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Autobiography/Memoir A Ghost Comes Calling Rebecca Titchner 2024 A Ghost Comes Calling (2024) is a memoir by American adoptee Rebecca Titchner. Rebecca Titchner was given her sister’s journals after Dana’s death. Rebecca never met Dana but through reading her journals she came to understand the decisions Dana had made, including abandoning her family. Titchner also begins to comprehend the impact adoption has had on her own life. From the publisher: “A Ghost Comes Calling is a memoir that explores the complexities of family, relationships, loss and mental health.” External Website

Writers Charles Dickens 1812-1870 Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic. Charles appears to have had a happy childhood until he was 10 and his father suspended his education. The reason seems to be insufficient funds to provide schooling for both Charles and his older sister, Fanny, who in 1823 left home to become a boarder at the Royal Academy of Music. Young Charles filled in his time by running errands for the family, reading and exploring London. Before he had a chance to get used to his job, John Dickens was arrested and imprisoned. John was joined at Marshalsea Prison by his wife and 3 youngest children, while Charles moved in with a family friend, Mrs Roylance. Later Charles moved in with another family, remembered as the Garland family in his novel, The Old Curiosity Shop, serialised 1840 to 1841. At the end of 1824, the family moved into an impoverished neighbourhood and Charles finally went back to school, at least for a couple of years. Dickens went on to created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp The Woman in Black (play) Susan Hill 1987 The Woman in Black (1983) by Susan Hill was adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt (1947-2004) in 1987. The original London production is the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, after Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. In 2024, The Woman in Black was touring in Australia and starred John Waters and Daniel MacPherson. The story is narrated by lawyer Arthur Kipps. When he was a junior solicitor, Arthur Kipps was sent to attend the funeral of Alice Drablow and settle her estate. The estate includes the desolate Eel Marsh House at Crythin Gifford, a small town on the northeast coast of England. While staying at Eel Marsh House, Kipps experiences strange noises – including the screams of a child – and sees the ghostly figure of The Woman in Black. Eventually, Arthur Kipps learns that Alice Drablow and her husband had adopted the son of her sister, an unmarried woman, Jennet Humfrye. The boy died young in an accident and the bereaved Jennet returned to haunt Eel Marsh House as the Woman in Black According to the locals, seeing the Woman in Black signalled the imminent death of a child. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir I'll Love You If... Matthew Huggins 2009 I'll Love You If...is a harsh but true portrait of a hard life, a misery memoir, yes, but one that ends in triumph. Matthew became the youngest councillor in England he was only 21. His council, Barking and Dagenham, was used to much older councillors so he was poorly treated by his fellow politicians and then expelled. He now advises councils on how to treat children in care. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles The care leaver who made a number one album BBC News 2022 British Care Leaver, Matt Taylor, has won a Rising Star award at the 2022 Music Producers guild Awards. Matt was in children's homes for 3 years from the age of 13. "People from care are sort of taught not to have dreams," he said. He now hopes his success will inspire others from similar backgrounds. External Website

Films/Videos Dorian Gray 2009 Dorian Gray is a movie starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, and Rebecca Hall. A corrupt young man - who grew up in the kinship care of his grandfather - somehow keeps his youthful beauty eternally, but a special painting gradually reveals his inner ugliness to all. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Better than Happiness: The true antidote to discontent Gregory P Smith 2023 In 2020, Gregory P. Smith published his memoir, Out of the Forest, which told the story of how he’d gone from living as a recluse in a NSW forest to undertaking a PhD and teaching at Southern Cross University. In this new book, Better than Happiness: The True Antidote to Discontent (2023), Gregory Smith describes the “how” of what he did to change his life. That is, how he want about changing his thinking, setting goals, and understanding and accepting himself. External Website

Television Shows The Last Thing He Told Me (TV series) 2023 The Last Thing He Told Me is an American mystery television series (on Apple) based on the popular novel by the same name by Laura Dave. Hannah Hall (Jennifer Garner) is the protagonist of The Last Thing He Told Me. She was raised in the kinship care of her grandfather and, like him, is a wood turner. When Hannah’s husband, Owen Michaels (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), goes missing, Hannah is left with the responsibility for her 16-year-old step-daughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice). The two go looking for Owen and uncover the truth about Bailey’s mother’s death. External Website

Writers Lesley Pearse Lesley Pearse was born in Rochester, Kent and spent three years in a Roman Catholic Children’s home following the death of her mother when she was three. Her father, a Royal Marine married an ex-army nursing sister three years later and Lesley was reunited with her older brother and a new foster sister. Later her new sister and a new born baby boy were adopted by her parents and the family was added to from time to time by more foster children. Some brought Lesley joy with their arrival. Some brought joy when they left. Lesley was a story teller even then, as she says ‘It made up for being useless at any sport’, she would entertain her school friends with stories during wet dinner hours. Her writing career began when the youngest of her three daughters was born, first short stories and then books. ‘Georgia’ was the first to be published, based loosely on experiences she’d had with her second and ex husband, a musician during the ‘60’s. ‘Once I started writing I couldn’t stop,’ she says. ‘I felt I had hundreds of stories to tell.’ Now living in a cliff top house in Devon, alone with her King Charles Cavalier Stan, and soon to be a grandmother again for the fourth time, she is working on her 25th book. Many of Lesley's books feature adoption, foster care, and orphans. External Website

Authors H How Truman Capote Was Destroyed by His Own Masterpiece ➝ Packing Like a Fury ➝ Examining Rita Mae Brown’s “Rubyfruit Jungle” ➝ From the first admissions: How care has changed in 280 years ➝ The Queen's Gambit is a striking study of female genius, and the drama of the year ➝ Theodore's story - Coram Story #realstoriesofcare ➝ There's a lot of stigma': why do so few care leavers go to university? | Universities | The Guardian ➝ The life-changing power of a street dog named Lucy ➝ Home Children ➝ It was lonely growing up in care – but I felt even more isolated after I left | Fostering | The Guardian ➝ John Brownlow's story ➝ Are care leavers really more likely to go to prison than university? – ExChange ➝ How one stray dog changed my life forever ➝ Delma Hughes: I grew up in a world without parents ➝ Almost half of children in care fear stigma ➝ Back to Top

Films/Videos Hamilton 2020 Hamilton is a live stage production recording of the Broadway musical, Hamiliton. The musical was created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by Ron Chernow (2004) biography, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's Founding Fathers, from orphaned immigrant to first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. External Website

Authors I Most Popular Orphan Girl Movies and TV Shows ➝ A digital archive of care experienced people in fiction, on screen and in real life ➝ A Conversation with Daniel Ingram-Brown ➝ Back to Top

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Government expresses 'regret', will compensate for disappeared Yemenite children The Times of Israel 2021 Details of the compensation plan for the families involved in what is now known as the Yemenite children affair are outlined in this The Times of Israel article 27 February 2021. A figure of Israel New Shekel INS 162 million (around AUD$64 million) as compensation to affected families was approved by the Israel government in February 2021. According to the article, there are 1050 families which qualify for compensation. An official apology, however, has not been forthcoming. https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-set-to-express-regret-compensate-for-disappeared-yemenite-children/ External Website

Authors B Sins of the Father ➝ Quirke (series) ➝ Rocks in the Belly ➝ Mr Timothy ➝ The White Girl ➝ Common People ➝ The Foster Child: ➝ The Thief of Time ➝ Death of an Avid Reader ➝ The Orphan of Salt Winds ➝ Lost for words ➝ To Die For ➝ Agony of desertion (out of print) ➝ The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel ➝ The Butterfly Lampshade ➝ Ghost River ➝ The Promise ➝ I'll Be Right Here ➝ This House is Haunted ➝ Jane Eyre ➝ The Other Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria's Goddaughter ➝ Different Genes ➝ A Thousand Moons ➝ The Black Tower ➝ The Dictator's Wife ➝ Blood ➝ Christine Falls ➝ The Heart's Invisible Furies ➝ Grace and Mary ➝ The Chocolate Maker's Wife ➝ The Strange Adventures of H ➝ Back to Top

Biography of Care Experienced People The House on Teacher's Lane Rachel Simon 2009 In her 2009 memoir, The House on Teacher’s Lane, American writer Rachel Simon mentions that her father was in an orphanage as a child. The impact of this experience on him was such that when Rachel’s younger sister Beth was diagnosed with an intellectual disability, her parents decided that institutionalisation wasn’t an option. Even after the parents divorced, Beth continued to live at home – first with her mother and later with her father. Rachel Simon published Riding the Bus with My Sister in 2002 and it was adapted for film in 2005. The book and film chronicle the year that Rachel spent doing what Beth loves to do, ride buses, after the death of their father who, as an adult, had worked in a community college teaching American history. External Website

Artists Samuel Robin Spark Samuel Robin Spark (9 July 1938 – 6 August 2016) was a Scottish artist. He was the son of Sidney Oswald Spark and writer Muriel Spark. Muriel left Sydney Spark in 1940 and two years later she travelled back to the UK without her son; four year old Robin was left in a convent. In 1945 Muriel was able to secure passage to the UK for Robin too, but this time she left the seven year old with his maternal grandparents in Edinburgh while she lived in London. Prolific in his work, Spark created more than 1,000 paintings, photographs, and short texts and articles about art, Jewish culture, and his own family. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Calico Bush Rachel Field 1998 In 1743, thirteen-year-old Marguerite Ledoux travels to Maine as the indentured servant of a family that regards her as the lowest in the society. As the story proceeds, it becames clear that Maggie is a heroine, not just enduring difficult living conditions but also saving members of the family when there is danger. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Every one of us has a different story': a historic portrait of care system success The Guardian 2022 The brilliant and inspiring Lemn Sissay recently organised for 59 accomplished people who had been in care as children to meet for at the Foundling Museum in London for an historic photo. This includes the story of the event and a quotation from each of the 59 people who attended. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Life story books and later life letters 2023 The life story book represents a realistic and honest account of the circumstances surrounding the child’s adoption. The Department for Education’s National Minimum Standards for adoption state that its format is appropriate to the child’s age and understanding and accessible for use by the child, and that prospective adopters are encouraged to update it with the child as their understanding develops. A later life letter should explain the child’s history from birth and be sufficiently detailed so that in the future the adolescent child, or young adult, will have factual details about their birth family and their life before adoption, and so be able to understand why they could not live with their birth family, and why they were adopted. External Website

Non Fiction Roots: The eco-Journal Bernadette McBride 2018 Bernadette McBride was on the child protection register for over a decade and in and out of care on an often-weekly basis. Her mother was suffering from chronic alcohol addiction and some days Bernadette would simply be left waiting at the school gates. She is a writer, creative practitioner & social advocate. She is the author of Roots - a self help journal, and has had various short fiction published from a collection she is currently working on. Bernadette is a Manchester Fiction Prize 2020 finalist, and won the award for Biggest Impact on the City of Liverpool award in 2019. She a PhD researcher in Creative Writing at the University of Liverpool. As a care-experienced writer she believes that often she is able to evoke subtle changes in internal and external environments on the page, and this is her superpower. External Website