Actors Richard Burton Welsh actor Richard Burton (1925-1984), was in kinship care as a child and foster care as a teenager. Richard Burton was born the 12th of 13 children to Richard and Edith Jenkins. The family lived in a mining village, Pontrhydyfen, in the Afan Valley, South Wales. Edith Jenkins was 44 when she gave birth to her last child and died of puerperal fever shortly after. On the death of her mother, Cecilia Jenkins, or Cis as she was known, took the two-year-old Richard to live with her family in Port Talbot. Richard did well at school, graduating into high school at the age of 11. He also enjoyed playing sport, particularly cricket and rugby. He left school at 15 and worked in retail, but after 18 months of hating it, he went back to school. Philip Burton, a new teacher, became the boy’s mentor, encouraging him to act and stay at school. When Richard left home at 17, he moved in with Philip Burton. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan. An alcoholic, Burton's failure to live up to those expectations disappointed critics and colleagues and fuelled his legend as a great thespian wastrel. Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but never won an Oscar. He was a recipient of BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards for Best Actor. In the mid-1960s, Burton ascended into the ranks of the top box office stars. By the late 1960s, Burton was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. Burton remained closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles I was a child in care. We needed love, not chemicals | David Akinsanya David Akinsanya 2016 In this article, David writes about the disturbing news about drug trials on disruptive children "t my home kids were on another planet due to medication – and I could have been one of them" he says. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Acceptance: A Memoir Emi Nietfeld 2022 Acceptance is a memoir of the author's journey through foster care and homelessness, interrogating the true meanings of resilience, ambition, and success. As a homeless teenager writing college essays in her rusty Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that the Ivy League was the only escape from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. She had to prove that she was an “overcomer,” made stronger by all that she had endured. The truth was more complicated. Emi’s mom was a charming hoarder who had her put on antipsychotics but believed in her daughter’s brilliance—unlike the Minnesotan foster family who banned her “pornographic” art history flash cards (of Michelangelo’s David). Emi’s other parent vanished shortly after coming out as trans, a situation few understood in the mid-2000s. Her own past was filled with secrets: mental health struggles, Adderall addiction, and the unbecoming desperation of a teenager fending for herself. And though Emi would go on to graduate from Harvard and become a software engineer at Google, she found that success didn’t necessarily mean safety. External Website

Radio & Podcast Life of the Week: Frederick Douglass History Extra (Frederick Douglass) 2024 Clare Elliott and Paul Bloomfield discuss Frederick Douglass’ life as a former slave, abolitionist, activist and writer. According to Clare Elliott, Frederick Douglass changed his surname to Douglass after reading Walter Scott’s 1810 narrative poem, The Lady of the Lake. Ellen Douglas is a central character in one of the poem’s plots. External Website

Non Fiction The Big Issue Big Issue 2021 The Big Issue is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. John Anthony Bird, Baron Bird, (born 30 January 1946) is a British social entrepreneur and life peer. Bird was born in a Notting Hill slum to a poor London Irish family. He became homeless at the age of five, resided in an orphanage between the ages of seven and ten, and was often excluded from school. He became a butcher's boy after leaving the orphanage, and supplemented his income by stealing. Between work, he spent several spells in prison during his teens and twenties where he learnt to read, write and the basics of printing. Bird attended Chelsea School of Art, but was homeless again by 1967, sleeping rough in Edinburgh while being sought by the police for petty offences. In the early 1970s, he started to build upon his prison education and set up a small-scale printing and publishing business in London. For two weeks in 1970, he worked as a dishwasher in the Houses of Parliament canteen, an institution he would later return to as a life peer. He is best known as the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine that is edited by professional journalists and sold by street vendors who are homeless or vulnerably-housed. Bird sits as an independent Crossbencher member of the House of Lords. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Weaving a Web of Belonging: Developing a Trauma-Informed Culture for All Children Lisa Cherry 2025 Weaving a Web of Belonging explores how to foster a sense of belonging in children and young people, especially those facing trauma, inequity, and marginalization. Drawing from research, professional practice, and lived experiences, the book offers practical strategies to build trauma-informed cultures and relational webs of care across services, schools, and communities. Centered around a model highlighting FACES, SPACES, and PLACES, it advocates for the power of language, leadership, and collective care. Essential for educators, social workers, CAMHS professionals, and families, it presents belonging as a vital antidote to trauma. External Website

Radio & Podcast Patricia Cornwell (podcast) World Book Club 2008 American crime writer, Patricia Cornwell, was in foster care for a while when her mother was hospitalised because of serious depression. In this podcast, Patricia Cornwell talks about her experience in foster care briefly and how she wishes she had someone like the character she has created, Kay Scarpetta, to turn to. External Website

Films/Videos The Secret Life of Bees (film) 2008 The Secret Life of Bees (2002) by Sue Monk Kidd was adapted for film in 2008. The film tells the story of a 14-year-old white girl who runs away from her home and searches out information about her mother. She ends up in the informal care of a Black woman, August Boatwright. With a stellar cast including Queen Latifah as August Boatwright and Dakota Fanning as Lily Owens, the film won the Favorite Movie Drama & Favorite Independent awards at the 35th People’s Choice Awards. The film also received 7 NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Awards, including Outstanding Motion Picture. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The story of Mary Bell Gitta Sereny 1998 Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The story of Mary Bell (1998) by Gitta Sereny is the result of a collaboration between Mary Bell & writer Gitta Sereny. Mary Bell was convicted of 2 counts of manslaughter in December 1968 when she was 11 years of age. Gitta Sereny spent something like 5 months interviewing Mary Bell after she was released from prison in May 1980 at the age of 23. She explored the abuse & neglect Mary Bell had experienced as a child and thought her crimes could be explained by this. Apparently Sereny paid Mary Bell for those 5 months of interviews, which led to a public outcry as there was concern that a killer was profiting from her crimes. External Website

Writers Martyn Percy British writer and theologian, Martyn Percy (b. 1962) was born in a mothers and babies home in England and then adopted. After a university education and brief career in publishing he was ordained as a Church of England priest in 1991. Percy was elected as Dean of Christ College, University of Oxford in 2014. Many of his years at Christ College were marred by disputes. He resigned in April 2022 and received a payout of over 1 million points to cover legal fees and as compensation. In May 2022, Martyn Percy anounced his intention to leave the Church of England, citing concerns about bullying within the church. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Alternatives Caoilinn Hughes 2024 The Alternatives (2024) is the most recent novel by Irish writer, Caoilinn Hughes. Five sisters were orphaned 30 years ago, after which they effectively raised themselves. The oldest, Olwen Flattery, is a geology professor. Her 4 younger sisters all have PhD degrees. When Olwen disappears from her home, her sisters find her living in a remote house in rural Ireland. The unexpected reunion gives the 5 women an opportunity to review their lives, including examining old wounds. External Website

Academic Articles The Mem Sahib, the Worthy, the Rajah and His Minions: Some Reflections on the Class Politics of The Secret Garden Jerry Phillips 1993 The preeminent influence on twentieth-century British society has arguably been the decline of the British Empire. For over three hundred years, the construction and maintenance of the imperial system provoked themes which reverberated at every level of the British polity—that is to say, it set limits, effective cultural parameters, on what it was and what it meant in terms of lived experienced to be British in relation to foreigners from the four corners of the globe...Clearly, the British Empire was not the sole cause of any one of these historical trajectories, but its pervasive influence is detectable in all of them. Thus, the end of empire has had significant consequences on a number of fronts, ranging from the macroeconomic to the micropolitical. External Website

Films/Videos Sharper 2023 Sharper (2023) is an American thriller about a couple of fraudsters conning the super-rich. The story is told through a series of character vignettes. The movie begins with Tom (Justice Smith), a bookshop owner who is drawn to a customer Sandra (Briana Middleton) when they begin talking about her PhD project on black feminists. Sandra tells Tom that she was in foster care as a child. We find out later that Sandra or Sandy is on parole and has a long criminal history. And we know she had a difficult childhood. However, the foster care story is never confirmed. External Website

Television Shows Happy Valley 2014 Happy Valley is a British crime series created by Sally Wainwright. Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), a police sergeant in West Yorkshire, is raising her grandson, Ryan (Rhys Connah), after the suicide of her daughter, Becky. In Series 1 (2014) Cawood is intent on locating Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) who is Ryan's father. Royce has served 8 years for drug charges and is now out of prison. In Series 2 (2016) Royce is serving a life sentence. Ryan develops a friendship with a teaching assistant who is infatuated with Royce and happy to encourage Ryan to meet his father. In Series 3 (2023) Ryan has been meeting his father in prison—to his grandmother’s horror—and is in court the day Royce escapes custody. External Website

Radio & Podcast The Lady Imposter The History Listen 2024 In this episode of History Listen, Australian actor Richard Roxburgh recounts the story of Alexandrina Grant (if that’s her real name) who was transported to Australia in 1845 for ““falsehoods, fraud and wilful imposition” in obtaining clothes.” Before being sent to Australia, Alexandrina had been convicted in Aberdeen for theft at the age of 17. Little is known of her childhood but that it was an ignominious start –Alexandrina was the “bastard child” of criminals who was born in gaol in Scotland and who was probably apprenticed as a servant when she was child, because this is often what happened to children with no parents. Alexandrina ended up living into her eighties, was married to a ‘free’ man, William Askew, give birth to 10 children, and – towards the end of her life – ran boarding houses in Redfern, Sydney. In the interim she attracted attention as a “notorious fraudster”, “A Lady Swindler”. External Website

Films/Videos Fathers and Daughters 2015 The 2015 film, Fathers & Daughters, tells the story of a family struggling for the custody of a child. After his wife dies in a car accident while he is driving, writer Jake Davis (Russel Crowe) goes into a psychiatric facility for 7 months to recover. His 5 year old daughter stays with her maternal aunt and family. When Jake returns to collect his daughter, the aunt wants to adopt Kate. Jake refuses and the aunt and her husband begin court proceedings. External Website

Sport British Javelin Thrower Fatima Whitbread Fatima Whitbread (b. 1961) is a British athlete, a world champion javelin-thrower. Fatima Vedad was born in London to Turkish Cypriot parents. She was left on her on own as a baby in a flat until a neighbour heard her crying and called the police. She spent the next 14 years living in the ‘care’ system. After a difficult early childhood, at age 14 Fatima Vedad was fostered by the family of Margaret Whitbread, a javelin coach. 2 years later, Fatima was the European junior javelin champion. She went on to won bronze & silver at the 1984 & 1988 Olympics. She broke the world record in the qualifying round of the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart. She also became the 1st British athlete to set a world record in throwing. Fatima Whitbread published her autobiography in 2012, https://www.careexperienceandculture.com/master/survivor%3A-the-shocking-and-inspiring-story-of-a-true-champion and a children’s book in 2024, https://www.careexperienceandculture.com/master/my-bright-shining-star External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles How damaging are stories of damage? Kenny Murray 2020 Kenny Murray writes about the negative representations of Care Experienced People. External Website

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Academic Books & Book Chapters Who Cares?: Young People in Care Speak Out Raissa Page, G A Clark (editors 1977 Written by a group of young people in care, this publications provided a platform from which they could speak freely about their hopes, aspirations, contentions, criticisms and fears. As well as detailing their experiences of public care, it highlighted those aspects of the system that needed addressing to ensure that it meets the social, emotional and educational needs of all children and young people. External Website