Search Results

Authors W I wanted to write about a care system that didn’t care very much': Kit de Waal on My Name Is Leon ➝ Who We Are ➝ The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families | The New Yorker ➝ Who Cares? Scotland project wins national campaign award ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows Clickbait 2021 This American-Australian is a thriller revolving around the mystery of who first kidnapped physiotherapist, Nick Brewer, and who then killed him. Episode 6 'The Brother' is the story of a grieving man whose sister, feeling rejected by an online lover, has killed herself. Viewers are told that the pair grew up in the foster care system, but that detail is irrevelant to the story. External Website

Writers Hermann Hesse 1877-1962 Hermann Karl Hesse (July 1877 – 1962) was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. When Hermann was 14 he ran away from his boarding school. Although only absent for a day, the boy was expelled and his parents had him committed to a mental aslyum. He ws released after several months and allowed to attend a local high school, but his relationship with his parents was permanently damaged. Hesse's best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. External Website

Authors E Louis Esson (Australian theatre) ➝ Back to Top

Behind the Scenes François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut (1932 – 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. Truffaut was adopted by his future step-father, but spent much of his time until his grandmother died living with his grandmother. The boy was eight when he began living with his parents. Truffaut is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry, having worked on over 25 films. Truffaut's film The 400 Blows is a defining film of the French New Wave movement, and has four sequels. Truffaut's 1973 film Day for Night earned him critical acclaim and several accolades, including the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Lily: A Tale of Revenge Rose Tremain 2021 Lily tells the story of a foundling left in 1850 at the London Foundling Hospital. The baby is saved from wolves by a young police officer, Sam Trench. Named Lily Mortimer for a Foundling Hospital benefactor, the baby is then taken to a family at Rookery Farm in Suffolk where she is well cared for by her foster parents and foster siblings and the small child contributes as best she can to the work of the farm. Foster mother, Nellie Buck, is delighted to have a girl and teaches her needlework, a useful skill that the protagonist, 16-year-old and independent Lily, employs in her job as a wig maker at Belle Prettywood’s Wig Emporium. When she is returned to the Foundling Hospital at the age of 6, Lily misses her foster family greatly and arranges with a young friend, Bridget—both girls are now 7 years of age—to run away. External Website

Children's Fiction The Ghosts and Jamal Bridget Blankley 2018 The Ghosts and Jamal is an intriguing story, touching on religion, terrorism and Nigeria s internal conflicts, following a young orphan who is negotiating an unforgiving society. Waking up in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, 13-year-old Jamal tries to piece together what has happened whilst simultaneously trying to evade capture by the attackers. It soon becomes clear that he has been living in a separate outhouse from his family on account of the bad spirits or rather his epilepsy that plagues him. As he wanders around his family s compound, he comes across red canisters leaking yellow gas, which he works out were the weapon that killed his family. With his family dead, he begins to search for his grandfather who he hardly knows; when his grandfather turns him away Jamal keeps walking. On the way he meets prejudice, exploitation and friendship, before finally discovering that it is people, not ghosts, that have killed his family, and they have plans to keep on killing. Young Adult fiction. External Website

Authors T Noel Tovey ➝ John Thomson ➝ Sigrid Thornton ➝ Jack Thompson ➝ Back to Top

Fiction by Care Experienced authors When the Stars Go Dark Paula McLain 2021 A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal? Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another. External Website

Performing Arts Dancer, Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins The Wiggles (1991 – ongoing) are a popular Australian children’s music group with an international reach. Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins joined the group in 2021. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2005, Tsehay Hawkins was adopted in 2006 by Robyn and Reg Hawkins and grew up in a small-town in NSW. From an early age, Tsehay was encouraged to dance and she took up ballet, tap and Jazz. The Hawkins made a point of nurturing Tsehay’s connection to her cultural heritage and she incorporated Ethiopian and West African style dance in her repertoire too. Although Tsehay Hawkins has not been able to find any information about her birth parents, in 2024 she returned to Ethiopia as a keynote speaker for a fundraising event for a local orphanage. External Website

Performing Arts US, Singer-songwriter Aimee Allen Aimee Allen (born February 2, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, California. She is lead singer of ska-punk band The Interrupters, Aimee has overcome a turbulent and traumatic past to find success in music. Growing up on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, her mother remarried and she endured years of sexual/physical abuse from the stepfather which led to depression, and suicidal thoughts. Music became her escape, and after moving to Los Angeles to pursue her career, she found her way into the music industry, signing a record deal. However, she fell into a destructive, abusive relationship, leading to a suicide attempt and a long struggle with alcoholism. After hitting rock bottom, Aimee got sober and began therapy, eventually being diagnosed with complex PTSD, depression, and anxiety. She found healing through treatments like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and has since shared her story through her band’s music. Her new album In The Wild explores her journey of survival, recovery, and hope, aiming to inspire others facing similar struggles. Aimee now uses her platform to offer hope and encourage others to seek help and healing. External Website

Television Shows Manifest 2018 In Series 1, Episode 15 (with a brief follow-up in Episode 16) of the Manifest (2018) drama series on Netflix, robber and murderer James Griffin is revealed to have been in foster care. He'd been moved between 4 homes, committed his first offense at the age of 15, and was in prison at the age of 19. The story-line adds nothing except to perpetuate stereotypes of kids in foster care. External Website

Television Shows This is Us 2016 This Is Us is an American family drama. The series follows the lives and families of two parents, and their three children, in several different time frames. It includes the story of Randall who was adopted at birth by a white couple. In Season 2, Deja was introduced. Deja has been in and out of the foster care system, but comes to live with Randall and his wife and they adopt her. External Website

Artists Terri Broughton You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are. Broughton had an inauspicious start in life following the death of both of her parents, but she went on to become the Head of a secondary School at an academy in Norfolk, a highly qualified life coach, a successful educational consultant, and now a highly sought-after artist. Broughton’s paintings are deeply personal, reflecting a traumatic childhood following the death of both parents when she was just seven years old. Terri and her sisters were separated, placed with a succession of foster families, some with wholly unkind treatments, and were only reunited together again in adulthood. She was awarded a Tate Modern prize for her Masters Degree ‘The Identity Project ‘, in which she pioneered the questioning and challenging of first year A Level Art students in Britain about their limiting self-beliefs and values which were inhibiting their creative potential. It was a project that turned art education on its head and has since been incorporated into the National Curriculum for all year groups. During the 18 months that we have all been locked down, Broughton has been working tirelessly in the creation of an extensive body of work which, while often narrative, explores the psychological behaviours of people. External Website

Activists Founder of the oldest black orphanage in the United States. Carrie Steele Logan 1892 Carrie Steele Logan, born into slavery and orphaned as a child, worked as a maid at Union Station in Atlanta. Moved by the plight of abandoned children she encountered, she began caring for them in her small home. Realizing she needed more space, Steele wrote and sold her autobiography to raise funds. In 1888, she secured a charter for the Carrie Steele Orphans' Home and eventually raised enough money to build a three-story brick orphanage, which was dedicated in 1892. founder of the oldest black orphanage in the United States. It became the oldest Black orphanage in the United States, funded entirely through her efforts. Her epitaph reads, “The mother of orphans". Logan was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement in 1998. External Website

Authors M Mommie Dearest ➝ Miss Saigon ➝ Newsies (The Musical) ➝ Hamilton (Musical) ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast The Songwriter: Willie Nelson American Masters Willie Nelson (b. 1933) is a superstar of country music (“Red Headed Stranger,” “Shotgun Willie,” “Stardust”). His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Nelson and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents, who taught singing back in Arkansas and started their grandchildren in music. Nelson reinvented the country music as one of the founding fathers of outlaw country, forging a style of music that went against the convention of its time. Filmmaker Steven Cantor sat down with Willie to talk about how he got his start in this 2002 interview. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles There's a lot of stigma': why do so few care leavers go to university? | Universities | The Guardian Rachel Hall 2018 An article covering the "new care leaver covenant' to make the transition into independence easier for Care Experienced People in the UK. External Website

Artists Henry Darger Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; c. April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. Henry was four when his mother died and after his father was hospitalised, the boy was moved first to an orphanage and then to an asylum for children with disabilities. Darger has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story.The visual subject matter of his work ranges from idyllic scenes in Edwardian interiors and tranquil flowered landscapes populated by children and fantastic creatures, to scenes of horrific terror and carnage depicting young children being tortured and massacred. Much of his artwork is mixed media with collage elements. Darger's artwork has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art. External Website

Radio & Podcast BBC Radio 4 - Child of the State Lemn Sissay Poet Lemn Sissay looks for the lost memories of his time in social care as a child. Between the ages of two months and 18 years old, poet Lemn Sissay was a child of the state. In this programme he tracks down the staff, social workers and old friends who remember him from that time, and looks for the lost memories of his years in social care. External Website