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Academic Articles Blood Doesn't Define Evotypical Families: Eleanor Spence's Stories of Informal and Formal Foster Care in Australia Dee Michell 2021 Because of their non-normative nature, Australian foster families are not always treated “as families in their own right” according to Riggs, Delfabbro and Augoustinos (2009, p. 792, emphasis in the original). And until recently a variety of sibling bonds—between birth siblings, between biological and foster children, and between foster children in the one foster family—have, as Adam McCormick (2010) and colleagues at CREATE Foundation (2013) and the Australian Catholic University have pointed out (2014), received little attention in research. Yet the close family bonds between the blood unrelated are a central theme in The Switherby Pilgrims (1967), Jamberoo Road (1969) and The Left Overs (1982) – all written by award-winning and internationally recognised Australian children’s writer, Eleanor Spence (1928-2008). By calling on the contemporary conception of ‘evotypical’ family, in this paper, Dee Michell argues that Spence created evotypical families in these three novels and well in advance of Australian society accepting a diversity of families as the ‘norm’. External Website

Academic Articles Investigating ‘care leaver’ identity: A narrative analysis of personal experience stories Craig Evans 2019 People who spent time in public care as children are often represented as ‘care leavers’. This paper investigates how ‘care leaver’ is discursively constructed as a group identity, by analyzing 18 written personal experience stories from several charity websites by people identified or who self-identify as care leavers. Several approaches to narrative analysis are used: a clause-level analysis based on Labovʼs code scheme; the identification of turning points; an analysis of ‘identity work’; and an analysis of subject positions relative to ‘master narratives’. The findings from each of the methods are then combined to reveal how intertextual, narrative-structural, and contextual factors combine to constitute a common care leaver discourse. This forms the basis for a characterization of ‘care leaver’ group identity as ‘survivors of the system’. The findings also reveal how ‘care leaver’ as type, including stereotype, influences how identity is constructed in the personal experience narratives. External Website

Academic Articles Conceptualizing Stigma Bruce G Link et al. 2001 This article explores various manifestations of stigma in the young and adult life of a care leaver and the multiple trauma encountered along the path of Fouzi Mathey Kikadidi, the author. Part essay, part testimonial, this article reflects on how perceptions and stereotypes can affect a young child and explores the defense mechanisms and tools used to overcome it. It highlights different approaches to deal with stigma and invites to a joint reflection on how children in care could repossess their own history. External Website

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Academic Articles The Role of Orphan Films in the 21st Century Archive Dan Streible 2007 Well beyond the study of film history, advocates for public rights in digital culture (publicknowledge.org) have also adopted the orphan rubric, seeing it as a key to moderating the excesses of copyright and intellectual property law. NFPF's broad valorization of films "outside the scope of commercial preservation," including "documentaries, 'silent' movies, newsreels, ethnic films, avant-garde works, home movies, animation, anthropological footage, industrial films, and other independent works" (filmpreservation.org), continues to have a salutary impact for scholars as well as archivists. External Website

Television Shows The Fosters ​ 2013 American family based drama following the lives of a lesbian couple and their 5 children - 1 biological and 4 adopted. External Website

Television Shows "Small Axe" Alex Wheatle (TV Episode 2020) ​ 2020 Alex Wheatle follows the true story of award-winning writer, Alex Wheatle (Sheyi Cole), from a young boy through his early adult years. Having spent his childhood in a mostly white institutional care home with no love or family, he finally finds not only a sense of community for the first time in Brixton, but his identity and ability to grow his passion for music and DJing. When he is thrown in prison during the Brixton Uprising of 1981, he confronts his past and sees a path to healing. External Website

Writers Margaret Humphreys ​ ​ Margaret Humphreys (born 1944) is a British Social Worker who exposed the scandal of Britain's child migration schemes. In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Humphreys founded the Child Migrants Trust (CMT) in 1987 and has worked tirelessly to promote public awareness of the needs of former child migrants- to reclaim their identity and reunite with their families.Indeed, well over 1,000 families have been reunited after decades of separation thanks to the Child Migrants Trust. The book has been made into a full length feature film (Emily Watson plays Margaret) called 'Oranges and Sunshine' - that's what the children were promised when they left their homeland. External Website

Television Shows The Underground Railway ​ 2021 Based on the book by the same name by Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railway is a historical drama following the adventures of Cora Randall (abandoned by her mother as a small child) as she escapes with her friend Caesar from enslavement in the south of America. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Steering the Mothership: The Complexities of Mothering. 'Like a Duck to Water'. Rosie Canning 2014 Rosie Canning wrote a chapter 'Like a Duck to Water', for Steering the Mothership. When her first son was born in 1981, new mothers usually stayed in hospital for about a week. In the bed next to her was another new mother. They chatted and the mother told Canning she was a social worker. Canning told her she’d been brought up in care. There follows reflections on being in care without love and how easy it was for Canning to care for and love her newborn son unlike the Social Worker who had problems and eventually asked to be moved to a different bed. External Website

Television Shows They Do it with Mirrors ​ 1985 Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for 'delinquents'. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building. Also features an illegitimate child. The novel's first proper film adaptation was the 1985 television film Murder with Mirrors with Sir John Mills as Lewis Serrocold, Bette Davis as Carrie Louise, Tim Roth as Edgar Lawson and Helen Hayes as Miss Marple. A second adaptation was aired on 29 December 1991 in the BBC series Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, Jean Simmons as Carrie-Louise Serrocold, Joss Ackland as Lewis Serrocold and Faith Brook as Ruth van Rydock. The film was basically faithful to the novel, with the exception that Alexis survives the attack on his life. Also, Ruth van Rydock is present at the house when the first murder takes place and Lawson attempts to swim across the lake, and does not use a rotted boat. A third adaptation was aired on 1 January 2010 for the fourth season of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, Penelope Wilton as Carrie Louise, Brian Cox as Lewis Serrocold, and Joan Collins as Ruth Van Rydock. This adaptation had several changes and additions. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The late Train to Gipys Hill Alan Johnson 2021 As a teenager, Alan Johnson (b. 1950) wanted to become a writer, but he ended up as a member of the British parliament. He finally took up writing after he retired from politics, publishing his first memoir to critical acclaim in 2014. In this he talks about being raised by his single mum, and after she dies when he is 13, by his older sister. Alan Johnson's first work of fiction, is a thriller The Late Train to Gipsy Hill, published in 2021. Appropriately, the hero is a young man raised by a single mother. There is, too, a character who was raised in care - in Russia. Unfortunately, (because its a stereotype) Miranchuk is a thug, a clever man who loves violence and who has recently made a commitment to join the 3rd of the 3 key Russian organisations, the Krovnyye Bratya or an organised crime group (the other options are the military and the secret service) which, writes, Johnson, all interconnected anyway. The Late Train to Gipsy Hill is a timely - because of the invasion of Ukraine - thriller, fast paced and well written. External Website