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Writers The Right Honorable Lord Andrew Adonis PC 1963- Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis, PC (b.1963) Adonis's Greek father, Nikos, emigrated from Cyprus as a teenager, becoming a waiter in London, where he met Adonis's English mother. His mother left the family when he was 3, and she has had no communication with him since. Shortly thereafter Adonis and his sister were placed in care, because their father was working long hours and was not able to cope with sole parental responsibilities. Adonis lived in a council children's home until the age of 11, thanks to the matron called Auntie Gladys, he was awarded a local education authority grant to attend Kingham Hill School, a boarding school in Oxfordshire and Gladys became a sort of surrogate mother. Adonis studied at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern History in 1984. He pursued further studies at Oxford receiving a doctorate with a thesis entitled, The political role of the British peerage in the Third Reform Act system, c. 1885–1914 at Christ Church, before being elected a fellow in History and Politics at Nuffield College. Adonis is a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author of 11 books, who served in HM Government for five years in the Blair ministry and the Brown ministry. He served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2009 to 2010, and as Chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission from 2015 to 2017. He is also Chairman of the European Movement, having previously served as Vice-Chairman from 2019 to 2021. He is currently a columnist for The New European. From 1991 to 1996, he was an education and industry correspondent at the Financial Times, eventually becoming their public policy editor. In 1996, he moved to The Observer to work as a political columnist, leader writer and editor. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Friend in Need Elizabeth Coxhead 1957 Isobel Fairlie is a child welfare officer who provides amusing sketches of the ‘deprived and delinquent’ children she works with. Isobel 's early success as ‘a sort of paid interferer’ is effortless as she involves the lives and affections of the most difficult children, the most hopeless parents, even her own friends and perfect strangers, in each others’ problems even though there is a cost. (Available to read online, see link) External Website

Radio & Podcast Series 4 Episode 1 Birth & Justice 2023 Dr Ruth DeSouza is an academic based at RMIT University in Melbourne, Victoria. She hosts a podcast called Birthing and Justice during which she has conversations "about birth, racism and cultural safety with change makers working within the maternal health-care sector…” In the first episode of Series 4, she speaks with Jacynta Krakouer and Indigo Willing about the “history and politics of out-of-home care and inter-country adoption”. While we might think there is no connection between the adoption of Vietnamese children during “Operation Baby-Lift” and the Stolen Generation, the speakers talk about how (American) imperialism and (British) colonization are responsible for both. The impacts are still being felt in Australia today. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child 2015 "Setting the Record Straight for the Rights of the Child" Children who experience out-of-home care need quality recordkeeping and archiving systems to develop and nurture their sense of identity and connectedness to family and community; account for their care experiences, and prevent, detect, report, investigate, and take action against child neglect and abuse. Help to transform the way records are created, captured, managed, accessed and archived for childhood out-of-home care so that we can create a better system. One which learns from the mistakes of the past and allows multiple rights in records to be recognised, respected and enacted. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Orphan Collector Ellen Marie Wiseman 2020 The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman is set in Philadelphia during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, 13-year-old German migrant Pia Lange is left with her 4-month old twin brothers after her mother suddenly dies. The chronically shy child manages as best she can until she runs out of food. She then leaves the tiny boys on their own while she scouts neighbouring apartments, without much luck. Venturing outside and into a wealthier area, Pia collapses on the pavement, waking up 6 days later in a church-hospital. A few days later still—when she is finally recovered—Pia is dropped off at an orphanage where she’s put to work looking after babies, all the time feeling anxious and guilty about leaving her brothers and wondering if they’re still alive. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience White Oleander Janet Fitch 2000 White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, their selfish love and cruel behaviour, and the search for love and identity. Astrid has been raised by her mother, a beautiful, headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive foster care and be loved makes her an unforgettable figure. External Website

Academic theses Women and Music in the Venetian Ospedali Vanessa Tonelli 2013 Harriet Constable acknowledges the work of the Vanessa Tonelli in the writing of The Instrumentalist. Women and Music in the Venetian Ospedali is the title of a 2013 Masters thesis by Vanessa Tonelli undertaken at Michigan State University. From the abstract: “The Venetian ospedali [convent, orphanage, music school] provided unique places in which women could train and perform as professional musicians. Much of our understanding of the ospedali, however, has been formed through the study of individual, male composers who wrote for the ospedali, of specific musical genres, such as motets or oratorios, or of individual archival collections. Studies of the female students and their lives are scarce. Additionally, ideas about gender shaped and continue to shape our understanding of these all-female institutions. To address these issues, this thesis focuses on the lives and public perceptions of the ospedali musicians.” External Website

Autobiography/Memoir I was just trying to matter David Jackson 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

Fiction featuring Care Experience Fugitive Pieces (Novel) Anne Michaels 1996 Fugitive Pieces (1996) is an award winning novel by Canadian writer, Anne Michaels (b. 1958). The novel is in 2 parts, the 1st centred on Jakob Beer, a 7 year old Jewish boy who survives the Holocaust by hiding in the forest and being taken in by an acheologist who gets the boy to safety in Greece. The 2nd part of the novel is the story of Ben, a Canadian professor born to survivors of the Holocaust. Ben becomes fascinated by Jakob's story. External Website

Authors G Living with the past: the creation of the stolen generation positionality ➝ A childhood on paper Managing access to child care files by post-care adults ➝ Reflexivity and Lived Experience of Out-of-Home Care: Positionality as an Early Parenthood Researcher ➝ Fostered Voices: Narratives of US Foster Care ➝ More Than Our Childhoods: A survivor-led participatory approach to out-of-home care life story research ➝ Back to Top

Authors T Charles Dickens: A Life ➝ You Should Be Grateful (book) ➝ Back to Top

Authors C Jack Maggs ➝ The Professor's House ➝ Elephants Can Remember ➝ Mrs McGinty's dead ➝ Cradles of the Reich ➝ Resurrection Walk ➝ Not the Swiss Family Robinson ➝ The Man who Made Husbands Jealous ➝ All the Sinners Bleed ➝ The Friend in Need ➝ Wild Pork and Watercress ➝ Prudence (Custard Protocol, 1 ➝ Birnam Wood ➝ Greenwood ➝ Sword Catcher ➝ The Runaway ➝ Bosch (novel series) ➝ Leatherstocking Tales ➝ Wicked ➝ The Throwaway Children ➝ Born in a Burial Gown ➝ My Ántonia ➝ The Book of Guilt ➝ Three Blind Mice ➝ Burial of Ghosts ➝ The Late Show ➝ The Instrumentalist ➝ The Talented Mrs Greenway ➝ The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice ➝ The Girl With No Name ➝ The Puppet Show ➝ Back to Top

Actors Charlotte Ayanna Charlotte Ayanna (born Charlotte Lopez; September 25, 1976) is a Puerto Rican American actress and former Miss Teen USA. Ayanna was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but moved to Vermont at an early age. She had a troubled childhood, spending sixteen years in foster homes after her mother, Emma, was judged to be mentally unfit to look after her children. In 1994, at age 17, she was adopted into a foster home. She has since become a spokeswoman for foster children. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Other Women Lisa Alther 1985 Other Women (1985) by American writer Lisa Alther has a Care Experienced character as one of the principal characters. The narrative of Other Women revolves around an ongoing conversation between single mother Caroline Kelly and her therapist, Hannah Burke. Hannah Burke was born in Australia. After her mother died of typhoid, her father took the 4-year-old to live with his parents in England before leaving to work in Trinidad. She remembers her father as a handsome man who turned up to visit her in Hampstead, England every couple of years. Hannah experiences other losses, including that of her 1st husband in WWII and of 2 children in a house fire later while living in the USA. Through the conversations with Hannah, Caroline understands how her different background shaped her. And through hearing about the tragedies Hannah has survived, she feels more confident in moving forward with her own life. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The magic of Harry Potter for children in care Sarah Mokrzycki 2019 Peer reviewed book chapter in Transmedia Harry Potter: Essays on storytelling across platforms. As a foster carer, I have witnessed first-hand the therapeutic benefits of Harry Potter for children in out-of-home care. My husband and I read the series to our eight-year-old foster child, who revelled in the vitality and vividness of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world: the sights and sounds of Diagon Alley, the excitement of a quidditch match, and the awe-inspiring grandeur of Hogwarts castle. But for him, and the hundreds of thousands of children like him living in care around the world, Harry Potter is more than just an engaging literary experience: it is salvation. External Website

Television Shows Who is Erin Carter? 2023 Who is Erin Carter? (2023) is a British thriller (Netflix) Erin Carter (Evin Ahmad) is a teacher in Barcelona, Spain. However, she has an interesting backstory as a child raised in the UK care system and who is now raising a child not her own. Erin Carter's settled, comfortable life is threatened when she is at a supermarket where a holdup takes place. Erin's self-defence skills encourage a local police officer to enlist her in his investigations. In the ensuing action, Erin Carter is on the right side of the law, although the behaviour of both cops and crims is questionable. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Bring Larks and Heroes Thomas Keneally 1967 Bring Larks and Heroes (1967) by esteemed Australian writer Thomas Kenneally won the Miles Franklin Award in 1967. Although set in a fictional British penal colony in the late 18th century, Kenneally has – at a time when Australia was still in thrall to the British empire – exposed the brutality of the early days of colonization, of invasion. The protagonist is Corporal Phelim Halloran, an Irishman who once wanted to be a priest. Halloran is a good man and he ends up realising he has more in common with political prisoners than with the Protestant officers he reports too. A significant character in the story is Thomas Ewers who was raised in the kinship care of his aunt. Ewers is now a felon, transported to the colony from Scotland because of forgery. He’s also an artist who is ordered to paint, eg, he is ordered to paint a kingfisher for an ornithologically inclined surgeon. When the surgeon’s wife wants more than to watch Ewers painting and Ewers refuses her, Ewers is arrested. Despite Halloran pointing out to his “superiors” that Ewers is a eunuch, those “superiors” have the man executed. External Website

Films/Videos Storm Damage 2000 The film is about a young teacher who returns to the children's care home where he grew up, and becomes involved with the lives of the troubled teenage children. It was broadcast by BBC Two on 23 January 2000. External Website

Authors F The Boys of the Dark ➝ Superheroes, Orphans and Origins: 125 Years in Comics ➝ Youth and the Mystery Wall ➝ Back to Top

Non Fiction We Were Once a Family Roxanna Asgarian 2023 We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death and Child Removal in America (2023) by investigative journalist, Roxanna Asgarian, is the harrowing story of a murder-suicide. In 2018, a white married couple drove their car over a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway. The 2 women had adopted 6 African American children, 3 siblings each from 2 families. 5 of those children were now dead, and 1 was missing. Asgarian centres the birth families of the dead children and uncovers a disturbing system of racial bias when removing children and a lack of knowledge about prospective adoptive parents. External Website