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Television Shows One Plus One: The Elders 2023 One Plus One is an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) television series that involves interviews with sports stars, politicians, and other public figures (Australian and international) In the current One Plus One – The Elders series, journalist Dan Bourchier interviews Aboriginal Australian & Torres Strait Islander Elders from across the country. From Yarrawong on Yorta Yorta Country (Victoria), and born in 1964, Iam Hamm—who is currently Chair of First Nations Foundation—tells Dan about being adopted. He was a “stolen child” he says. In a variation on the stork story, Ian says that as a small child he thought parents driving to collect a baby was how babies were made—as they did to collect his sister—and that his family was entirely normal. It wasn’t until he was in teacher’s college that Ian Hamm found out his birth family was a big Aboriginal family in nearby Shepparton. Moreover, he’d met some of his family but had no idea of the relationship. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Former Cranbrook student says he was sexually abused at private Sydney boys' school ABC News 2024 In a story which broke on 4 March 2023 we found that a former ward of the West Australian state, Travis Matthews, was allegedly sexually abused as a 13-year-old while at boarding school. Travis was sent to the prestigious Cranbook School in Sydney after his mother died; his sister was working near Cranbrook. The WA state paid for Travis’ fees at Cranbook. What should have been a good opportunity for the boy turned into a nightmare. Travis Matthews, now serving in the Australian Defence Force, is currently suing Cranbrook. External Website

Television Shows The Defeated 2020 The Defeated is a 2020 television series with a number of orphan characters. Set in Berlin in 1946, Max McLoughlin (Taylor Kitsch) is a New York detective on assignment to help set up the German Police Force in the US sector. His brother, Moritz (Logan Marchall-Green), is also in Berlin but is there on his own volition to identify Nazis and those complicit with the Nazis. Gad (Maximilian Ehrenreich) is a 16 year old German Jewish boy who lives in the police station because his family was killed during the war. There are numerous other street kids orphaned because of the war too. External Website

Writers Janet Hitchman 1916-1980 Janet Hitchman (1916 – 1980) was a British writer. Elsie May Fields was born to a seamstress, Margaret Ames. There is some evidence that Elsie was given up after her birth because her mother was a widow with 2 children and didn’t want to acknowledge (or her family didn’t want to) that Margaret had an affair with another man. Elsie was first sent to live with a Mrs and Mr Sparkes just out of Norfolk, in England. When it was decided the Sparkes home wasn’t adequate, she went into foster care with another woman, a widow. From there, at age nine, Elsie was mistakenly transferred to a private facility for the care of the mentally unwell, from which she went to another foster home, and then to the Thomas Anguish School of Housecraft (now a Steiner School) before being transferred to a Barnardo’s home, where she changed her name to Janet. Janet married Michael Hitchman and had a child, but was later divorced after which she worked as a domestic servant to support herself. She published her memoir, The King of the Barbareens in 1960 and subsequently wrote for The Observer and other newspapers. She also wrote plays that were produced by the BBC. Such a Strange Lady (1976), Hitchman’s biography of Dorothy L. Sayers, is Janet Hitchman’s most well-known and often cited work. 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

Radio & Podcast Episode 74 - The Care Experienced Conference The Adoption and Fostering Podcast 2019 Jamie Crabb and Rosie Canning representatives from the Care Experience Conference give some background in relation to the conference that was held earlier in the year, share some of the reasons behind it and being to discuss the recently released report that they have been sharing with a range of professionals and politicians. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Hamilton (Musical) Lin-Manuel Miranda 2020 Hamilton: An American Musical is a sung-and-rapped-through musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The musical was inspired by Ron Chernow (2004) biography of 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. The West End production opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in December 2017, winning seven Olivier Awards in 2018, including Best New Musical. External Website

Television Shows Boy Swallows Universe (television series) 2024 In the adaptation of Trent Dalton’s 2019 novel, Boy Swallows Universe, significant Australian actor, Bryan Brown (b. 1947), plays the role of Slim Halliday, the ‘notorious crim’ who babysits and is a mentor for the protagonist 13-year-old Eli Bell (played by Felix Cameron). Halliday, also known as The Houdini of Bogo Road, was orphaned at age 12 and grew up in an Anglican orphanage. Convicted of killing a taxi-driver – which Slim long denied – Halliday was imprisoned in Brisbane’s infamous Boggo Road Gaol in 1952. Arthur ‘Slim’ Halliday was a family friend and always kind to Trent Dalton when he was growing up. He was also a wise man. Another character in Boy Swallows Universe who was orphaned as a child is Gary John Lawrence who becomes Lyle Orlik (Travis Fimmel). Lawrence was Trent Dalton’s stepfather and Lyle Orlike (played by Travis Fimmel) is Eli Bell’s stepfather in the book and television series. Gary John Lawrence was orphaned as a child, according to this Daily Mail Australia article. He was on the streets as a teenager and in gaol for the first time at age 20. In Boggo Road Gaol, Lawrence was highly regarded because he was head cook. “He was also known for having served the most time there without ever having been convicted of murder.” Lawrence taught himself to read while he was in prison. He’s remembered as a good stepfather to Trent Dalton and his brothers, as Lyle is in the television series. Gary Lawrence was released from prison for the last time in 2001. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Foster families who ignore race are participating in a pernicious form of racism Derek Owusu 2018 Derek Owusu draws on personal experiences to argue that there needs to be more education about the needs of black children when being fostered External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Inheritance Louisa May Alcott 1997 A wealthy English family, the Hamilton's, adopt an orphan who was born in Italy. A long lost letter reveals that she is related to the Hamilton's and has inherited the estate on which she has been living and working as a companion to the Hamilton's daughter. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Seeking Raputre Kathryn Harrison 2003 American writer Kathryn Harrison (b. 1961) was raised in the kinship care of her grandparents from the age of 6. Harrison was born in Los Angeles, California. Her young parents divorced when Kathryn was 6 months old. At the time, Kathryn and her mother were living with the maternal grandparents and they stayed there until, when Kathyn was 6 years old, her mother left home. Seeking Rapture (2003) includes numerous meditations on her childhood including that her grandparents raised her to be different to her mother, ie “responsible and studious and steady” (10). External Website

Radio & Podcast Child removal, women & class Surviving Society 2023 In this podcast, Kate Haddow & Amy Van Zyl talk about the UK child protection system. Of particular concern is that women who have their children removed are over-represented in suicide figures; that women are often blamed and punished for being ‘nonprotective’ yet police & social workers have not prevented the violent actions of men; that more often not, help and support could prevent children being removed from their (usually) mothers; that the system does not necessarily provide any better for the children when they are removed and placed in the ‘care’ system. The system, they argue, is plagued by both misogyny and classism. In response, an organisation called REFORM has been set up to support (rather than punish) women who are at risk of losing their children. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles A Conversation about Tracy Beaker... Rosie Canning 2018 Back in early 2018, Rosie Canning started a conversation on Social Media about Tracy Beaker which kick-started a whole negative portrayals conversation and led to conversations with Jacqueline Wilson, the author. 'There are already a huge amount of negative care stereotypes in fiction, an over-abundance of kids from care or adopted who become serial killers in crime fiction. If writers must use ‘other’, then carrying out impeccable research and making a story believable, rather than lazy use of a stereotype, is a must.' Read the exciting follow-up to this conversation here. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Dutch House Ann Patchett 2019 A richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House belongs to a tradition in both fairy tales and American fiction of motherless children (sometimes raised by their father, often with the aid of an aunt or trusty hired help) Two siblings, Maeve and Danny Conroy, bond tightly after their mother leaves home when they're 10 and 3. Home is the eponymous Dutch House, a 1922 mansion outside Philadelphia that their father, Cyril, a real estate mogul, bought fully furnished in an estate sale as a surprise for his wife in 1946, when Maeve was 5. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures. Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience As Swallows Fly LP McMahan 2021 When Malika, a young orphan in rural Pakistan, is savagely attacked, her face is left disfigured and her self-esteem destroyed. Haunted by the assault, she hides from the world, finding solace in her mathematical theories. A few years later, her intellectual brilliance is discovered and she leaves conflict-stricken Pakistan for a better education in Melbourne, where she finds herself placed with Kate—a successful plastic surgeon facing emotional insecurities of her own. Malika and Kate’s lives slowly intertwine as they find within each other what each has lacked alone. At first, Kate’s skills appear to offer a simple solution to Malika’s anguish, but when tragedy strikes, the price of beauty is found to be much higher than either of them could have known. As Swallows Fly is a poignant portrayal of survival, identity and empowerment in a culture dominated by the pursuit of perfection. In a captivating and unforgettable debut, McMahon asks what might be possible if we have the courage to be flawed. External Website

Radio & Podcast Darcey & Chloe - How the system failed to save two baby girls Background Briefing (3) In this 2-part series (originally aired February 2023), we hear the distressing story of 2 tiny girls – Darcey (2) and Chloe (1) —who died, in part because of the failure of the Queensland, Australia Department of Child Safety to heed ‘red flags’. Darcey and Chloe died after they were left in a car for 9 hours by their mother who is now serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. The ABC’s Background Briefing podcast revealed that there were repeated warnings to the Department, including by Darcey’s father, in the weeks prior to the children’s deaths. Darcey had already been in foster care for a time, and was returned to mother with a “safety plan” in place. However, when alarms were later raised by the father, the Department decided they were the result of a custody dispute and therefore took no action. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Hand Me Down Leigh Bonheur 1972 Hand Me Down is the story of Leigh Bonheur going through the foster care system in New Zealand. The story is narrated by 'Doris'. External Website

Radio & Podcast ‎John Lennon - Part 1: Composer of Longing on Apple Podcasts Personology ‎Show Personology, Ep John Lennon - Part 1: Composer of Longing - Apr 20, 2020 External Website

Television Shows Slow Horses 2022 River Cartright is a main character in the British spy thriller series, Slow Horses (based on the Slough House novels by Mick Herron). Played by Jack Lowden, River Cartright is a promising MI5 agent who gets shifted off to Slough House after a very public mistake, Slough House being a site of drudgery for MI5 agents who have bungled their jobs but who haven’t been sacked. River Cartright grew up in the kinship care of his grandfather, David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce), a retired MI5 officer. External Website

Writers Joseph Conrad 1857-1924 Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Josef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was born in the Ukraine to Polish parents. Josef was seven when his mother died. For three years, his father, a poet, translator, publisher and political exile, looked after the small boy, reading him Polish poetry and teaching him Maths and French. But in 1869 he died too. Eleven year old Josef was taken in by his maternal grandmother. He went to a local school for a couple of years, but boarded at the school. When Joseph was 15, his maternal uncle Tadeus Bobrowski became his guardian - by correspondence though, they rarely saw each other. At age 16, Joseph was off, exploring the world as a sailor. Joseph Conrad took up writing in his 30s. He says he suddenly sat down one day at breakfast and began drafting his first book, which he worked on for a number of years. He sent the manuscript to publisher T.F.Unwin in 1894 when he was in London and looking for another job aboard a ship. That same year, 1894, his uncle Tadeus died, leaving Conrad enough money to commence his send book and to write for a year without the pressure of having to work full time. By the time of his death at 66 Joseph Conrad was recognised as one of the greatest writers in the English language. External Website