Films/Videos Magnolia (film) 1999 Magnolia (1999) is a psychological drama with a mosaic of characters and an ensemble cast. Frank TJ Mackey (played by Tom Cruise) is an Andrew Tate type character who appears in the film. Frank is the son of a celebrity television producer who abandoned him and his mother when Frank was very young. Frank’s mother died when he was 14 and he was then cared for in an informal foster care arrangement. Frank is a charming and confident young man who runs seminars for men, teaching them how to “tame” women. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Nicky Campbell: "There was a life long whisper: 'my mother didn't want me'" Georgia Shepheard 2021 After struggling for years to come to terms with being adopted, Long Lost Family presenter Nicky Campbell finally had a breakdown. In this article he talks about searching for his birth family. External Website

Authors A The American West and the Archetypel Orpan ➝ Incarnations of the Orphan ➝ Back to Top

Fiction featuring Care Experience A Small Quiet Dark Miranda Gold 2018 Born in a concentration camp and adopted at two, his own history was replaced when his adoptive mother gave him the name of her stillborn child, Arthur binding him to a grief that was never his to bear. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy Book 1) James and Lance Morcan 2011 Lance and James Morcan are a writing team who have co-authored numerous novels and non-fiction books. Lance is a former journalist with experience in all media. Married, he resides in Papamoa, New Zealand. James is also an actor and has acting credits in film, television and stage. He resides in Sydney, Australia. Book One: THE NINTH ORPHAN Book Two: THE ORPHAN FACTORY Book Three: THE ORPHAN UPRISING Meet Number Nine - an orphan, a spy, a lover...a master of disguise, an assassin, a shapeshifter...a freedom fighter, a human chameleon, a reformed contract killer. He's all of the above. He's none of the above. Nine is enslaved by the Omega Agency, a shadowy organization seeking to create a New World Order. When he tries to break free and live a normal life, Nine is hunted by his mentor and father figure, and by a female orphan he spent his childhood with. On the run, his life becomes entwined with his beautiful French-African hostage and a shocking past is revealed...A past that involves the mysterious Pedemont Orphanage in Chicago, Illinois. Standing in the way of Nine's freedom are his fellow orphans - all elite operatives like himself - who are under orders to terminate him. Nine finds himself in a seemingly infinite maze of cloak and dagger deception. Time and again, he must call on all his advanced training to survive. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Every Good Deed and Other Stories Dorothy Whipple 2011 Every Good Deed was originally published in 1944 as a novella and is now included in a collection of short stories published in 2011 by Persephone Books. Two spinster sisters adopt a child from a local orphanage. Susan and Emily Topham are shy and caring. Their cook is a little more worldly-wise, but just barely. Gwen, the orphan steals, she talks back, she lies. She abuses the sisters and eventually runs away. A case of the sisters believing that if an orphan was cared about, she would in turn care but here nature trumps nurture which is disappointing as it feeds into the negative portrayal of care experience. To top it all, Gwen’s not even an orphan; her wily mother uses the situation to exact cash from the Topham sisters. One Good Turn starring Norman Wisdom, a very different story about a hapless handyman who finds his good intentions leading to disaster when he tries to raise money for an orphanage threatened with closure. The film was inspired by Whipple's novella. 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

Biography of Care Experienced People The Altar Boys Suzanne Smith The Altar Boys explores the live and deaths of 3 victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the now notorious Maitland-Newcastle diocese in New South Wales. One of the victims became a priest who reported child sexual abuse to the NSW police; he was then banished from the diocese, ending up homeless and in poor health. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Sunken Road Garry Disher 1996 The Sunken Road is set in the mid-north of South Australia. It's the story of Anna and her family and friends - one of whom is Chester Flood. Chester's family is a large impoverished Catholic one, reason enough for the community to disparage them. The siblings are dispersed when their parents die; Chester ends up in the local convent which was previously a reformatory. As an adult, he does a stint in prison for the white-collar crime of fraud. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance John Boswell 1991 This text looks at the abandonment of children in Western Europe in both antiquity and the Middle Ages. The book illuminates a vast area of social history and aims to enlighten us on attitudes to childhood, the nature of the family, property and the nature of birth control. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles A Bengali Pope in Merrie England The Telegraph online 2026 Peter Pope (c. 1600) is thought to be the 1st person from South Asia to arrive in England. Patrick Copland, a chaplain in the East India Company, had been in India for 2 years. He returned to England in 1614 with a young Bengali boy he had been teaching to speak, read & write in English. Patrick Copland’s ward caused a stir in London with children following him down the streets. In 1616, Coplan requested & received permission for the boy to be publicly baptised. The baptism was performed on 22 December 1616 in front of a sizeable crowd at the Church of St Denis on Fenchurch St. Thus, the boy from Bengal became Petrus Papa or Peter Pope, a name chosen apparently by King James 1 & by whom he was baptised. (King James 1 of England & King James VI of Scotland had himself grown up without parents). Peter Pope became an interpreter & translator & is credited with having published a Patrick Copland sermon, “Virginia’s God be thanked” External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Insidious Intent Val McDermid 2017 Number one bestseller Val McDermid returns with a pulse-pounding, suspenseful novel featuring two of the most distinctive and iconic characters in crime fiction: Tony Hill and Carol Jordan. The story features a 14 year old boy who is living in foster care after the murder of his mother. External Website

Authors A Wards of the state: An autobiographical novella ➝ Letters to Gil ➝ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ➝ Would It Surprise You To Know…? ➝ All at Sea: Memories of a Coram Boy ➝ Deliver Me From Evil ➝ Inside Out: An Autobiography ➝ Thrown Away Child ➝ Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union ➝ Dirty Laundry ➝ Awatere: A Soldier’s Story ➝ Let Me Tell You. Mending a Broken Childhood ➝ Ushant: an autobiographical narrative ➝ A Place to Call Home ➝ Labeled: Ward of the State ➝ Fifty-One Moves. ➝ Against All Odds ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast Charlie Chaplin Dan Snow's History Hit 2023 With Dan Snow to discuss Chaplin’s long life in all its complications (is Paul Duncan, author of the Charlie Chaplin Archives. As the men say, in many ways Chaplin’s The Tramp was autobiographical, a reflection of Chaplin’s poverty stricken childhood. However, as a successful man in Hollywood, Chaplin had disturbing relationships with girls who starred in his films and was eventually exiled from the USA on instruction by J. Edgar Hoover. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Children of Ever After Avery Yearwood 2024 In West Philadelphia, Brittney, a struggling single mother, loses custody of her children, who are placed with Rebecca, a childless professor. As the two women face off in a flawed foster care system, they unexpectedly find connection, compassion, and a new definition of family. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Sunlight Pilgrims Jenni Fagan 2017 The Sunlight Pilgrims is set in a caravan park in the north of Scotland. Here. a group of people who live on the margins are waiting out an extreme winter. One character, Stella, is a transgender teenager who is terrified at the relentless march of puberty and who we see struggling to gain acceptance. External Website

Television Shows My Life with the Walter Boys 2023 My Life with the Walter Boys is an American coming-of-age drama series, based on the 2014 eponymous novel by Ali Novak. Recently orphaned Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodrigeuz) is a 15-year-old from Manhattan who is relocated to rural Colorado and the Walters family after the death of her parents. Katherine Walter (Sarah Rafferty) is a veterinarian and was Jackie’s mother’s best friend from Columbia University. During the series it is also revealed that she was adopted as a child. The Walters is a large family with 7 sons and one daughter. They also have the 2 Garcia boys living with them, cousins of the Walter children. The first season of My Life with the Walter Boys concludes with Jackie deciding to return to New York where she will live with an uncle. External Website

Radio & Podcast Bluebells on Bunny Hill Alan And Irene Brogan 2023 When Alan and Irene met in 1959, their connection was instant. Two isolated children, just seven and nine, found warmth and kindness in each other in a children’s home that was unwelcoming and strict. They would steal moments together up on Bunny Hill and talk about their lives. But the home had a rule that boys and girls could not mix. So, when their friendship was discovered, Alan and Irene were separated. On BBC Radio 4’s Life Changing, they explain how it would take four decades for them to find each other again. External Website

Authors U United States of Tara ➝ Unfamiliar ➝ Unorthodox ➝ Under the Bridge ➝ Unsettled ➝ Under a Dark Sun ➝ Unbelievable ➝ Upper Middle Bogan ➝ Unforgiven ➝ Untamed ➝ Until I Kill You ➝ Unforgotten ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows Bodkin 2024 Bodkin (2024) is an Irish black comedy thriller series. An American podcaster (Will Forte) travels to Bodkin, a small Irish town, to explore a cold case – 3 people disappeared 25 years ago. Joining him is London-based but Irish-born Dove Maloney (Siobhan Cullen), an investigative journalist who – at the age of 12 – was left by her mother in a convent and raised by nuns. An adoptee also features in the story; he is convinced he was adopted from Romania. External Website