Aboriginal Australian activist and writer, Vicki Roach (b. 1958), was in an institution and in foster care as a child.Vicki Roach is a Yiun woman and a member of the Stolen Generations. She was taken from her mother—also a member of the Stolen Generations who had been in the notorious Parramatta Girls Home—when she was two years of age. Vicki’s mother had requested the state care for her child while she went into an unmarried mother’s home and had another child. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement ended up with Vicki being made a ward of the (NSW) state and placed into a white foster home in the western Sydney suburb of Carramar. Education has been a significant force in Vicki Roach’s life. She left school at 13, but took on a Bachelor degree with the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University during one stint in prison. From there she went on to do a Masters through Swinburne University, and in 2009 was onto a PhD. Vicki Roach has been publishing poetry and essays since 2000.