Search Results

Academic Articles Exploring the legal representation of individuals in foster care: What say youth and alumni? J Jay Miller et al. 2017 Despite the overwhelming consensus that foster youth involved in dependency court proceedings are entitled to effective legal representation, few studies have examined this issue from the perspective of those most impacted: foster youth and alumni. This exploratory study examined the perceptions of foster youth/alumni (N=100) about the legal representation they received while in out of home care. All participants were either currently or previously in foster care in one southeastern state in the United States. Results indicate that participants perceived a lack of quality communication and interaction with their legal representatives. No difference in these perceptions was found by reported permanency outcome or demographic trait, though analysis did reveal a positive relationship between overall foster care experience and perception of legal representation. After a review of relevant literature, this paper reports findings, outlines salient discussion points, and discusses implications derived from this study, including identifying apposite areas for future research. External Website

Academic Articles ‘Yes I’ve got some historic convictions but do the public really need protecting from me?’ The Record 2018 People receive convictions for a number of reasons but as Gemma’s story demonstrates, what’s written on your DBS certificate will never adequately describe the story behind those offences. After a period of being free from offending, is there really anything to be gained by making people relive the traumatic experiences they’ve been through? External Website

Academic Articles Christian Science Versus the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden Anne Stiles 2015 In The Secret Garden (1911), Frances Hodgson Burnett presented Christian Science as an alternative to the popular rest cure invented by Philadelphia neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell. Burnett, who underwent several unsuccessful rest cures for her depression, eventually turned to Christian Science, aspects of which surface in The Secret Garden. The novel's child protagonist, Mary Lennox, stands in for charismatic leader Mary Baker Eddy. Mary rehabilitates her reclusive uncle and her cousin Colin, a bedridden hysteric. By showing a young female healer curing hysterical males, Burnett inverted the gender politics of the rest cure and contradicted its key principles. External Website

Actors George Lopez ​ ​ George Edward Lopez (born April 23, 1961) is an American comedian and actor. He is known for starring in his self-produced ABC sitcom. By the age of ten he was living with his maternal grandmother, having been deserted by both parents. Lopez's stand-up comedy examines race and ethnic relations, including Mexican American culture. Lopez has received several honors for his work and contributions to the Latino community, including the 2003 Imagen Vision Award, the 2003 Latino Spirit Award for Excellence in Television and the National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award. He was also named one of "The Top 25 Hispanics in America" by Time magazine in 2005. External Website

Actors Liz Smith ​ ​ Betty Gleadle (11 December 1921 – 24 December 2016), known by the stage name Liz Smith, was an English character actress. Betty was born in Lincolnshire. Her mother died when Betty was two and she was taken in by her maternal grandparents, seeing her father only occasionally. After Betty's grandfather died, when Betty was seven, Betty's grandmother adopted the child. Liz Smith is known for her roles in BBC sitcoms, including as Annie Brandon in I Didn't Know You Cared (1975–1979), the sisters Bette and Belle in 2point4 Children (1991–1999), Letitia Cropley in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–1996) and Norma Speakman ("Nana") in The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006). She also played Zillah in Lark Rise to Candleford (2008) and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1984 film A Private Function. External Website

Actors Jack Nicholson ​ ​ John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) in Neptune City, New Jersey. He is an American actor and filmmaker whose career has spanned more than 60 years. His mother, a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson was only seventeen years old and unmarried, her parents agreed to raise Nicholson as their own child without revealing his true parentage, and June would act as his sister. In 1974, Time magazine researchers learned, and informed Nicholson, that his "sister", June, was actually his mother, and his other "sister", Lorraine, was really his aunt. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). On finding out, Nicholson said it was "a pretty dramatic event, but it wasn't what I'd call traumatizing ... I was pretty well psychologically formed". Nicholson is known for having played a wide range of starring or supporting roles, including comedy, romance, and darkly comic portrayals of anti-heroes and villainous characters. In many of his films, he played the "eternal outsider, the sardonic drifter", someone who rebels against the social structure. Nicholson's 12 Academy Award nominations make him the most nominated male actor in the Academy's history. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and As Good as It Gets (1997), and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment (1983). He has won six Golden Globe Awards and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, at 57, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. External Website

Academic Articles Otherways' into the Garden: Re-Visioning the Feminine in The Secret Garden Linda Parsons 2002 This article documents Linda Parsons interpretation of The Secret Garden. Re-visioning The Secret Garden as a Sleeping Beauty tale was the key that made it possible for Parsons to recognize the story as Mary's quest tale and as a feminine, subversive text with covert, symbolic messages. To arrive at this interpretation, Parsons explored a series of questions dealing with issues such as sight, speech, power, gender construction, and symbolism. This interpretation reveals the positive and potent ways women subvert the hegemony of patriarchal society and the celebration of the divine feminine within The Garden. External Website

Actors Marilyn Monroe (actor) ​ ​ Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), was an American actress, model, and singer who was famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters. She grew up in foster care, orphanages and kinship care. By the time she was 7, she'd been moved 7 times. Between the ages of 8 & 12, she had been moved 6 times. Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortensen and went into care initially as a baby because Gladys, her mother, had postpartum depression (nothing is known of the father). At the age of 8 she returned to live with her mother for a while. Gladys’ friend, Grace McKee, took an interest in Norma Jeane’s welfare. When Gladys was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, Grace became her legal guardian. Both women worked in the movie industry but it was Grace who was particularly keen on the charismatic young Norma Jeane becoming a movie star, thinking she could be the next Jean Harlow. Norma Jeane did her best to fit in, to be a ‘good girl’ in her foster homes because she knew the alternative was an orphanage. But being a ‘good girl’ didn’t protect her. She was raped at the age of 8 by her foster father, sexually assaulted by Grace’s new husband when she was 11 and her 14 year old cousin attempted to rape her when she was 12. Grace eventually placed Norma in the Los Angeles Orphans Home. The orphanage was "a model institution" and was described in positive terms by her peers, but Monroe felt abandoned. Monroe was a top-billed actress for only a decade, but her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2019) by the time of her death. More than half a century later, she continues to be a major popular culture icon. On August 4, 1962, she died at age 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in Los Angeles. Her death was ruled a probable suicide, although several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. External Website

Academic Articles As a former foster kid, I'm giving Tracy Beaker a second chance Sophia Alexandra Hall 2021 Sophia Alexandra Hall went into foster care as a teenager and was cared for by her local authority until leaving at 18 to attend the University of Oxford. Here she writes about the new Tracy Beaker TV series, 'My Mum Tracy Beaker'. The original series is often cited as inadvertently paving the way for negative stereotypes and labels to be attached to children in care. Hall explains: "Tracy Beaker and I have a complicated relationship. When I told my friends growing up that I was in foster care, I’d often be compared to the fictional character. At first, I didn’t understand the comparison. Tracy was a pre-teen living in a children’s home, while I was living in a foster placement and revising for secondary school exams. But it was easier to shrug off my care experience as ‘like Tracy Beaker’ than to explain the complexities of the system to my peers." External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Stolen Generations. The removal of Aboriginal children in New South Wales 1883 to 1969 Peter Read 1981 In 1981, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs published a ground-breaking paper on the Stolen Generations. The paper, written by Peter Read, was among the first attempts to document the devastatioin of forcibly removing Aboriginal children in Australia from their parents. This reprint of that paper was published to help educate all Australians about this history and the intergenerational legacy of the Stolen Generations. Documents the disruption of families when children were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to state or church-run institutions, boarding homes, residential schools, and adoption programs. The author concludes that it is a story of attempted genocide. External Website

Academic Articles Lost Boys and Recovered Classics: Literary and Social Memory in Lorenzo Carcaterra's Sleepers (1995) Christopher Wilson 2008 Sleepers tells the story of 4 boys incarcarated in a juvenile detention centre where they were beaten and sexually abused. In this article, Christopher Wilson explores the interplay of social memory with the use of Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Criso (1844-45) as a political marker and as the central text in Carcaterra's story. External Website

Actors James Dean ​ ​ James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor. James' mother died when he was nine and his father sent him to live with relatives. James dropped out of university to pursue acting. In 1953 he performed the role of Cal Trask in East of Eden, for which he was posthumously nominated for Best Actor in the 1956 Academy Awards. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. After his death in a car crash, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him the 18th best male movie star of Golden Age Hollywood in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans Real and Imaginary Eileen Simpson 1987 Eileen Simpson (1918–2002) was an American writer and psychotherapist. Simpson’s mother died when she was 1 years old and she and her sister were placed in a Catholic orphanage. Neglected by the nuns, she almost died of tuberculosis and, after their father died when she was 7, she and her sister were sent by relatives to a “preventorium” in New Jersey. Her Orphans, Real and Imaginary. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. It is personal history; it is also social and literary reflection. The first part is about her growing up spending time in a convent-orphanage and a sanatorium due to tuberculosis. The second part of the book is a brief survey of the treatment of orphans; the history, present day -1980s, as well as orphans in autobiography and literary orphans. External Website

Academic Articles Foster Focus Mag Foster Focus Mag 2021 Foster Focus is a monthly magazine dealing exclusively and entirely with the Foster Care Industry. The core of the magazine are seven monthly featured sections, Anonymous Faces, Ask a Pro, Editor’s Notes, Family Adventures, Guest Speaker, What Do They DO? A nonprofit profile, Alumni Perspectives and Lawmakers. These sections coupled with cover stories and coverage of events focused on foster care will, in fact make for the most in depth view of the Foster Care Industry ever published. Accomplished doctors, attorneys and psychiatrists and New York Times bestselling authors make up the writing staff for Foster Focus they add credibility and project a sense of understanding to our readers. A range of stories and subjects are covered, highlights include; interviews with Country star Jimmy Wayne and from the NFL's New Orleans Saints Jimmy Graham & Actress Nia Vardolas, exclusive stories by Dr. John DeGarmo, Rhonda Sciortino, FCAA CEO Adam Robe and Casey Family Programs CEO William Bell. External Website

Authors V Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid pro quo? ➝ Back to Top

Academic Books & Book Chapters Little Strangers: Portrayals of Adoption and Foster Care in America, 1850-1929 Claudia Nelson 2003 When Massachusetts passed America’s first comprehensive adoption law in 1851, the usual motive for taking in an unrelated child was presumed to be the need for cheap labor. But by 1929―the first year that every state had an adoption law―the adoptee’s main function was seen as emotional. Little Strangers examines the representations of adoption and foster care produced over the intervening years. Claudia Nelson argues that adoption texts reflect changing attitudes toward many important social issues, including immigration and poverty, heredity and environment, individuality and citizenship, gender, and the family. She examines orphan fiction for children, magazine stories and articles, legal writings, social work conference proceedings, and discussions of heredity and child psychology. Nelson’s ambitious scope provides for an analysis of the extent to which specialist and mainstream adoption discourse overlapped, as well as the ways in which adoption and foster care had captivated the public imagination. External Website

Academic Articles From Folktales to Fiction: Orphan Characters in Children’s Literature Melanie A. Kimball 1999 Orphan heroes and heroines are familiar characters in children’s literature, particularly in the fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This type of protagonist has its roots in folktales. An analysis of fifty folktales from different cultures reveals that, while the details of or- phan stories vary, there are some universal elements. A comparison of these patterns to a literary orphan story, The Secret Garden, demonstrates how the patterns found in orphan folktales were adapted and applied in children’s fiction. External Website

Academic Articles "One of Us": Orphaned Selves and Legitimacy in Australian Autobiography Jack Bowers 2015 One of Us": Orphaned Selves and Legitimacy in Australian Autobiography (2015) by Jack Bowers explores 4 Australian autobiographies - Robert Dessaix, A Mother's Disgrace; Sharyn Killens, The Inconvenient Child; Gordon Matthews, An Australian Son; Kate Shayler, The Long Way Home & A Tuesday Thing - where the authors have been displaced by birth families. The paper examines what Jack Bowers calls, ““orphaned” selves in which the autobiographer is both orphaned in the sense of not knowing one or both birth parents, and orphaned in the sense of being estranged from a fully formed and completed self.” External Website

Authors B "One of Us": Orphaned Selves and Legitimacy in Australian Autobiography ➝ Back to Top

Academic Articles Children Without Childhood: The Emotionality of Orphaned Children and Images of Their Rescuers in Selected Works of English and Canadian Literature Irena Avsenik Nabergoj 2017 This article deals with literary depictions of social, political, cultural and religious circumstances in which children who have lost one or both parents at birth or at a later age have found themselves. The weakest members of society, the children looked at here are exposed to dangers, exploitation and violence, but are fortunate enough to be rescued by a relative or other sympathetic person acting out of benevolence. External Website