year and the couple moved to Massachusetts where he attended abolitionist meetings and became a preacher. Douglass’ best known work is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845). Within 3 years, it was reprinted 9 times, translated into French and Dutch, and published in Europe. He later published 2 more autobiographies - My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). External Website

Films/Videos Rocks 2021 Rocks is a British coming-of-age drama film, directed by Sarah Gavron and released in 2019. The film stars Bukky Bakray as Olushola, nicknamed "Rocks", a Black British teenage girl in London whose troubled single mother abandons her and her younger brother Emmanuel (D’angelou Osei Kissiedu), forcing them to fend for themselves and try to avoid being taken into care by the authorities, with the help of loyal friend Sumaya (Kosar Ali) and others. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Sancho: An Act of Rememberance Paterson Joseph 2015 This play, written and performed by Paterson Joseph, was first staged in 2015 in Oxford and Birmingham in England and then at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. In 2018, the play premiered in Lond at Wilton's Music Hall. The play tells something of the life of Charles Ignatius Sancho (c1729-1780) who was born on a slave ship in the Atlantic, orphaned at the age of 2, and then 'gifted' to 3 sisters in Greenwich, England. Sancho lived with the sisters for 18 years then year away. He was taken in by John Montagu who educated the young man. Sancho ended up becoming a shopkeeper and involved in the abolitionist movement. He wrote essays, at least one book and 2 plays, and he composed music. External Website

Radio & Podcast Trevor Jordan: adoption and the ethics of secrets Trevor Jordan 2016 Trevor was adopted in the 1950s, under a closed adoption system. In this conversation he talks of finding when he was 24, after seeing his birth certificate. Trevor is an advocate for adoption reform in Australia External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Lowborn Kerry Hudson 2020 Kerry Hudson (born 1980, Aberdeen) is a British writer. She spent a short amount of time in care when she was nearly 3 years old. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. She scores eight out of ten on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. In 'Lowborn', Hudson questions What does it really mean to be poor in Britain today? A prizewinning novelist she revisits her childhood (including foster care) and some of the country's most deprived towns. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Bessie Smith: A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend Jackie Kay 1997 Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend (1997) by Jackie Jay is a combination of history, poetry, prose and memoir. Jackie Kay was poet laureate of Scotland from 2016 to 2021. She was born in 1961 to a Scottish mother and Nigerian father and adopted as a baby by white Scottish communists who loved blues and jazz music. For the young Jackie Kay, growing up Black in an all-white part of Glasglow, Bessie Smith was a source of comfort. In her biography of Bessie Smith—who was orphaned at the age of 9 and singing on street corners before she became a star—Jackie Kay creates a moving, fascinating account of Bessie Smith’s extraordinary (and often difficult) life. Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend was republished in 2021 by Vintage. External Website

Television Shows Virgin River 2021 Virgin River is an American romantic drama streaming television series, based on the Virgin River novels by Robyn Carr. In the first season there is a story of a baby found on the doorstep of the town doctor. The child's mother is found suffering from post-partum depression and elects to put her daughter into kinship care. External Website

Television Shows The Fall of the House of Usher 2023 The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) is an American gothic horror miniseries centred on the rise – and fall – of twins Madeline and Roderick Usher. The Usher twins were orphaned as teenagers and then went into the US foster care system. When the series opens, Roderick Usher is the CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, a business known to be unethical and harmful. Madeline Usher is COO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. Two things are happening as the story gets underway: 1. A trial is underway; the assistant US Attorney is wanting to hold the company responsible for causing the opioid epidemic and the deaths of many people. 2. Roderick’s 6 children begin dying, and he begins to question his past behaviour. The series is loosely based on a 1839 short story by another former foster child, Edgar Allan Poe. The title of the 1st episode, “A Midnight Dreary” is a phrase from Poe’s famous poem, The Raven and the final episode is called The Raven. Other episodes are named after short stories written by Poe. The assistant US Attorney in battle with the Ushers and Fortunato Pharmaceuticals is C. August Dupin. C. August Dupin is a character created by Edgar Allan Poe. He first appears in Poe’s 1841 short story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (the title of Episode 3 in The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)). Dupin is widely considered the first fictional detective and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the first detective fiction story. External Website

Television Shows The Last of Us 2023 The Last of Us (2023) is an American post-apocalyptic drama series based on the eponymous video game franchise. Set decades after the collapse of society, the 1st season follows Joel (Pedro) as he smuggles a 14 year old teenager, Ellie (Bella Ramsay), across the United States. Ellie is immune to the fungal infection which has devasted society. Therefore, she might be the key to creating a much needed vaccine. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Re-reading Orphanhood Diane Warren and Laura Peters (Editors) 2020 Rereading Orphanhood (2020) edited by Diane Warren and Laura Peters is an examination from a range of contributors and perspectives of the “orphan figure in the long nineteenth century”. The intention of the book is to supplement and complement earlier important work and to ensure that the orphan is situated within wider contexts, eg, within children’s literature as well as within national belonging. The editors of the Rereading Orphanhood point out that orphanhood is “much more than a biological issue” in part because of socio-cultural constraints around the notion of family. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Barrister and Chair of Independent Enquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Ivor Frank 2015 Ivor Frank is a barrister with four decades of experience in child protection, human rights and family law. He was brought up in care himself and has represented and campaigned for children in care as a member of the parliamentary groups Looked After Children and Care Leavers and Care Leavers' Voice. Ivor has advised the Home Office on the issues of forced marriages and international child abduction. He has served as a Trustee of Buttle (now Buttle UK) which makes grants to vulnerable children and young people in need. He now serves as a Trustee of the Rees Foundation which has similar objectives. External Website

Activists Believe in Yourself Paris Bartholomew 2024 “Believe in yourself. Don’t believe the rhetoric that you won’t achieve anything – I am proof that isn’t true. Get support and remember that being in care means you will be resilient and understand people better than anyone. Being in care is your superpower – remember that.” External Website