Search Results

Carrie Steele Logan (1829 – November 3, 1900) was an American philanthropist and founder of the Colored [sic] Orphanage of Atlanta , the oldest Black orphanage in the U.S. Born into slavery in Georgia around 1829, she learned to read and write despite her challenging upbringing, including being orphaned as a child. Her experiences as a young enslaved mother shaped her compassion for children in need. After moving to Atlanta, she supported herself by selling handmade goods and later worked as a matron at a train depot, where she observed many homeless children. In response, Steele Logan began caring for them and eventually raised funds through speeches, community donations, and her savings. With support from the Atlanta City Council, local advocacy groups, and the state of Georgia, she established the orphanage in 1889, later housed in a three-story building accommodating up to 50 children. She also wrote an autobiography to raise funds. In 1890, she married minister Josehia Logan and had a son, James Robert Steele, who worked as a barber and later became an elder at Bethel AME Church. Carrie Steele Logan died in 1900 at 71, with her funeral attended by over 3,000 people. Her legacy endures through the Carrie Steele-Pitts Home , which still operates, and she was honored as a Georgia Woman of Achievement in 1998. A bronze bas relief sculpture commemorates her in Atlanta.

Hannah Brown (1866-1973) By Rosie Canning Care Experience & Culture recently added a new genre featuring ‘ Activists ’ and are wondering if Hannah Brown who grew up in the Foundling Hospital, could be the FIRST care-experienced activist. The Foundling Hospital was established in 1739 by Thomas Coram , a philanthropist driven by sight of destitute infants left to die on the streets, campaigned tirelessly for nearly 17 years to garner support for the hospital's creation. It was Britain’s first charitable institution dedicated to the care and upbringing of vulnerable and abandoned children. Though Coram succeeded in securing a Royal Charter from King George II after 17 years of effort, his outspoken nature led to his departure from the board within a few years. Admission Criteria and the Ballot System Mothers brought their babies to the Foundling Hospital to be cared for, with many hopeful that their circumstances would change so that they could one day reclaim their child. The institution focused on infants under 12 months, with mothers undergoing interviews to confirm their eligibility. Starting in 1742, the admission process included a ballot system to manage limited capacity: White ball: Admission granted, pending the child’s health inspection. Orange ball: Conditional admission, dependent on others failing health checks. Black ball: Immediate rejection and removal. In 1756, Parliament mandated the admission of all children brought to the Hospital, providing funding to support this policy. This "General Reception" period saw an overwhelming influx of children, resulting in severe overcrowding and resource strain. Tragically, two-thirds of these children perished due to the inadequate conditions. Foster Care Every child admitted to the Foundling Hospital was baptised and given a new name. Between the 1740s and 1760s, mothers left a token that could be used to identify their child if they returned to reclaim them. Accepted children were registered and sent to foster families or "nurses" in the countryside, until the age of five. They were then brought to live and be educated in the Foundling Hospital until around the age of 15, when they were sent out as apprentices, primarily in domestic or military service. Hannah Brown (not her Foundling name) was born 26th June 1866 and placed in the Foundling Hospital at 6 months. She was baptized Hannah Sherman [1] in 1866. Hannah later wrote ' The Child She Bare, A Foundling (London, Headley, 1919) an account of her childhood experiences and which she published anonymously. She writes realistically about her time in the Foundling Hospital and many of her protests and observations are uncannily still relevant today. THE writer was born in the year 1866. She has never known anything of her parentage, rightful name, or nationality, but was handed over (when a few months old) by her mother to the Foundling Hospital, London. Having gazed on me for the last time, with (I take for granted) a heart surcharged with woe, she left me to my fate...Being christened the same day in the Chapel of the Foundling Hospital and given a fictitious name I was later taken by a foster nurse to live in the country until the age of three; when I should be brought back to commence my existence as one of the children of the Foundling Hospital. Thus, for the second time in three years, I was deprived of a Mothe r. – The Child She Bare Hannah resented the stigma of illegitimacy and reflected on her experiences in her autobiography, and wrote about the victimisation of women who have loved 'not wisely but too well' and how the very concept of an "unmarried mother" is a construct born of laws created by men. Such a woman is neither a "fallen woman," nor is her child "illegitimate." ‘...children’s happiness and future welfare is sacrificed, even to the extent of their mother’s name, nationality – thrown in the world without a relative or friend to confide in…and have no right to the stigma attached to them.’ – The Child She Bare In her writing she is trying to bring about social change and sharing her very personal autobiographical experiences that do not end when they leave the Foundling Hospital. ‘ The few girls. Who by chance become married, are put to shame before their own offspring, whenever the simplest and most natural questions are asked by the child as to its mother's parentage: This is owing to the child's mother being deprived of her rightful name and knowledge of her nationality .’ – The Child She Bare Hannah also mentions how it is impossible to acquire their birth certificates as the only ones available are the ‘false’ ones issued by the Foundling Hospital. She leaves the Foundling Hospital after completing her fourth apprenticeship, for which she receives ‘five guineas’ in 1887, she is 20 years old. She leaves the last placement because she wants to be UNKNOWN - She writes: ‘…In future no mistress should know anything about me.' She’s referring to the stigma of being a foundling which she eventually recognizes was FALSE sense of shame. After leaving the Foundling Hospital, Hannah talks about the foundlings becoming a community in themselves and meet in secret due to the stigma. This is an interesting observation and perhaps we can imagine Hannah holding meetings with like-minded individuals as a way to fight and protest against the stigma and victimisation of foundlings and even gave birth to her memoir The Child She Bare. The memoir critiques the institutional childcare system, highlighting the lack of emotional support and advocating for the recognition of children’s rights and dignity. Hannah’s story offers a deeply personal and critical lens on historical debates surrounding child welfare reforms and the societal stigmatization of illegitimacy during that era. Hannah went on to marry Frank Brown, an Art Master and they had one daughter, Nancy. Hannah herself became an artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and contributing drawings to husband Frank's English Art Series . Despite her beginnings Hannah experienced a life well lived. If you visit the Foundling Museum, you'll be able to see a small display about Hannah that Rosie and Josie Pearse helped to curate. (1) Theresa Musgrove, Charles Dickens Researcher, who through detective work found Hannah’s surname which was passed on to Coram and enabled them to finally find the famous Hannah in the Foundling Hospital Register. [Theresa Musgrove, email to Rosie Canning, 17th November 2022] (2) A Foundling, The Child She Bare (London: Headley Bros, 1918) [Copyright of this page belongs to Rosie Canning, so if you use this blog, please reference Rosie and Care Experience & Culture.]

Dr Dee Michell reflects on A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, a tender book about finding dignity and beauty in solitude. A Whole Life is an extraordinary read. Calmly, almost methodically, Austrian-born Robert Seethaler charts the ‘whole life’ of an ‘ordinary’ man, a man who survives extraordinary disruptions. Andreas Egger’s first memory is of arriving in an Austrian mountain village in 1902 at about 4 years of age. His mother has died from tuberculosis—which some see as punishment for her living an “ an irresponsible life ” —and the only reason Andreas is allowed to stay with his uncle, farmer Hubert Kranzstocker, is because money comes with the boy. Andreas’ second memory is of being 8 years of age and beaten so badly by his uncle that his thigh is broken. After the bonesetter comes, Andreas spends 6 weeks lying down in the attic on a straw mattress. He limps for the rest of his life. Andreas never feels a part of the family, even though he sleeps in the same bed with the farmer’s children. For the whole of his time on the farm he remained an outsider, barely tolerated, the bastard of a sister-in-law who had been punished by God…To all intents and purposes he was not seen as a child. He was a creature whose function was to work, pray, and bare its bottom for the hazel rod (18). The only person on the farm who seems to care for Andreas is the farmer’s elderly mother, who dies when the boy is around 10 years of age. The uncle continues to beat Andreas until, at the age of 18 and strong from working on the farm, Andreas refuses to be violated anymore. He tells his uncle he’ll kill him if he tries again. Hubert Kranzstocker responds by banishing Andreas from the farm. Andreas begins his adult life by taking on casual labouring jobs. By the age of 29 he has saved enough money to buy a small plot of uncultivatable land; he is resolute about not farming and instead takes on a job blasting holes into the side of the mountain for a cable car company; cable cars taking tourists to the top of the mountain slopes are about to transform village life. One of my favourite scenes is Andreas’ marriage proposal to Marie: A second later sixteen lights flickered high up on the opposite side of the valley, moving in every direction like a swarm of fireflies. As they moved, the lights seemed to lose glowing drops which joined up, one by one, to form curving lines…FOR YOU, MARIE stood inscribed on the mountain in huge, flickering letters, visible for miles around to everyone in the valley (42). Andreas goes on to survive the devastating loss of his wife, 8 years in a prison of war camp in Russia, and the swarm of tourists to the village. Towards the end of his life, Andreas concludes that he has led a good life. As far as he knew, he had not burdened himself with any appreciable guilt and he never succumbed to the temptations of the world: to boozing, whoring and gluttony…He couldn’t remember where he had come from, and ultimately he didn’t know where he would go. But he could look back without regret on the time in between, his life, with a full-throated laugh and utter amazement (141). Although a simple story about a seemingly simple man, in A Whole Life Robert Seethaler asks profound questions about what it means to live a good life, about the human capacity to survive upheaval and adapt to change, and about how to live a dignified life according to one’s own values. A Whole Life stayed with me for days; it’s a haunting, exquisitely written novella deserving of its nominations for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2017 Man Booker International Prize . The translation by Charlotte Collins has also been recognised as A Whole Life was shortlisted for the 2017 National Translation Award .

Care Experienced History Month takes place in April every year. Care Experienced people have been a part of societies across the world for as long as can be remembered. We are calling for global recognition of this history through Care Experienced History Month. As part of this historic event, Care Experience & Culture are running a special Book Club, Autobiography and Memoir. Saturday 9th April 10am UK / 6.30pm Adelaide / 7pm Melbourne featuring: Dr Dee Michell who will introduce the event and explain how and why Care Experience & Culture Digital Archive got started. Rosie Canning who will discuss the history of Autobiography & Memoir with particular reference to care experience. UK author Anne Harrison who will talk about her memoir Call me Auntie and Australian author Susan Francis who will discuss her memoir The Love that Remains . Y ou can watch the Book Club Event here: Anne Harrison was brought up in care. She was a shop assistant before she joined the Warwickshire Police. From there she became a residential social worker and social care manager for local authorities in the West Midlands and Warwickshire. She lives with her husband in Coventry. Call Me Auntie: My Childhood in Care and My Search for My Mother is a truly original story of life in and after care. A unique account of trans-racial fostering which focuses on identity, family history and loss. Call Me Auntie adds to the literature of post-Windrush 1950s Britain and tells of ‘Heartbreak House’ care homes. The author’s own account of being left behind by her mother as a one year old and her life in foster homes and institutions. When eventually traced, ‘Call Me Auntie’ was the best her mother could offer, but this was just the start of a bizarre sequence of events. After discovering she had a brother and looking for her long lost family in Barbados the author finally came to understand she “may be a princess after all”. Call Me Auntie is a story of survival, resilience and changing attitudes to racism and ethnicity as the author forged a successful career beginning as a Woolworth’s shop girl before joining the police, then moving into social work. Follow Anne on Twitter: @anne4harrison Susan Francis was privately adopted from a doctor’s practice in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. After twenty years spent searching for her biological parents, 52-year-old Susan Hull unexpectedly meets the great love of her life - a goldminer named Wayne Francis. He is a gentle giant of a man, who promises Susan the world. Two years later, they throw in their jobs, marry and sell everything they own, embarking on an incredible adventure, to start a new life in the romantic city of Granada, where they learn Spanish and enjoy too much tapas. In love, and enthralled by the splendour of a European springtime, the pair treasure every moment together. Until a shocking series of events alters everything. Riveting, heartfelt and remarkably honest, Susan Francis The Love that Remains explores unconditional love and the lies we tell to safeguard our happiness. Follow Susan on Twitter: @susanfranciswr1 careexperienceandculture@gmail.com to register

Letters to Gil is Malik Al Nasir’s profound coming of age memoir – the story of surviving physical and racial abuse and discovering a sense of self-worth under the wing of the great artist, poet and civil rights activist Gil Scott-Heron. Born in Liverpool, Malik was taken into care at the age of nine after his seafaring father became paralysed. He would spend his adolescence in a system that proved violent, neglectful, exploitative, traumatising, and mired in abuse and racism. Aged eighteen, he emerged semi-literate and penniless with no connections or sense of where he was going – until a chance meeting with Gil Scott-Heron turned everything around. ‘A searing, triumphant story. A testament to the tenacity of the human spirit as well as a beautiful ode to an iconic figure’ IRENOSEN OKOJIE Malik Al Nasir is an author, performance poet and filmmaker from Liverpool. He has produced and appeared in several documentaries with artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets, Benjamin Zephaniah and Public Enemy, as well as footballer Mark Walters and many other luminaries. Malik started tracing his roots back through slavery over 15 years ago and his pioneering research has been recognised by Sir Hilary Beckles (Chair CARICOM Commission for slavery reparations), historian David Olusoga, and The University of Cambridge, where Malik is reading a PhD in history with a full scholarship in recognition of the significance of his research. His band Malik & The O.G’s have performed exclusive UK shows of ‘The Revolution Will Be Live!’ – a 10th anniversary celebration of Gil’s musical influence – at Wilderness Festival, The Jazz Café , London, and Blues Kitchen , Manchester, in honour of Gil Scott-Heron’s memory and coinciding with the September release of Letters To Gil . [Photo credit Peter Chin] It is an absolute honour and pleasure to welcome Malik to Care Experience & Culture Digital Archive. We’d like to thank Malik for taking time to talk to Rosie Canning about his writing journey, Gil Scott-Heron and his heritage research. Letters to Gil is a fantastic contribution to care experienced literature. Tell us of your journey as a writer. My journey as a writer really started when I left the care system and had a very low level of literacy because of years of being left out of the normal school system. I was in care institutions that had education on the premises, but there were no milestones, there were no exams to be set, there were no qualifications to be obtained. There was no expectation of any qualifications. We were doing more manual labour than schooling. I would describe myself at the age of eighteen when I left the care system as being semi-literate, although at the age of ten I had decided that what I wanted to do, was to one day write a book and tell everyone how I was treated and what they did to us in the care system. So, I kind of made that promise if you like, to my ten-year-old self and I wanted to keep that promise. That's really where the story starts. But at eighteen, I didn’t have the required literacy to be able to do that. However, I was fortunate to meet a great poet and civil rights activist from America called Gil Scott-Heron , who was performing in my town - Liverpool - and having met him, he took a shine to me, and we had conversation. The following day I cooked a meal for the whole band. At the time I was living in a hostel for homeless black youths. Social services left me there and gave me £100 and told me never to come back for any more money and made me sign a form. They completely abandoned me at eighteen. Having nowhere to host these guys, I borrowed a friend’s flat - cashed my Giro cheque, (which is how they used to pay us dole money in those days) and cooked a meal for these guys. Gil tried to give me some money at the end of it, I refused. So he decided “We'll take him on tour with us.” He offered me the opportunity to tour with the band, which I did and that was the beginning of a great friendship that led to me being mentored by Gil Scott-Heron over a period of twenty-seven years. Gil had a Master's degree in English and he was also a published author. He'd written two books and he’d produced a lot of music. He’d also taught English at one point. He was highly literate and was always reading books. When he discovered my literacy levels were so rudimentary, he suggested that I should address my literacy problems through poetry. I started to read and write poetry. I found it was a lot easier than prose because when you're reading stanzas, they're so much shorter than trying to read paragraphs and chapters. So I started breaking words down into syllables and saying them phonetically and then trying to memorise them, so that I could become more and more fluent. It would take me six months to read one book. I would use my finger and then go across all the words - syllable by syllable. When I got to the end of a sentence, I'd read the whole sentence again. When I got to the end of the paragraph, I'd read the whole paragraph again and so on until I got to the end of a book and read the whole book again. I'd read for six hours a night, seven nights a week and it took me six months to read one book. That's how I developed literacy skills. I would use the words that I was coming across in a poetic fashion, to learn how to utilise the nuances of language and see how best to deploy words to convey meaning. That was the beginning of my segue into poetry. That's what started me off as a writer. You and Gil both had disrupted childhoods; do you think that this gave you a connection with each other and was it important to you? Do you think it was important to Gil? Yes, I think there was a connection, and the reason why is because there was a poem that Gil had been writing when we were on tour in America in 1988. I would sit and pour out my heart and tell him all the stuff they did to me in the care system. One day Gil said to me, “you know, you’re not the only one who had a tough life” and then he said, listen to this, and he pulled out a piece of paper with a poem he had just finished writing. He read it to me. The poem was: On coming from a broken home . It featured on his last album ‘ I’m New Here’ , where he described his experience of being brought up by his grandmother, after his father-Gil Heron had left the country to go to Scotland to play for Celtic. He was the first black footballer at Celtic; they called him ‘The Black Arrow’ in the 1950s. Gil’s mother was working in Chicago, and she couldn’t look after him, so she took him down South to his grandmother in Jackson, Tennessee and his grandmother - Lilly Scott - raised him. He was supposed to be there for a short period and then it got longer and longer and longer, and he describes it in this poem: Gil Scott Heron reciting On Coming From A Broken Home ) Gil Scott-Heron XL Recordings 2010. It’s a powerful description, so there’s a connection between Gil and I. I don’t know if me talking to him about my experiences encouraged him to write that poem or not, but I was with him when he wrote it and he recited it to me. That was in 1988. He didn’t release it on the album until 2010. You’ve invested a lot of time and energy in finding out about your background through doing your family history and using the archive that you acquired, would you recommend this to others who don’t know their heritage? Is this a way to find some sense of belonging? I think it’s essential to know who you are and that can only really be complete, if you know from whence you came. What happened in the case of many black people with slavery and colonialism in their family history, their historical roots were cut off because they were taken from their homelands, their names were changed, and their culture was annihilated. They were assimilated into a foreign culture. They were dismembered from their families. They were bought and sold, shackled, misused, and abused, forbidden to read and write, forbidden to even marry. All the normal things that would maintain a sense of an historic reference were erased - the transfer of land or property from one generation to the next, the name passed down from your ancestors, the cultural heritage and practices, the language, the beliefs, - all of that was wiped out through slavery and colonialism. Even their dates of birth were not accurately recorded. If you look at slave registers, you see ‘born about’ this year or about that year. Most of them have first names with no surnames, and the names often don't denote anything to do with their family. Sometimes the names are of things rather than people. They would give them the name of an animal, or they would give them the name of a place, or they would give them a name of a thing - an object. So, these kinds of things were all deliberately designed to remove any sense of who they were, so that these people could be utilized as property. The result is that historically, black people in the diaspora, have arrived there as a result of slavery and colonialism, as was my case in Britain and my fathers case in British Guiana (Demerara and Berbice), South America. We have no cultural reference points. We have no historic backdrop, against which to be able to understand where we come from and therefore, who we are. So for me, that necessitated a journey to find that out, which was also juxtaposed against a backdrop of racism, where I’m constantly being told from childhood, from my earliest childhood memories to ‘go back to where you came from’ , and I don't even know where that is. People look at your black skin and assume you're from somewhere else. ‘You're not from here. You don't belong here. Go back!’ And they don't even know that the place they want you to go back to, is a place that you also don't belong, because you were taken there by their ancestors and they know who their ancestors were, because their records were documented meticulously. They kept birth, death, marriage, divorce, probate, wills and transfer of land and baptism records and so on. So, there are these meticulous records that have been kept for the slave masters, and the white people brought the black people and others whom they enslaved or indentured. For people like me descended of those enslaved, it's like becoming a tree with no roots, because you'll never be able to galvanise any sense of community or any sense of belonging because you don't have any roots. And then when you take all of that and you add to it being taken into the care system and being removed from what family you do have and being a ward of the state, at that point you've got like multiple layers of obstacles to understanding who you are, where you belong and your sense of identity. And then you're maligned in a different way by society, because everyone then says; ‘Oh, he's from the naughty boys home’, so they would also automatically assume you were one of the so-called ‘naughty boys’. I was put in amongst criminals, so there was no distinction between the ones who’d committed crimes and those who came from broken homes. Because of that, we were all dubbed ‘the naughty boys.’ Then we were told that - ‘society is being protected’ - from us. We were ‘products of our environment’ . We were ‘maladjusted’ . And then a whole set of rules were applied to us, in respect of our education and our maintenance, that meant that we would be taught practical skills, not academia. Also we would be corralled into churches, but we would have to sit at the back. We couldn't mix with the congregation. There were a lot of things. Everything was done in such a way as to make you feel that you were distinct and different - we were ‘othered’ at every opportunity within the care system. But then when you add the racial dimension to being ‘othered’, on the basis that society as a whole, sees you as not belonging and then when you take your socioeconomic parameters into account, you're being ‘othered’ over and over again, even on the basis that you’re socially deprived. In my case at the point when my father was in hospital, my mother was looking after four kids on her own on a council estate. We were poor. So I had poverty, social deprivation, racial discrimination and then care on top of that, so it was layer upon layer upon layer and then historically, the legacy of slavery and colonialism formed the context. When my father had a stroke and became a quadriplegic, they were happy to have him out of the equation because the social workers at the time had come and told my white mother; ‘Why don't you just let us take all these black kids and go find yourself a white man and have a proper family?’ They ended up taking two of us, myself and my brother. This was the nature of what was going on at the time because of the way that racism and the whole notion of black inferiority and white supremacy was ingrained into the very fabric of British society. Britain had been a colonial power up until the 1970s, when they were just emerging from colonialism. Its demise probably started in 1956-57 when some of the African nations started to become independent. When I was a boy, we were not far removed from the days of empire, so the mentality of white supremacy was still very much alive and kicking and no one questioned racism. It was quite normal to be racist. And it was considered something of an anomaly if you decided to question it, like you had ‘a chip on your shoulder’. How do you feel having slaves and slaveowners in your heritage? In the mid 1950s, Britain had started to grant independence to some of the African nations and this carried on until 1970s. India got its independence 1947 – I was born in 1966 so that’s only 19 years since India’s independence and the end of the British Raj. Turmoil was happening around that time; the Biafran war in Nigeria as a consequence of trying to get their independence too and things happening in the colonies, these were very turbulent times. The British were losing their empire, and they were caustic about it. There was no longer the great British empire, so there was this feeling of hostility towards the former colonial subjects. In 1989 Margaret Thatcher made law that colonial subjects could no longer have automatic rights of British citizenship. Prior to that, they could. People from the colonies could come to Britain and settle and didn’t need to be naturalised. I felt the need to really understand all this, so I started to trace my ancestry back through Demerara in Guyana. Once I hit the 1850s, I was coming into the period of enslavement, because it was still alive and kicking in Brazil until 1880, America until 1867, informally happening in Demerara until 1854. So when I hit slavery, I started to find black ancestors having children with white slave masters; mixed raced offspring of those living in British Guiana. Some came to the UK or other places throughout the empire. I started to try and track down who these white slave-masters were. Some names kept popping up, which got me started on the genealogy – like a black footballer from the 1880s, called Andrew Watson, - namesake of my father. There were images of this guy and he looked identical to me, but he was born in 1856. He was educated at the top end of British society and played football for Scotland and a lot of clubs throughout England. I started to look at that history and traced his father - who was a sugar planter, - Peter Miller Watson and then discovered, - when I went to Guyana in 2008, - that his brother William Robertson Watson, was a plantation overseer, who had left black children in Guiana, from whom I descend. This made me and Andrew Watson ancestral cousins. Having done the initial research and discovered the connection to Andrew Watson through his uncle, William, I started to acquire some letters that were written, and were being traded by stamp collectors, to and from the company that Andrews white father belonged to. Initially, I got about a dozen or so of those letters and started to piece together a picture of a mercantile operation, but it was very limited at first. Then suddenly, some years later, a whole cache of these papers came up for sale. I purchased the whole job lot and it turned out to be the slave owners financial accounts. It included a lot of correspondences, plantation records, shipping inventories for the firm Sandbach Tinne & Co., the company that owned my ancestors. That’s when I realised the level of mixing of the slave owners and the slaves and their black offspring from which I’m also descended. I had to contend with the awkward reality, that I descended not only from enslaved Africans but also their white slave owners. When I started to look at slavery as a thing – I found narrative that stated that ‘once a Negro woman was purchased, she was considered sexually available to any white man’ so it was considered no sin for a white man to take a black woman and rape her, it was not even considered as rape – there were no cases of rape against black women by white men. Enslaved women were ‘property’ and there to be used however the owner of that ‘property’ deemed fit to use them. Warning: The following two paragraphs contain material readers may find upsetting One case involved a white slave owner who summoned a black woman for sex. The woman was heavily pregnant, and she refused. She was charged with insubordination. If an enslaved person was found insubordinate, they could be lashed with a ‘cat o’ nine tails’ which had nine leather knotted strands. You could lash an enslaved person legally with 39 lashes. The only reason we know about this case, is because the woman claimed she was lashed more than 39 times. They stripped her naked, hung her from a tree and the slave master lashed her repeatedly – the lashes were so brutal they broke every bone in the unborn baby’s body, yet the baby was born alive. The slave owner was charged with having lashed her more than 39 times but because she was so traumatised by the experience, she was unable to say how many times she was lashed and because he was the only witness, and he claimed he only lashed her 39 times he was completely exonerated. That was the end of the case. So, for the family of slave traders and those whom they enslaved that I descended from, this was the backdrop. The climate within which they operated, the way in which those they enslaved were treated. Many people of colour from the Caribbean, the Americas, the colonies where slavery took place were also descended from white slave owners and have that blood coursing through their veins. That was the history I found when I started looking back through the archive and it was that history that helped to contextualise what in fact, was really the reason why there was a notion of white supremacy and black inferiority, that had permeated down through the empire, from slavery and colonialism, into the social fabric of society that we have today. How did you deal with the trauma associated with reading such upsetting information? I grappled with the issue of secondary trauma when I was dealing with my care experience. I spent ten years in litigation against the local authority and during that period, I had to research my own life, in order to make a legal case, because the lawyers representing me were actually acting against my best interests. They were acting more in the interest of the local authority than they were in the interests of the client, because very many of them were cosy with the local authority. There appeared to be a certain quid pro quo going on between some of the lawyers representing the victims and some of those representing the local authority. Deals were being struck behind the scenes and a lot of people were denied justice. I decided to investigate my own case, so I went to college and university, learned research methods, and then used my own methodological and research skills, to research my own case. I went to the archives at Liverpool City Library. After 20 years, a lot of stuff became available in the public domain. I literally went through everything from 1975, when I went into care through to of 1984 when I came out. I found every committee; Social Services committee, adoption special subcommittee, juvenile panel etc., - anything that related to the institutions that I was in, and I went through those documents meticulously. City Council chambers, minutes and whatever I found that referenced the children’s homes. I spent three months cross referencing material - plans and budgets for the institutions, recruitment procedures, everything I could find - with markers and then compiled a 42,000-word report on my case. I presented it to my QC Alan Levy, who was the chair of the ‘Staffordshire Pin-Down Public Inquiry’ and one of the most senior judges. I managed to get him as my QC after my own solicitor told me that the document I’d produced was ‘inadmissible’. I put it as an addendum, like an appendix to my statement. I said ‘let the QC decide’ - we had a conference in chambers with the QC just before we were ready to go to court, and the QC said to me: “I read your appendix to your statement. Do you realize what you've done here?” I thought, “oh **** I have inadvertently done something to undermine the case 'cause I don't know what I'm doing legally. “What have I done?” He said, “I chair public enquiries and you have single-handedly conducted a competent public inquiry”. He offered me a pupillage in his chambers if I wanted to convert my degree into a law degree. My barrister who was instructing the QC, also offered me a pupillage in his chambers on the King's Bench Walk in London, and my solicitor who was representing me in Manchester, offered me a training contract with his firm. I then won the case, got the compensation, and then used compensation money to go to the Chester College of Law to start my GDR -Graduate Diploma in Law. I walk in the college and there's people from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Trinity and all these places. Some of whom had a pupillage, some of whom had a training contract. Some had neither and were speculating that they might get one when they were trained. I had two pupillages and a training contract. I started in my first term, and I was sitting there, and I had to do an essay on the rules of construction. The golden rule and all of that. So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking to myself, “yeah, I gotta do this essay” and someone said to me “if you really could do anything you wanted right now, what would it be?” I thought to myself, “I'd sit down and write a book of poetry.” So they said to me, “Well, tell the college that you're not coming back. And go and write your book of poetry”. And that's what I did. I thanked them and I said I'm not going back. I sat down and I compiled all the poetry that I'd written when I was learning to read and write with Gil, transcribed it all and compiled a book called Ordinary Guy by Mark T. Watson - which was my name when I met Gil and before I changed my name to Malik Al Nasir - after I’d converted to Islam. I set up my own publishing company, Fore-Word Press Ltd., in 2004. I published the book as a collection of poetry and prose. I also recorded the book, which became an album and Gil recorded one of the songs on the album, as did others. That came out in 2015 called ‘ Rhythms of the Diaspora Vol’s 1 & 2 by Malik and the O.G’s whichbecame my performance band. I also made a film ‘Word Up – From Ghetto To Mecca’, which was screened on Picture House cinemas up and down the UK and then I toured Canada with the film. So me not finishing law school became the rationale for the production of the book, which became the film, which became the album, which launched the band, which became the kind of mainstay of what I now do. My activism and academia is still interspersed with the poetry. Would you like to hear a poem about being in care? This was about being powerless to do anything and not knowing who was in power and not knowing a single person to write to, to tell them about my plight in care. But basically, being forced to submit to this impersonal entity that was in power whilst I had none. I wrote the poem in the form of a letter and addressed it to power themselves: Dear Power, Can you tell me who's responsible for the economic blight that plagues my hometown? See, I've spent half a life asking why the streets run down. Where children play, corruption reigns and broken dreams of wall to wall in Council house and racist school. Mother of youth naïve and true. She stands faceless thin on employment queue. She's low on pharmaceutical dope 'cause you stole her kids said you'd help her cope. You had all the answers when she signed the sheet. You just borrowed the kids ‘till she was back on her feet. But when she came to take them back, oh we're terribly sorry you can't do that. The children ask what have we done? The system says ‘we’re overrun’. The social workers on commission: You're on the books, kid. There's no remission. The children striving to be free, the system lying, dreams of dying, mothers crying, the systems thriving. “Cast your vote” politicians say. To ghetto youth, they’re all the same, He asks “what have they done for me it's still the same and I'm 23? I try to work - who’ll take me on, if I’m from the ghetto my skin is brown? So I move away to where it’s - where they’ll take your soul, if that's all you've got? See, there's always a market for a tender soul, from a broken home, with a dream that's bold. Where they'll make you up like a living doll, then break you down when you discover what's wrong. Then groom your mane and comfort your pain. With false emotion exploit you devotion. When they burned you out, your hearts ragged and torn, and you're cursing yourself and the day you were born they just throw you back to the gutters of strife at the end of the day – hey! Iit's only your life. So you're back on the streets, but who wants you around? You traded your soul they say, pound-for-pound. You're not the same guy you used to be. You're no longer welcome, as you can see, so pack your things, why don't you go? Don't call on people you used to know. So you're back at the start, potential fodder for jail. See the systems laughing if they make on your bail. 'cause it don't really matter if you win or you lose, the solicitor and the barrister too. Then the judge will decide just how long you'll be used. 'cause the wardens make money, the judge does too. And society’s protected from the threat that you pose and the system will thrive as their industry grows, in a guise of free enterprise and justice, - indeed! See I'm no longer deceived 'cause I know you power, and I want a reprieve. Ó Malik Al Nasir. All Rights Reserved. What one piece of advice would you give young people leaving a care system? To the young people who are leaving the care system today, I would say; “Don't allow yourself to be defined by what happened to you. Decide who you want to be, and then strive to achieve that. If you allow yourself to be defined by what happened to you, it will continue to keep happening. Then, after you've gone from the care system because of that which was done to you, you will then do that to yourself by proxy. Whereas if you make the decision within yourself, that you're not going to be defined by that what happened to you, then you are freeing yourself to start looking at what it is that you want to be, and then you can strive towards that and in a sense, your success would not then be dictated by everything that they did to you but rather by what you yourself aspire to. It’s about taking back control of your own mind, after having years of having your mind manicured and manipulated by the system. You need to think for yourself. If you're just regurgitating what's been instilled in you by them, then you will only ever be able to be what they wanted you to be. And you'll never be able to find yourself.” Letters to Gil is published by William Collins You can follow Malik on Twitter: @MalikAndTheOGs

Care Experience & Culture book club event: Monday 6th December 10am UK / 9pm Australia Sarah Hilary will be discussing her latest novel Fragile which features characters from a children's home. All welcome. Email: careexperienceandculture@gmail.com SARAH HILARY ’s debut Someone Else’s Skin won the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year, was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and The Observer’s Book of the Month. In the US, it was a Silver Falchion and Macavity Award finalist. No Other Darkness , the second in the series, was shortlisted for a Barry Award. The sixth in her DI Marnie Rome series Never Be Broken is out now. Her short stories have won the Cheshire Prize for Literature, the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize, and the SENSE prize. Fragile is her first standalone novel. Sarah is one of the Killer Women, a crime writing collective supporting diversity, innovation and inclusion in their industry . Sarah also wrote about her family history, most notably in My Mother was Emperor Hirohito's Poster Child for The Guardian , March 2014. Her mother and grandparents were prisoners of the Japanese in Batu Lintang camp where her grandfather, Stanley George Hill, died in 1945. Hilary wrote about her grandmother's courage in the camp for the Dangerous Women Project in 2017. [1] “Hilary has always known how to chill her readers – Fragile dials the chill factor up to 11” VAL MCDERMID Nell Ballard is homeless, running from her past and carrying a secret she longs to set down. In Starling Villas, she becomes servant to an eccentric recluse. Robin Wilder lives by an exacting set of rules, expecting the same from Nell, who fears his retribution should she let standards slip. Just as she begins to find her balance in the house, Robin’s former wife sweeps in. Carolyn Wilder has no intention of allowing Nell to become comfortable in her new home. But who is underestimating whom? And who truly holds the power in Starling Villas? As events overtake the household, old wounds reopen and the past rushes in to exact its own terrible price. Fragile is a modern Gothic psychological thriller with a contemporary twist on the classic novel Rebecca from award-winning and critically acclaimed writer Sarah Hilary. Thank you to Pan Macmillan for review copies. Follow Sarah on Twitter: @Sarah_hilary Follow Care Experience & Culture on Twitter: @careexp_culture [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Hilary#cite_note-7

By Dr. Annie Skinner During the latter decades of the nineteenth-century, poor families faced with crises due to poverty, ill-health or misfortune were dependent on a combination of state and voluntary agencies for help. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act restricted state benefits and assessed claimants on a deserving or undeserving basis, forcing people into the workhouse. Therefore, for some parents in dire situations the only option other than the stigmatizing experience of the workhouse, was requesting admission for their child to a child care charitable organisation like the Waifs and Strays Society, (WSS), now The Children’s Society, Dr Banardos or Dr Stephen’s Homes, now Action for Children, who provided residential child care, all established at the end of the 1870s and beginning of the 1880s. A new agency, the Charity Organisation Society, (COS), who had shared aims with the Government and the harsh poor law, was also established. COS members were encouraged to participate in health and welfare organisations to influence policy and practice. The COS, credited as being the first social workers, made home visits to assess claimants in line with the COS policy, ensuring claimants were genuine, to ascertain the causes of poverty and ill- health before giving help. Whilst working on a project investigating how and why children came into care in the nineteenth century I was struck with the resonance with today . Over the last two decades attitudes towards children in care have come under the spotlight. Stigma was an integral component of the 1834 New Poor Law Amendment Act. Victorian philanthropists contributed to this stigma by blaming parents. [1] Unfortunately, there are still parallels to be drawn between attitudes expressed in the nineteenth century and those in the twenty-first century. Not only because of attitudes towards welfare but also because of attitudes towards vulnerable families who still seem to be seen as second-class citizens. Whilst aspects of stigma are well documented in some areas such as mental health, education, race, and disability, in general terms the history of the stigma of children in care and its relevance today is under-explored. This can be extended to discriminated children and families on the margins of society. Stigma is an attitude or belief, and discrimination is the outcome by others holding those attitudes or beliefs. However, being disadvantaged can lead to social exclusion and subsequently stigmatization. This post looks at how the stigma of care evolved during the nineteenth century and how this has remained. From my research on the experiences of children in care in the nineteenth century I suggest there are three types of stigma particularly pertinent to these children and families on the margins of society, then and today. Firstly, Structural Stigma relates to institutional policies based on stigmatizing attitudes. Secondly, Public Stigma reflects the predominant opinions society has about people with a certain characteristic. Negative stereotypes of such people or groups are often portrayed in the media with limited information, which can reinforce and influence adverse public perceptions. And thirdly, Associative Stigma which focusses on people with connections to someone with a characteristic regarded as unfavourable. In this instance it is related to society’s view of parents which is inherited by the child. People in dire straits resorting to charity or the Poor Law were considered improvident regardless of their circumstances, as they had not taken precautions to avoid such a situation. Incorporated into child welfare legislation and within the voluntary charitable movements, such as the COS, were expectations of changed behavior, from either child or adult, as a result of intervention. In practice, if considered deserving a claimant was expected to make lifestyle changes in line with COS philosophy. Failure to do so resulted in the withdrawal of COS help and the family were left with limited options to cope and a fear of admission to the workhouse. Middle-class philanthropists with little understanding of working-class life attributed their values to their own experiences and expectations of childhood and family life. Amongst families who requested COS help were lone parents, often recently bereaved. Widowed fathers with young children needed childcare to continue in employment; and widowed mothers usually without skills, had to find employment which was usually low paid. Lone mothers found themselves in impossible conditions with children to support and little employment opportunities. Regular employment was considered preferable to voluntarily relinquishing a child to care by the authorities, as institutions considered parents unable to work and look after their children were stigmatised as ‘failing as a parent’. For this reason some widowed fathers had left their children in the care of local women as they had to work away from home, which were not always suitable. When arrangements broke down for poor families the authorities had the power to commit children to care. Several Industrial Schools Acts were introduced from 1857 onwards, each giving increasing power to the state. Children, as young as two or three, appeared in court and were charged: of being in the company of prostitutes, being neglected or abused, not having proper guardianship, larceny, stealing, or truanting, being out of control or committing an offence. [2] The defendant, the child, did not have legal representation; and parents did not usually have legal representation either. Court Orders were issued, the child was committed to care in an industrial school, until they were 16 years of age and parental rights were removed. The press were allowed to report the cases and gave the children’s details, and members of the public were able to attend the hearing. In 1883, the WSS established several industrial schools, and one of their major concerns was to provide accommodation for girls at risk of immorality. This morality was defined by the establishment and created stigmatization of lone mothers and illegitimacy. Children were removed from their families, criminalised and incarcerated. The state held the firm view that most parents’ lifestyles were responsible for their children’s situation and removal avoided children repeating their parents’ behaviour. Case notes of children committed to the WSS industrial schools reveal how children came to be committed. Many were stealing or begging or destitute, others were living in extreme poverty, or had been abandoned by their parents, or neglected. In these circumstances, children were so desperate for food and money and starving like James who was aged seven who was found under a hedge semi-naked in ‘a frightfully neglected condition’. There were occasions when children were sent out to beg or steal by their parents. Children were blamed, punished, and stigmatised for their parents’ behaviour. Working parents had problems supervising their children during working hours, as was the case in Lena’s situation. Lena’s widowed mother worked as a nurse and whilst she was at work her twelve-year-old daughter was getting into mischief. Nine-year-old Billy’s father chained his son to the bedstead when he went to work as he constantly went wandering. One mother locked her children in a room whilst she was working. Poverty, lack of employment opportunities and affordable housing made it impossible to change their circumstances. Mary’s lone mother tried unsuccessfully to earn a living but was so poor she was frequently admitted to the workhouse. After she left the workhouse, she was only able to afford a place in a common lodging house, considered inappropriate by the authorities as they were crowded, unhealthy houses, accommodating insalubrious characters, were notorious places for iniquity, but for poor people living in lodging houses was better than living in the workhouse. After failing to find alternative accommodation to heed the police warning not to let her children live in houses with ‘loose women’ who lived in these houses Mary was removed from her mother. These examples show the minimal choices available for poor parents and the resulting stigmatization for being poor. Derogatory descriptions of the children with racial undertones were used like ‘Street Arabs’, ‘English Kafirs’, or they were described as ‘human vermin’ or savages. Important influential people condoned and perpetuated these attitudes. Language used by the authorities and charitable organisations emerged reinforcing stereotypes of poor children and their parents. This extract by Dr Barnardo in the organisation’s journal represents some of the views held by the authorities: The rapid spread of (socialist and nihilist) principles that would subvert orderly government and banish the Bible from the world is not a sign of the times to regard with composure…Every boy rescued from the gutter is one dangerous man the less; [3] and similarly the publication of Child of the English Savage, co-authored by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and Benjamin Waugh who founded the NSPCC. Miss Rye, an influential woman in child emigration described a child as such in a letter to the WSS: ‘It would be both cruel and wrong to send the girl abroad as she is rather more than an animal than any other girl I have ever had to deal with and is also not quite right in the mind’ is an example of the derogatory language used by those working with children. Press reports covering cases from committal hearings used headlines such as ‘A BROTHEL -UNNATURAL MOTHER’, and ‘SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS AGAINST A MARRIED WOMAN’. and reported magistrate’s derogatory comments too. The establishment’s narrative assumes that children will repeat parental behaviour; and in parallel legitimizes the use of derogatory language for marginalized parents and children. Fast forward to the end of the Poor Law, the end of the Second World War to the inception of the welfare state introduced in 1948. During this transition, some former staff in health and welfare departments remained in post as practitioners or administrators. Regardless of the new welfare state philosophy and policy, an immediate change of attitudes towards children in care and families needing help would have been challenging. Inherited attitudes associated with the deserving and underserving poor had dominated welfare provision for over 120 years. But by the late 1960s and 1970s shifts towards changing attitudes and practice were emerging. Although child care legislation still retained some of the nineteenth century punitive clauses towards children until the implementation of the Children Act in 1989. Following budget cuts in the mid 1970s restrictions were made in public sector services including housing, education, and welfare. The gaps between rich and poor widened as politicians cut in services. In the 1980s there was a shift in attitudes towards lone parents that was reminiscent of those in the nineteenth century towards illegitimacy and effectively determining between the deserving and undeserving. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher suggested that ‘ young women were getting pregnant to jump the housing queue’. This was a common perception during the time, that reinforced societal beliefs that lone mothers were of a bad character. And in 1995 our future prime minister Boris Johnson wrote in the Spectator ‘ Single mothers were raising a generation of ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children.’ The tone of this statement sounds similar to a comment in five-year-old John’s case notes in 1889: ‘Illegitimate child ‘found begging and there is reason to think the boy’s mother belongs to the class of unfortunates and certainly he was living amongst immoral surroundings.’ Negative attitudes towards young mothers continued into adult life with expectations young care experienced mothers would repeat the life cycle and were stigmatised with ‘systematic and often relentless scrutiny and surveillance’, [4] strongly suggesting the association of parental behaviour. Care leavers reflect on how they have been stigmatised as children, but social worker and other associated meetings marked them out as different. Just like children in the nineteenth century comments were made about their past and assumptions made about their care history. One care leaver was asked during an interview ‘what had they done to get put into care?’ Another care leaver working in social care was told people would think she was unable to be unbiased in her work due to her care experience. At the beginning of the 21st century , child sexual exploitation across the country was making headlines in many cities. Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) are held when a child dies or is seriously harmed through abuse or neglect, to identify ways organisations and local professionals can improve ways of safeguarding children. Several high-profile Serious Case Reviews held on Child Sexual Exploitation unpicked the failings of local authorities. [5] Their conclusions determine the incompetent and uncaring political and professional leadership as well as a desire to restrict funding for looked after children. Reports from Serious Case Reviews suggest that children were making lifestyle choices to become prostitutes and drug addicts. Children were effectively blamed for their situation. Serious Case Reviews exposed negative attitudes towards expenditure for children in care and collective failures of political and officer leadership. At the forefront of institutional stigma is the child in care and the care leaver. The child, dependent on the corporate parent for their upbringing, is subjected to determined budgets and protocol. Whilst social workers may want to offer more help in attempts for children to remain at home, or negotiate for improved housing, educational needs, or more income, the family may not be eligible for these services. This exemplifies how structural stigma creates an unequal system that leads to disadvantage and often public stigmatisation. When I worked as a social worker from the mid 1970s until the early 1990s, I initially worked in an environment that was able to provide different forms of help on a preventive basis for struggling families. Gradually this changed as did policy and practice. There was less available help in preventive care. Eligibility criteria for help reached a higher threshold and there was pressure to close cases. This experience as a social worker informed my research and made me want to look at care in the nineteenth century from a child centred lens. Today one of the frontline scandals about children in care concerns unregulated residential placements. Between 2018-19 there were 660 (5%) looked after children placed in independent or in semi-independent living accommodation who were under the age of 16 when their placement started. Children placed in these properties have described the difficulties of having to reside with drug dealers, trying to study, financial problems, threats of violence, fear, and other aspects of being alone trying to negotiate independent living without support. These conditions for children to live in are unacceptable and paradoxically if a parent was responsible for allowing their child to live in these circumstances there would be possible grounds for removal. Yet the corporate parent sanctioned this arrangement. It is now illegal. We now know that 29 care leavers accommodated in unregulated accommodation have tragically died in the last few years. [6] On June 14 (2023) Care leavers presented a petition to Downing Street requesting that being in care be determined as a protected characteristic, so it becomes the law to consider the discrimination faced by those people when making new policies. The first step was convincing the Care Review in England to adopt the recommendation to give it credibility and get it on the agenda for Government. Terry Galloway, one of the Experts by Experience, is now travelling around the UK getting councils to adopt the motion and slowly building momentum. Surely the fact this had to be raised by care leavers themselves, demonstrates the lack of understanding and stigmatisation of care leavers today. Dr. Annie Skinner is a social historian based at Oxford Brookes University where she completed her PhD in History. Before moving into historical research she worked as a social worker with children and families and taught on the social work course. Her published work has focused on voluntary organisations’ contribution to health and social care in the nineteenth century. Annie Skinner’s research concentrates on finding the hidden, unheard and often silent voices behind these social histories. Behind Closed Doors: Hidden Histories of Children Committed to Care During the late Nineteenth Century (1882-1899) (Oxford, Peter Lang 2021). [1] Colton, M, Drakeford, M, Roberts, S, Scholte, E, Casas, F and Williams, M, ‘Social workers, parents and stigma’, Child and Family Social Work , 2 (1997) 247-257. [2] For more details on the lives of children committed to care, see Annie Skinner, Behind Closed Doors: Hidden Histories of Children Committed to Care During the late Nineteenth Century (1882-1899) (Oxford, Peter Lang 2021). [3] ‘The Dangerous Classes,’ Night and Day (1879) Dr Barnardos’ magazine. [4] Deborah Rutman, Susan Strega, Marilyn Callahan , Lena Dominelli , ‘Undeserving’ mothers? Practitioners’ experiences working with young mothers in/from care, Child and Family Social Work, 7/3, (2002) https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2206.2002.00244.x [5] See Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham 1997-2013, Alexis Jay, 21 August 2014, page 1; The Independent, 27 August 2014, page 6; Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Oxfordshire, 26 February 2015, page 44. [6] Carolyne Willow, ‘Serious Harms in Care Report to Remain Unpublished’, Article 39, 9 June 2022. Article 39 is a charity Fighting for Children’s Rights in Institutional Settings.

Daniel Ingram Brown is an adoptive dad, author, educator and academic. He says, I have spent some time thinking about representations of adoption in fiction. My new book, Bea’s Witch: A ghostly coming-of-age story , has an adopted protagonist, an eleven-year-old girl called Beatrice, who runs away from home only to encounter the ghost of England’s most famous witch – the 16th century prophetess, Mother Shipton. So, I approach the subject of representation with practical questions: How is adoption currently represented in fiction? What are the pitfalls of writing about adoption as somebody who isn’t themselves adopted (albeit somebody with first-hand experience of the adoption system)? And, as an author, what are the challenges of seeking to write both a compelling and entertaining book as well as one which is authentic and truthful? Recently, I read an article by the poet and playwright Lemn Sissay in which he pointed out that “we can celebrate the nature of children and care inside popular culture, inside literature...”, citing the examples of Harry Potter, Superman, Jane Eyre and Heathcliff, all as being fostered. Yet, despite this proliferation of characters with care experience in popular culture, the academic Susan Parsons and her team of teacher-educators found that there were “limited choices” of adoption literature in schools. They suggest that, in a classroom context, adoption is often “a silent diversity.” And so Parsons and her team decided to undertake a critical analysis of thirty-seven contemporary, realistic fiction books about adoption for young adults, to help guide teachers in their choice of books to open up conversation. What they discovered was a complex picture in which familiar archetypal motifs and structures served as “capsules for complex meanings,” which when used intentionally by writers could “tap into the human psyche and, thus, tell stories that connect to and resound powerfully with an audience,” but were often used unconsciously and uncritically, meaning they were also “rife with negative stereotypes.” She concludes that meaningful opportunities to explore adoption and what it means for individuals and families are limited. As an author writing a book with an adopted protagonist, I read this research with a feeling of trepidation. How many negative stereotypes had I unknowingly smuggled into my story, disguised by the archetypal plot structures I often draw on? As I read Parsons’ research, I found myself asking “Do I do this in my book?” For some things, the answer was “no” – and a sigh of relief. In fact, I often found I was working against the stereotypes identified. For instance, in most of the books Parsons studied, the adoptive family was pictured with male and female married parents, whereas, in Bea’s Witch , Beatrice is adopted by a single woman. For other stereotypes, however, my answer – with a sinking heart – was “yes”. Were there ways I could change or adjust the narrative, I asked myself? For a few of the stereotypes identified, I was able to make edits. For example, I decided to consciously present a more hopeful relationship between Beatrice and her birth mother, aided by Bea’s adoptive mother. Other stereotypes, however, were more ingrained in the text and so harder to change. For instance, Parsons identifies that adoption in fiction is “largely a female story focused in many ways on mothering.” I had chosen to make my main character a girl, partly to distance her from my son’s real-life story, and I had also chosen a historical character called ‘Mother’ Shipton, chosen as she’s a fascinating local character. And so the story had evolved to focus on mothers and daughters. I had also chosen to press into this theme, as Mother Shipton had been branded a witch, with lords being sent from London to silence her. Because of this, in Bea’s Witch , the male figures became a symbol of patriarchal oppression. In the end, this was a stereotype I decided I would have to live with. Perhaps it did play into some of the stereotypes of adoption fiction, but it also highlighted other complex issues motivated by a sense of justice. Perhaps one of the things to reflect on here is the sort of knowledge story creates, a knowledge which is subtle and complex. The author George Saunders suggests that “an artist works outside the realm of strict logic. Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art.” He describes the writing process as a series of small adjustments: having an instinct, initial writing, reading back as if you’re a first-time reader, editing, and then repeating that process, until “like a cruise ship slowly turning, the story will start to alter course via those thousands of incremental adjustments.” He sees this process of investigating the specifics of characters, of their situations, struggles, histories and personalities, as directing the writer’s and reader’s gaze to become more loving – gentler, more nuanced, understanding and complex. This is different to didactic knowledge, in which an argument is made, boundaries are drawn, and people choose a side. But because of its complexity, it’s also difficult to achieve purity. As Saunders says, “Any work of art quickly reveals itself to be a linked system of problems. A book has personality, and personality, as anyone burdened with one will attest, is a mixed blessing… Almost from the first paragraph, the writer becomes aware that a work’s strengths and weaknesses are bound together, and that, sadly, his great idea has baggage.” I think, perhaps, one of the hardest tensions to hold when writing representations of adoption in fiction is between wanting to recognise the unique challenges adopted children face, and yet not wanting to stigmatise adoptees by presenting adoption as inherently problematic. To provide a faithful representation, fiction does need to acknowledge the challenges. A report by Adoption UK in 2018 stated that adopted children are “falling dramatically behind” in school. The report highlighted a gap in understanding, empathy, resources and attainment, leading to 79% of adopted children feeling “confused or worried at school”, two-thirds of those at secondary school being teased or bullied for being adopted, adopted young people achieving half as well as their peers in examinations and being twenty times more likely to be permanently excluded. These challenges directly affect the life chances of adoptees and are often unseen or misunderstood – good stories can do something to shed light on this and bring change. In Bea’s Witch, I spotlight the struggle Beatrice faces when she’s told to write about her family history in an English class at school. The event leads to her feeling anxious and unsure of her identity. Such events are not uncommon – in fact, the scene uses a real lesson plan, one that hadn’t given much thought to diverse family histories. But Parsons provides a helpful balance to consider. In most of the books she analysed, adoption was presented as problematic or a corruption, a view that stigmatised adoption and often presented it as a shameful secret. She points out that such a picture is out of step with the current social environment, in which adoption has become increasingly open. She says, “Repeatedly in these stories, parents knowingly and actively lie and scheme to maintain secrecy, seemingly to protect a family structure portrayed as fragile because of adoption”. She also highlights a temptation writers have to “pile on” the negative to create drama, rather than to present more accurate representations of daily life. “Too often accuracy and authenticity”, she says, “are lost in pursuit of a gripping tale”. Bea’s Witch does take place at a moment of drama and does draw attention to the problems Beatrice faces as she transitions to a new home, but there is no sense that her experience is something to hide. In fact, the central point of the story is that she can accept her whole self, her whole history, without the need to hide or be ashamed. In a story, complex and meaningful archetypes may be interwoven with uncritical stereotypes. Stories also only present a selective view of reality – they are not the full story. In Bea’s Witch , the few weeks the reader encounters do not reflect the whole of Bea’s life, let alone the whole adoption experience. At the end of the book, I show Bea at an older age. The reader glimpses how the dramatic events have been integrated into her life, how they have led to her growth. But even this is only a snapshot. One story cannot show anything more than a partial, imperfect view of reality. All stories are a construction, even ones that present themselves as mirrors of reality. Peter Hunt in his Introduction to Children’s Literature points out that “realistic is a label we apply to those novels that seek to provide a convincing illusion of life as we normally think of it.” But it is still an illusion, created by a writer with their own perspective and social position. A story can never be a fully accurate representation. If totally realistic representation is impossible, how can we then judge whether a particular representation is authentic? Peter Clough, an academic who uses story to articulate his educational research, suggests that narratives can be judged not by an appeal to objective representation but by their “emotive force or their capacity to engage the reader emotionally in the story being told.” In other words, does the story connect with a reader, to their reality, in a way that feels truthful and authentic? This test means that receiving feedback on early drafts can be helpful for honing a book’s ability to represent accurately. I sought feedback from those involved in the adoption system as part of my writing process – did they think the story was accurate, authentic, truthful – did it resonate with their experience? As with Parson’s insights, the feedback I received from the adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers and teachers, led to further edits of my story. One adoptee I approached for feedback – a blogger who wrote about the subject – expressed scepticism that I, not being an adoptee myself, would be able to write a story that captured the complexity of the adoption experience. I understand the concern, and yet writers are always having to step into shoes which aren’t their own – that is the whole process of writing fiction. It is a task that will, on some level, inevitably fail. In a recent radio programme about Unreliable Narrators, the comedian Nish Kumar said something I found helpful in regard to this. He was talking about Bob Dylan’s early songs, written about events that happened in the black community. Kumar suggests that “these songs were expressions of solidarity rather than cultural appropriation,” and again points to emotional authenticity and the ability of the work to resonate with audiences as a test of that distinction. My hope is that Bea’s Witch will be seen in this light – as an act of solidarity. On a personal level, it is an act of love for my son, an attempt to understand his reality in a deeper way. In the end, a book’s authenticity will only become clear when it’s released and meets its readers. What will they make of it? What truth or otherwise will they find? This is a scary prospect for a writer – particularly when dealing with a subject as important as adoption. But whatever people feel about one particular book, genuine representation can only be found on a communal level. One story can never encapsulate the whole of the adoption experience. For a subject like adoption there is a danger here, because, as Parsons identifies, there are limited choices, and so each individual book “has the potential for providing “the” take on adoption that a particular reader may get.” What we need for better representation are more stories, more varied experiences voiced, stories told from multiple perspectives. We need a culture that allows and enables many different people to tell their tale. We need adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents to write the stories that are close to their hearts, that distil their own experience and understanding. My hope is that Bea’s Witch will take its place as part of that process, balanced by other stories in a wider cultural conversation. References: Poet and playwright Lemn Sissay urges children in care to be ambitious after receiving OBE, 2021 https://www.wigantoday.net/news/people/poet-and-playwright-lemn-sissay-urges-children-in-care-to-be-ambitious-after-receiving-obe-3270099 Representations of Adoption in Contemporary Realistic Fiction for Young Adult, Sue Parsons et al., Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 2017 What Writers Really Do When They Write, George Saunders, The Guardian, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write?fbclid=IwAR2FCcdH04MPUdSs7HBjY94I42P7F7ULwKDeeDSsN6Zwfgscwb7Zq2mKcRc Bridging the Gap , Adoption UK, 2018 Introduction to Children’s Literature, Peter Hunt, 1994, Opus Archive on 4: Stewart Lee: Unreliable Narrator , BBC Radio 4, 2021

Dr Dee Michell reflects on The Bone People. In 1965, Irish writer John McGahern’s novel , The Dark , was banned in Ireland because of its “ indecent or obscene ” content. The content was a detailed account of child abuse—physical, verbal, sexual—by the child’s father, with the suggestion that a priest might also be sexually abusing the boy. Twenty years later, Keri Hulme’s debut novel, The Bone People —which has the physical assault of a small boy, a child in foster care, at its centre—won the 1985 Booker Prize . Hulme was the first New Zealander to win the Booker, but the win was “ all too disturbing for many, including some of that year’s other judges ” (Shaffi). While judges Marina Warner and JW Lambert, along with St John Stevas, supported The Bone People, Nina Bawden opposed the book because of its violence, as did Joanna Lumley… ‘This is over-my-dead-body stuff for me,’ wrote Lumley…in a letter to her fellow Booker Prize judges… ‘I can’t bring myself to approve any of it; its poetry (to me) is whining, and its subject matter finally indefensible. ‘We can’t have a book on childbattering, no matter how lyrically observed, carrying off the gold’ (Shaffi). The Bone People is a long and difficult read—because of the violence—but also strangely compelling because it is beautifully written; it is a story “ lyrically observed ”. Simon, a mute boy of about 6 or 7 years of age, lives with his foster father, Joe Gillayley. He is clearly a traumatised child—the survivor of a shipwreck and perhaps of early abuse—whose behaviour is puzzling for many in the community, including his teachers and his foster father; the community see him as having “ a touchpaper temper… Also he specialises in sneakthievery and petty vandalism ”. Plus, “… he’s not all there. Emotionally disturbed or something ” (Hulme, 42). Simon—of apparently Irish heritage—disappears so often he wears a pendant with his name and address: 1 PACIFIC STREET WHANGAROA PHONE 633Z COLLECT SIMON GILLAYLEY CANNOT SPEAK (Hulme, 21) One day Simon (also known as Sim, Haimona and Himi) wanders, breaks into really, the home of local artist, Kerewin. Kerewin initially sees Simon as “… The vandal, the vagabond, the wayward urchin, the scarecrow child… ” (Hulme 45). Kere’s aware she’s not been entirely considerate of Simon during his ‘visit’ but the boy reports to his father that she’s been “ kind and patient ” even though she was taken aback by his sudden presence. “ That was impressive ” says Joe, because generally he’s either treated as an idiot or deaf as well as mute… ” (Hulme 60) Kerewin Holmes (obviously Keri Hulme) is a biracial woman who identifies with Maori culture. Kerewin wasn’t abused as a child but we never find out why she was pushed out of her family. Her estrangement from family and sense of alienation from the broader community is externalised by the home she has built, a multi-story spiral tower on the edge of the beach and at the fringe of the community, where she lives self-sufficiently—for the most part. Joe is Maori and was in kinship care; he was given to his grandmother when he was 3 years old. The extent of harsh treatment is not clear, but Joe admits his grandfather was “ hard on me ” and his grandmother “ wasn’t one for letting kids take it easy ” (Hulme 277). Joe once had dreams of being a teacher but is now a widower working in a factory. He’s worked steadily and owns his home freehold. Simon and Joe offer Kere a sense of family. The 3 even go on a fishing holiday together during which Kere confronts Joe about his behaviour; she has recently discovered that Joe whips Simon mercilessly. Kere had earlier become aware that Joe is ‘strict’ but decided it wasn’t her business, not until she sees the weals and gashes on the boy’s body. Then she hesitates: What the hell do I do now ? O, I know what I’m supposed to do. Ring up Child Welfare and report the bloody mess [Simon] is in. “Excuse me, I know a small child who’s getting bashed…it looks like he’s been thrashed with a whip (but I hope to God no).” I can just hear it. “You’ve known him how many weeks and you never suspected he was getting badly treated!” “Uh, well, he’s very good at hiding his pain.” I can just hear it. She is furious with herself, not only because she must have hurt him. Joe, you good kind patient sweetnatured gentlefingered everloving BASTARD But I knew all along, herr Gott, Something always felt wrong. No, I didn’t. I had suspicions when he was here with his face battered. But he never said it was Joe, and Joe didn’t admit it was him. I’ve seen him slapped. Hell, everyone slaps kids (Hulme 180-181, emphasis in the original). Joe commits to henceforth only hitting Simon with Kere’s express permission. It’s after the holiday that Kere hears about Joe’s family’s complicity in Simon being regularly beaten. Kere is at the pub and being quizzed by a member of Joe’s family concerned about Simon’s wellbeing: “You know Kere, the number of times we have, Piri has, fixed up poor Himi…he used to come round with terrible weals on him, didn’t he Piri? Terrible cuts, and we couldn’t say anything to Ma, because she’d get too upset. And we couldn’t do anything, because you feel sorry for Joe being alone and all…but that poor kid! God sometimes he could hardly walk… (Hulme 347). Then comes the day when Simon visits a problematic local character, only to find he is dead. Understandably shocked and horrified by the death, and terrified he’ll be blamed it, Simon goes to Kere’s but she is too preoccupied to find out what is bothering Simon. Simon trashes a treasured guitar, gets sent home, and breaks the windows of all the houses on his way there. In a later phone conversation, Kerewin berates Simon: Her voice is strange. It rasps; it grates; it abrades. She can’t touch him physically so she is beating him with her voice. What she says drums through his head, resounding in waves as though his head were hollow, and the words bound back from one side to smash against the other (Hulme 373-374). Kerewin then permits Joe to beat Simon who—unusually—retaliates and stabs Joe with broken glass. Both end up in hospital. Simon is in a coma. The Bone People was written over something like 12 years (some sources say 20) and was then rejected by every major publisher in New Zealand. It was accepted by “ a tiny feminist press in New Zealand led by three women… ” (Jordison). The initial print run was 2,000 copies. When they sold out and so did the next 2,000, Spiral approached Hodder and Stoughton in New Zealand, who shifted another 20,000 and brought it to the attention of the Booker judges (Jordison). Generally, critics are divided. Some are thrilled by her work ; others think the way Hulme takes up the issue of colonisation “ breaks down too easily into bad writing and spiritual nonsense ” (Haq). Several commentators go so far as to suggest Hulme won the prize because the judges “ were not a little influenced by the story of Keri Hulme’s heroic efforts to write and publish her novel ” (Kakutani). As far as I know, the story of Simon is fictional, coming to Hulme in a dream. Yet Hulme demonstrates an awareness of trauma and the oft unwitting repetition of child abuse by those, like Joe, who haven’t reckoned with the emotional legacy of their own childhood. By the time the tumult had died down around Keri Hulme’s Booker Prize win, a new trend in publishing was emerging, that of people telling their stories of being, often, brutalised by parents and guardians when they were children. In the vanguard of this trend is Pulitzer Prize winning American historian, Richard Rhodes’ A Hole in the World: An American Boyhood (1990) in which he speaks of enduring 2 years of exploitation and violence by his stepmother. Keri Hulme’s fictional story, then, is fact for all too many people around the world. As indeed it was for John McGahern. References: Wahid Haq (2014) Critical response on The Bone People by Keri Hulme . Academia.edu. Sam Jordison (2009) Booker club: The Bone People by Keri Hulme . The Guardian , 20 November 2009. Kakutani, Michiko (1985) Books of The Times . The New York Times , 13 November 1985. Theresa Schiavone (2016) Child Abuse in American Storytelling: Masterful storytellers can make it possible to speak not only of child abuse, but of the abuse of ‘our children’. Child Abuse & Neglect, 54, 78-85. Sarah Shaffi (2022) How Keri Hulme’s The Bone People changed the way we read now . The Booker Prizes , https://thebookerprizes.com/

Lindsay Bamfield looks back as well as reflecting on the last couple of Care Experience & Culture book club events Perhaps the reason one of my A' Levels was a grade too low was because I went out dancing the night before. Or maybe I'd not revised enough. Whatever, it meant I wouldn't get my place on the prestigious librarianship course unless I re-did the A level or worked in a library for a year. I duly applied to the central library in Bristol and was granted an interview just after my 18th birthday in October. I was offered the post and asked when I could start. 'Could it be January?' I asked. The chief librarian looked horrified so I quickly explained that I was currently working in a children's home and really wanted to be there for Christmas. 'I think you are not very serious about this position,' replied the librarian frostily to which I agreed that no, perhaps I wasn't. And there ended my potential career. Instead I went on to qualify as a Residential Child Care Officer which later led me to becoming a speech and language therapist. My choice on that day was something I've never regretted. And Christmas at the children's home was wonderful. I still have the card that 6 year-old Fred drew for me. A bright pink panther (Fred's favourite cartoon) with a speech bubble announcing 'Happy Chrismas from the Pink Panter' [sic] Since those far off days there has been a huge re-examining of children's homes in the recent past, many of which were full of abuse and did little or nothing to protect the children in their care. I trust none of those I worked in were guilty (I certainly never witnessed nor suspected any such behaviour.) I've always believed that abusing a position of trust is one of the worst crimes we can commit against fellow humans. I have happy memories of the children who were in my care but I've often wondered whether their memories are as positive. I hope some of their recollections are but making stable relationships with carers was always going to be hard as they were subjected to a series of people, however good, passing through their lives. And did we address all the needs and the concerns of the children on the matter of their identities? And how well prepared were those entering their adult years? Years on, with greater wisdom, I see there may well have been failures. Like many people I've noticed how often the killer, especially serial killers, in books or TV programmes and films are orphans. (In reality relatively few children in care are orphans.) I'd assumed this wasn't so much that the writers believed orphans are evil, but that they couldn't be bothered to think up suitable reasons for why a child turns into an adult killer. If there is no family, parents or siblings, no-one needs to be held accountable for perhaps contributing in some way to those crimes. No backstory needs to be written - just some unnamed children's home. But much as I was aware of the unfairness of these portrayals, I didn't consider what that was like for people who are care-experienced. Josie Pearse writes a much more carefully considered article here. When Rosie Canning - fellow founder of Greenacre Writers and The Finchley Literary Festival - began working on an examination of representations of care-experienced people in literature, partly to address and challenge this issue, I suspect she didn't then realise how this theme would blossom into a number of other projects such as the UK/Australian Care Experience and Culture with Dr Dee Michell. Their recent online book club featuring representations of care in literature includes memoir and novels. Sarah Hilar y joined the first discussion with her book Fragile, a modern gothic novel telling the stories of two young people who were in the care system and their foster mother. The second event's speakers were Susan Francis from Australia and Anne Harrison from UK. I was already following Susan on Twitter but hadn't, at that point, read her book The Love That Remains. Anne Harrison and her memoir, Call Me Auntie, was at the time unknown to me. Both spoke so eloquently about their memoirs and the search for their birth parents, I knew I wanted to read them both. I had been lucky enough to win a copy of Call Me Auntie from the book club which was winging its way towards me, and I quickly ordered a copy of The Love That Remains which I dived into immediately I received it. The books are very different but have a great deal in common. At the core of each is the writer's need to know their identity. The 'Where did I come from?' Both authors, one adopted, and one initially fostered and then living in children's homes, set out to search for their roots. They search for their birth mothers to learn about their identity and in the hope of forging a relationship of some sort. Both find answers to some of their questions but many are left unanswered. Both books are well written and enable to reader to follow the narratives easily. Anne Harrison's Call Me Auntie is a factual account; much of her early history is related using documents from her care file which was made available to her quite recently. This is not a 'misery lit' account by any means but some was hard to read. The treatment of the children in one care home was emotionally and physically abusive which made me feel very angry and the scenes with her birth mother filled me with sadness and dismay. Susan Francis's The Love That Remains tells of her need to discover the truth about her parents. Even though she was happily adopted, her unknown roots left her with insecurities. Here too, many scenes make for emotional reading. But Susan's need to search for the truth about the past doesn't stop with her birth parents. She discovers another awful secret which needs verification, and to be understood and accepted. Ultimately, both books are journeys of courage and discovery and yet more courage. To follow these authors on Twitter: Susan Francis @susanfranciswr1 Anne Harrison @anne4harrison and Lindsay @lindsaybamfield Article first published via Lindsay Bamfield's Blog

Care Experience & Culture are adding a new genre an ‘ Activists ’ section and we’re Introducing Care Experienced Activist Paris Bartholomew. Peeling off my polo neck, I heard a sharp intake of breath from my  school  nurse and saw her eyes widen as she scanned my body. I was six years old and my skin looked like a battleground: burns on my arm where it had been held over a flame, blue-black bruises from where I’d been hit with a belt, scars all over my scalp & a feeling of terror that followed me like a cloud. The school nurse was accompanied by the lovely lady from the NSPCC, who gave me my first ever toy, a small black and white dog called Snoopy. I spent two weeks in the local hospital. The assessment and x-rays - which seemed relentless - had a two-fold purpose: to ensure I was not suffering from any internal damage & to piece together the awful experiences I had endured. The evidence of previously broken bones was what caused my mother to be arrested on suspicion of child abuse. After hospital, I was placed in an assessment centre, a large, brick building, devoid of windows, with high barbed-wire fencing all around the perimeter. There were 4 sections, an education facility on the premises, and residential staff who worked various shifts. I resided in section A, and section B, C and D housed the children who had behavioural and learning difficulties. Back then, the terminology was very different and full of negativity and offence. I recall my first night. With the light off and the glow of light under my door as a guide, I got up to use the toilet and realised my bedroom door was locked. I crawled back into bed tired, confused and sad. That night was the first time I had wet my bed in many years. Mum was convicted of multiple counts of abuse, neglect and what was termed ‘failure to thrive’, meaning she had consciously did what she could to prevent me growing and developing in a healthy and happy way. She was sentenced to four years in prison. Her ‘two-year reign of terror’ was splashed over the newspapers. However, I was astute enough to know that this was not something that had started two years ago. She served eighteen months in an all-female prison in North London called Holloway, spending most of her time in isolation to protect her from the abuse she would endure if her fellow inmates knew why she was there. I think about that protection she had while incarcerated, and the lack of protection I had from her as a child and, on reflection, it seems somewhat ironic. Even now I feel a sense of anguish at what I endured at the hands of my Mum. At Christmas, everyone went ‘home’ to their respective families, at which point it slowly dawned on me that my life was different, that I was different, in many ways. The staff expressed concern, as I was the youngest child and the only child who remained for the duration of the holidays. I ate lovely Christmas food for the first time, and I received my first life-size doll, who I named Kathy. A white member of staff, (I nicknamed him My Fox in my mind, as his hair was the colour of fox’s fur), had tried to wash my afro hair. He used a bar of soap, and I recall the pain as my hair matted into a clump and he tried to comb it. I began crying, and he said it was best if they cut my hair off. When the other children came back after Christmas, they decided I was no longer a girl & I was teased relentlessly. My short hair had turned me into a boy overnight, and for the second time in a short period, I realised I was different from the other children. When my dad came to visit me, he was sad and angry that my hair was gone, he wanted to know who had cut it & why they had done so. Once I left Luton House, I was placed in my first children’s home. This was a large, country-style house in Essex which housed around 22 children from ages 2 to about 17 years of age. I enjoyed having other children my own age to play with, and I felt safe - for the first time in my life, I actually felt safe. But I also felt anguish, as I thought about my mother, the prison and what that was like for her. I didn’t blame myself, but I didn’t want her to be locked up. In my eight-year-old brain, prison was a scary, dark, horrible place where people were treated badly and given very little to eat and drink. I envisaged her eating bread with no butter and drinking only water. One of the children had found out my Mum was in prison and had given me a picture of what prison was like. I never questioned his idea as he was bigger than me and older, so he knew what he was talking about, surely. It was at this point in my journey that I began to look at food differently, a sense of loyalty to Mum and a strange desperate feeling of being out of control, made me limit my food intake. I no longer enjoyed the strange, unfamiliar food I was given, and apart from the sweets I spent my pocket money on, I rarely ate. My keyworker at the children’s home informed me that an advert was being placed in the local paper for a new home for me. Initially, I felt excited and terrified. They asked me what I would like to be called, as they would change my real name to protect me, especially as my name was so uncommon.  Kathy, my favourite doll, that would be my name in the paper. There was a response to the advert, but it was hard to find black families with enough room to take in a child. But I was delighted when I met the Hendon* family. They had five children, one only 2 years old, so cute, although he was never keen on playing with me as he loved his cars and trains.  Julie* was the same age as me, and the only girl in the family. It was time for me to leave primary school, so we would attend school together, I was only a few months older, but I was in the academic year above her. We played together lots, but she was larger and stronger than me, and it wasn’t long before I was bullied into doing things I did not want to do, like shop lifting. It began with sweets and crisps, but soon led to bigger and more expensive items, and if I didn’t do it, she would hurt me. One day, I came into my bedroom to find the light off. It was bedtime, so I attempted to turn on the light switch to get ready for bed, only to be confronted with the bulb removed. Julie proceeded to jump onto my back, attacking me with a sharp object, which I later found out was my foster mum’s knitting needles. I tried helplessly to defend myself, but the muffled laughter in the background, as my foster brothers hid in the dark to watch the onslaught, gave me a dejected feeling of resignation. It was pointless. Julie reminded me that I was not welcome in her family. Kathy, my lovely life-size doll, had been damaged; Julie had cut off all her hair.  It wasn’t long before I asked to leave the family. I was unlucky! Four more families, with short stays in between in group homes, residential homes and a girl’s hostel, left me feeling displaced, unloved, and unwanted. For the next nine years in care, I bounced from place to place, never fitting in. Every family was different, culturally, racially, religiously and I found it increasingly difficult to stay positive and focussed, at school I began acting out. Racism from white staff members left me confused and alienated, I was called ‘a Bounty’ by the older black children, accused of being ‘brown on the outside’ but ‘acting too white’. I was criticised for not conforming with a family’s religion, and I was beginning to form an outer shell of anger and protection to protect myself from being attacked. I began isolating myself and reading books about twins who only communicated with each other, books about women, psychology, books which inspired me and gave me hope. Bell Hooks, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelo made a fierce and noticeable impression on me. They made me feel determined. I wanted to succeed, and I felt as if I could. I went to a conference led by an organisation called ‘Black and In Care’. It was the first time I was in a room filled with positive people who were all in foster care, children’s homes and other residential units. We spoke abut our experiences in smaller groups with people from Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Leicester, all mixed-race or black young people who were care-experienced, and most of the adults, the professionals, were people of colour too. For the first time in my life, I felt heard, seen, valued even. When Mum came out of prison, she sporadically visited me, but I noticed that these visits were less frequent if I lived in a family. She was odd, and I observed how untidy her home was in comparison to other places I had lived. When I confronted her about the abuse, she laughed at me and said I had been ‘brainwashed’ by Social Services. She said she was imprisoned because society was racist. I knew otherwise, and nothing she could say would change what I felt: I had never done anything wrong, not really, and I had never had any of my basic needs for love and protection met, while in her care. But what had hurt me the most emotionally, was the fact that these needs were not met while I was in care either. It might seem strange that I was able to forgive the woman who had ruined my life but deep down I knew it would help me heal. From the books I read about psychology, the way she spoke, the hoarding in her home and her general demeanour, I could tell she was mentally unwell.   I began to attend some group sessions organised by Black and Care, the organisation which had held the conference, and I became a member of the Steering Group, then the Chair, leading the London arm of the organisation. I began sharing my perspectives with policymakers of what it had been like to live in care as a black child. This led to changes in the law - the 1989 Children’s Act. Foster carers were to be trained in understanding trauma and child development, and children from black and ethnic minority backgrounds were now being placed with foster carers from the same or similar cultural backgrounds. I felt so empowered. Mum had told me I would amount to nothing, and her words had penetrated deep. But she was wrong. Here I was, making life better for every young black person growing up in care. I knew I wanted to practice psychology, I wanted to help Mum and to use empathy and compassion to understand her and her struggles. I got a grant to do a degree in teaching, social work and youth work at Canterbury Christchurch University and as the years passed, I was drawn to jobs that helped people.  I volunteered for local charities, and I became a foster carer, fostering a little girl in 2014, helping me piece my heart back together. Jane* was unable to speak when she came to me, but with encouragement she started talking through singing & sign language. I gave her the love I had so desperately craved. I channelled my experience into a force for good, travelling the length of the UK as a motivational speaker, sharing my story and my expertise in psychology to inspire and motivate children in schools and professionals in business. And I continue to campaign for support for children in care. I’m currently an associate trainer for the Fostering Network, the UK’s largest foster care organisation, and I am a panel member for a private fostering agency, regularly reading reports and assessing prospective foster carers. I’m a motivational speaker, travelling the length and breadth of the UK to speak to children in schools, inmates in prisons, professionals in social work and teaching, therapeutic practitioners and as a keynote speaker at conferences and seminars to inspire change.   The number of children in care is set to rise to 100,000 by 2025. There is a shortage of foster carers in England and this needs to be addressed but much more is required across the care system, including more support when people transition out of care at the age of 21, more focus on helping LGBTQ+ children and, in my opinion, being in care should be a protected characteristic. Care leavers should be given a head start in life.  I feel passionate about awareness raising, research, and working with other organisations to develop positive interventions.   Long-term outcomes for care experienced people are shocking, with research across 16 countries showing a higher risk of social exclusion and marginalisation for former fostered young people ( Annick, 2011 ). Recent figures from England ( Department for Education, 2019 ) show 38% of those who leave care aged 19 to 21 are not in education, training or employment (NEET), compared with 11.6% for all young people. Another study reviewed the prevalence of mental health disorders among looked after children in the UK and found that around 1 in 3 had a diagnosed mental health condition with figures currently standing at 1 in 4 for the general population. Government statistics suggest that around 28% of adult prisoners are care experienced and one in four homeless people are previous care leavers or care experienced.   To anyone in care is reading this, I want to say:   “Believe in yourself. Don’t believe the rhetoric that you won’t achieve anything – I am proof that isn’t true. Get support and remember that being in care means you will be resilient and understand people better than anyone. Being in care is your superpower – remember that.”   Find out more about Paris here . Follow Paris on Twitter: @survivegrow If you're an ACIVIST for the Care Experienced community and would like us to feature you and your activism, contact us via email: careexperienceandculture@gmail.com

Hi, I’m Liam, today's book reviewer, and a 26-year-old working at a property law firm. Growing up in foster and kinship care has made me passionate about reforming these systems, and I believe that education is a critical starting point. Books like the ones I'm about to review are especially meaningful to me because they tell our stories and make them accessible to everyone. Reading them is inspiring and comforting, as they make me feel less alone. As a child, reading was one of my few permitted hobbies in foster care; other activities, like listening to music and dancing, were banned. Reading became my escape and a cherished pastime. Recently, I rediscovered my love for books after years of avoiding childhood memories. This rediscovery has reignited my passion for writing, a subject I adored in school. I hope to channel this renewed passion into making a difference.   "The Quiet You Carry" (2019) is a gripping young adult novel that explores the harrowing yet resilient journey of Victoria, a teenager thrown into the foster care system after escaping an abusive home environment. Nikki Barthelmess, herself a former foster child, crafts a narrative with authenticity and emotional depth. The book delves into themes of trauma, survival, and the search for self-worth amidst adversity.  The characters in "The Quiet You Carry" are incredibly well-developed and stir a strong sense of empathy. Victoria, the protagonist, is portrayed with such depth that you can't help but feel deeply connected to her journey. Her struggles and triumphs are both realistic and heart-wrenching, making her a character you can truly relate to and root for. Victoria’s emotional rollercoaster is depicted with authenticity. Her reactions to the trauma she faces, the gradual building of trust with her foster family, and her interactions with peers all ring true to life. The novel captures the nuances of her experiences, making her journey believable and relatable.   From the very beginning, "The Quiet You Carry" grips the reader's attention. The narrative is both intense and moving, with moments of tension that keep the reader invested. Key scenes, such as Victoria's initial escape from her abusive home and her subsequent adjustment to foster care, are particularly impactful. The themes of trauma, resilience, and self-discovery are explored deeply and satisfactorily. Barthelmess uses Victoria’s story to highlight the often overlooked emotional and psychological impacts of foster care, providing a voice to many who share similar experiences.   Without giving away the plot, the ending is both hopeful and realistic. It provides a sense of closure while acknowledging that Victoria’s journey is ongoing, much like the real-life experiences of many foster youth. There are no noticeable plot holes or inconsistencies. The story flows smoothly, with each event logically following from the last, creating a cohesive and engaging narrative. The pacing of the novel is well-balanced. While there are moments of intense emotion and high stakes, Barthelmess also allows for quieter, introspective scenes that give the reader time to reflect on Victoria’s experiences.   Barthelmess’s voice is both compelling and credible. Her background and personal experiences with the foster care system lend an authenticity to the narrative that is palpable throughout the book. Her writing is clear, emotive, and engaging. Upon finishing novel, the primary emotion is one of deep empathy and hope. The reader is left with a profound respect for Victoria’s strength and a greater understanding of the complexities of the foster care experience. Barthelmess’s personal connection to the subject matter shines through, making this a powerful and moving read.   Quotes such as “Victoria isn’t me, I often tell people, but her emotions are real” underscore the authenticity of the character's experiences. Another passage, “You are not the thing that has or continues to hurt you. You matter. You are worthy of love,” reflects the novel's overarching message of self-worth and resilience.   In conclusion, "The Quiet You Carry" is a vital and engaging novel that offers an unflinching look at the realities of foster care. Barthelmess’s compelling storytelling and authentic voice make this a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the nuanced experiences of foster care from the perspective of the child living through it. You can follow Liam on Twitter: @lhmr97

Care Experience & Culture are adding a new genre an ‘Activists’ section and first off we’re Introducing Care Experienced Activist Catherine “Catt” Burland of Portsmouth, UK Born in 1988 and as part of the first generation of 'The Children's Act '89', Catherine was removed from her biological mother pending a protection order based around Emotional Neglect. Catherine has vivid memories of being in multiple foster care placements and moved around the country (sometimes on a whim, sometimes for safety). She also recalls trying to tell parents and carers what it was like—her thoughts and feelings—for a young person in this scenario. In 2012 Catherine became aware of 'Attachment Disorder' which gave light to her difficult experiences growing up with her adoptive family, and having postbox contact with her biological family. Adoption is when a child is ‘legally freed’ to become part of another family. Until more recently Catherine believed this was like a ‘marriage’, that an adoptive family would promise to love and care for you, but in reality it is more like a contract of ownership. This was not explicity her experience although it was enlightening for Catherine to learn the legal implications. Usually, adoption involves changing your name and birth certificate, something which always baffles Catherine as she asked for ‘previous name’ including for DBS certifications, technically her birth name doesn’t exist ‘legally’. But it still means something to her! Postbox contact is something that happens in the UK Child Protective system. It means (often for safety reasons) you aren’t allowed ‘regular’ contact with your birth family. For Catherine, it was because her birth father especially was deemed to be a threat to her emotional wellbeing; when he and Catherine’s birth mum died it became much easier to manage. Catherine would have managed contact twice a year between her various birth families (her birth father, mother, grandparents, and aunt and uncle, although she believes her birth father had his rights rescinded due to control and manipulative behaviour). It meant that social workers could not disclose Catherine’s address or new name. It was something the courts decided when Catherine was adopted to keep her safe and manage her emotional wellbeing in her new family. However, this came with challenges, including Catherine not being told her birth father had died until many months later and being acutely aware of her birth mother’s mental health states depending on her handwriting, and cards sent. Catherine’s birthday and Christmas are very Close together and some years she would receive multiples of one and none of the other. Attachment is the biological function whereby children (and other infantile creatures) learn societal and emotional behaviour to keep them safe, and identify who primary care givers are. When this is disrupted, children may struggle to identify who is safe, and sometimes, in cases like Catherine’s, they become the caregiver instead. A real turning point for Catherine was becoming aware of Jessie Hogsett, US Detached: Surviving Reactive Attachment Disorder And Donald Craig Peterson November 16th - The Peterson Family — The FASD Project An activist since 2012, Catherine has expressed support and ideas to parents, carers, and fellow care experienced individuals of all generations. She has, as well as working in a residential children's home and being a Child Protection Advocate, managed an Independent Visitors project, later becoming an 'IV' herself. With both biological parents having passed away, in 2015 Catherine gained her 'files', which have since been donated to her employer (and care-provider!) Portsmouth City Council. Catherine has managed numerous projects for Portsmouth City Council and is in support of an Employability Academy for Care-experienced young people. Highlights of Catherine’s activism include speaking twice at the 'Open Nest' Fostering and Adoption conferences, once alongside Lemn Sissay; appearing on the Adoption and Fostering Podcast (you can hear Catherine here); assisting a fellow Korean/American adoptee with their dissertation 'The Role of Perspective on Human Development'; supporting other traumatised and incredible young people across the globe to find their place in the world (including at Google HQ!); and making lifelong friends with shared and varied experience. With many others from Mexico to Scotland, Catherine has also been involved in forming 'PATCHES Family Foundation' (still on Facebook), a support group for families with children who have RAD - which is the American definition of attachment disorder – ‘Reactive Attachment Disorder’. This was Catherine’s first attempt at being involved in such a venture. On one occasion she was invited to explain the purpose of the group informally to a founder of both ‘One Small Thing’ – where the focus is on understanding the impact of trauma – and the ‘Hope Street’ women’s prisoner rehabilitation centre. Catherine also has had a professional career in Horticulture, which she credits as giving her an ability to nurture and grow, not something which came naturally to her. Until she became unwell, she ran her own business: Waterfront Garden Centre. Also until she became unwell, Catherine chaired a local community allotment (as a volunteer) and believes there is more to be done around care experience and horticulture. Catherine’s current project is for Portsmouth City Council as a project manager, funded by Arts Council England and commissioned by the central government (the Department for Culture, Media and Sports) for the Cabinet Member (Culture, Leisure and Economic Development Portfolio and City Council Leader). You can see and hear Catherine talking about the Volunteer Futures Project during this 16 February 2024 meeting (at the 36.38 minute mark). If you're an ACIVIST for the Care Experience community and would like us to feature you and your activism, contact us via email: careexperienceandculture@gmail.com

Review by Carol Sampson Fran Hill’s experiences in foster care have often influenced her writing. Cuckoo in the Nest arose from her reflecting not only on her own circumstances but also on the impact she had on the families who opened up their home to her. The story begins with 14 year old Jackie Chadwick starting what is supposed to be a short term stay with the Wall family. Bridget and Nick are new to fostering and it is also Jackie’s first time in foster care. After Jackie’s mother died of cancer her father, struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and the responsibility of raising Jackie, turned to alcohol for solace. Jackie, as well as trying to maintain her grades at school, has become housekeeper and carer for her drunken father who, on occasion, has caused her physical harm. Despite their ups and downs they rub along okay until teachers at school notice that Jackie is sometimes a little battered and bruised. They feel obligated to report to Social Services, resulting in Jackie being placed in temporary foster care. Bridget and Nick make a huge effort to welcome Jackie, sometimes to the detriment of the relationship with their daughter Amanda. The same age as Jackie, Amanda bypasses the opportunity to gain a friend and ally and instead is rude and resentful of Jackie’s intrusion into their home. The Walls initially appear to be the perfect family to provide Jackie with the stability she has been denied but it soon becomes apparent that the family have issues that predate Jackie’s appearance. Jackie, with a maturity beyond her years, can see the different power struggles and discontent within her new foster family more easily than they see it themselves and it sometimes feels as though she is the grown-up in the family. Jackie is a delightful character. She is intelligent, kind and compassionate and, although Amanda is determined to make Jackie’s life difficult, Jackie has empathy for her and often silently wills Bridget to think before she speaks to Amanda about issues she knows will upset her. Although Jackie copes well it is clear she does not always find the adjustment to being in foster care easy and she uses her love of writing poetry to express her inner conflicts and turmoil. She is very witty and uses her sense of humour to cope with difficult or embarrassing situations, bringing a light-hearted tone to the story. Fran Hill has focussed not just on the challenges faced by Jackie, catapulted into a foster home and trying to make the best of the situation she finds herself in, but also on the issues that arise for the Halls as they try to balance their family’s dynamics. Hill has very cleverly shown both sides of the experience through Jackie’s empathetic nature. There is an interesting comment from Bridget after talking on the telephone with her friend Gloria - also a foster parent. She says to Jackie: “They have two of their own children and now a foster son. They said to us, try it. It could be the making of us. And, now, here you are!” This raises the question as to what motivated the Halls to decide on fostering. Were they, with their own personal troubles, hoping to restore their own family unit? Or perhaps to prove to themselves that they are good parents, despite their disintegrating relationship with Amanda. Cuckoo in the Nest is a wonderful read, full of passion and humour. Fran Hill clearly understands people and the flaws underlying family life. It is a very entertaining story which also offers insight into the lives of those involved in the foster care system.

Care Experience & Culture Foundling Book Club Event: Via Zoom 11th November 2022 and live at the Foundling Museum , London 11am UK /8.30pm Adelaide, South Australia /6am Atlanta, Georgia USA In conjunction with the Foundling Museum, London, we are thrilled to announce a Foundling Book Club (hybrid in-person and online event) during the Being Human Festival exploring the power of first-hand accounts in the narratives of care experience. You can see the event here: Speakers include Foundling Museum Curator Kathleen Palmer who will talk about the Foundling Hospital and its history. We also have Justine Cowan, an American lawyer who will share what prompted her to investigate her mother’s childhood at the Foundling Hospital, and Dr Josie Pearse, a London-based artist and independent researcher into adoption history, who will speak with us about The Child She Bare (1919), by Hannah Brown, a reflection of her childhood at the Foundling Hospital from 1866 to 1881. Timetable: 11.00 - Brief intro to Care Experience & Culture - 5mins (Dee) 11.05 - Introduction to the Foundling Museum by Curator Kathleen Palmer (UK) - 20 mins 11.25 – Intro to speaker (Dee Michell) 11.27 - The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames with Justine Cowan (US) - 20 mins 11.47 - Intro to speaker (Rosie Canning) 11.49 - The Child She Bare with Dr Josie Pearse (UK) - 20 mins 12.09 - Questions - 20 minutes 12.30 - Close Justine Cowan is an American attorney and author of The New York Times Editors’ Pick, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames, which details how Justine uncovered the true story of her mother’s upbringing at London’s Foundling Hospital . Justine’s mother was difficult and exacting. Only after her death was Justine drawn to an envelope filled with clues about a past that had never been spoken of, buried in the back of an old filing cabinet. Its contents revealed a mystery that led her across the Atlantic Ocean to discover a truth she could scarcely imagine. Justine will share her transformative journey and how it allowed her to make peace with her family’s troubled past. Dr Josie Pearse is an artist, writer and independent researcher into adoption history. She was surrendered as a toddler and spent a period in care in a residential nursery before being adopted. Her PhD ( Backstory, writing on the cusp of life and fiction. Creative Writing Cardiff 2013) is a creative reclamation of her unrecorded orphan story. Just over a hundred years ago an anonymous author answered a survey. It was sent out by a Select Committee looking at the regulation of child adoption. Tracking the history of adoption, Josie traced a book written by the anonymous author. She presents a reading of it as a testament to creative human resilience under the restrictions of the child welfare system. All welcome. If you are joining online, you will need to book a free ticket . If you are coming to the museum that day, entrance is free. Twitter: @FoundlingMuseum @kpalmer101 @DrDeeMichell @Rosie_Canning @_JustineCowan @jojowasawoman

Care Experience & Culture book club event: Via Zoom 25th June 2022 10am UK time / 6.30pm Adelaide / 7.00pm Melbourne Email: careexperienceandculture@gmail.com to register You can watch the Book Club Event here: Dr Sarah Mokrzycki is a writer and artist living on Eastern Maar and Wadawurrung land. She has a PhD on the importance of family diversity in picture books, and teaches creative writing and children’s literature at Victoria University. Sarah is a non-bio mum of three children from fostering backgrounds, and a passionate advocate of children at risk. Sarah wrote and illustrated a family diverse book, while also researching the importance and benefits of inclusive children's literature - a first in Australia. As Sarah writes: "Research shows that when children can’t see themselves in books, their sense of self-worth, their ability to form healthy friendships and their reading and educational development can all be obstructed. Relating to book characters is a vital tool that engages young children with literature. It connects them to the world, validates their personal experiences and helps forge a lifelong love of reading." Despite the clear benefits, Sarah has found that Australia's diversity is rarely reflected in Australian picture books, and where such books do exist, they tend to be published overseas, often in the UK. Jane Teather is a Reader and Home Educator living in Hertfordshire, UK Jane will talk about diverse representations in children’s fiction in some of the books she has found that provide a more diverse world view for children and young people. Starting with the books she read as a child and young adult, moving on to multiculturalism and disability awareness thanks to working in the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), actively seeking out alternative voices for her children and finally continuing to find different viewpoints in recent fiction. Jane was born in Guildford and adopted at ten days old. She grew up in a loving family that was for her, the right match. She was a reader from a young age – some of her earliest memoires are of books she borrowed from the local library: Miffy, Rev Awdrey stories and My Naughty Little Sister. When Jane was nine they moved to Guernsey and she stayed there until she went to Brighton Polytechnic to study librarianship. Although initially she thought of working in a library because she loved books Jane quickly realised that it is more important to want to help people, and the books are a by product of this. Trained as a librarian, her first professional job was in a further education college in London which was a cultural shock after Guernsey and Brighton. Thanks to ILEA, she quickly had her eyes opened to multiculturalism and other diversities and thrived working with students from 16 – 70. In her early thirties she fell pregnant, and this was when her adoption finally caught up with her as she found she could not leave her baby for any length of time. The idea of going back to work made her want to sob and so with the full support of her partner she gave up paid employment and became a stay-at-home mum. This was, for her, a joyful act and one she has never regretted. Jane reads fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, poetry – anything that takes her fancy. **ALL WELCOME**

Dr. Josie Pearse asks: Why is the murderer (almost) always adopted? I'm talking about a stereotype that I began to notice many many years ago on programmes like The Bill which my dad watched. It was inevitable that if you were over my adoptive parents' house he would settle down at 7 or 7.30 in the evening to watch the longest running police procedural ever. He was one of millions. It was a soap opera really, at a police station with a different crime each episode. You couldn't avoid it. It was perfectly easy TV after work. My mother would mostly disappear to the kitchen and it was my cue to go home. There was money to be made from writing for it. I heard a number of TV writers speak who got their first breaks with The Bill and at one point I decided to stay and watch with my dad, with the idea I might write something. I watched a few. It certainly followed a formula, a rhythym that chugged along with breaks for ads. Learning the formula was clearly necessary so I studied it. But I also began to notice something else. The crime wasn't always murder but when it was, I woke up to how many of the planned ones were committed by adopted or fostered adults. And if, God forbid, a serial killer was loose in Sun Hill then there was no doubt they would be adopted or fostered; none at all. I also noticed there was no other motive or explanation. The adoptees, care survivors, fostered people, killed simply because they didn’t grow up in their natural home. It put me off. I made efforts to counter stereotypes in my job. But adoptees and care-experienced people had not at that time, as far as I am aware, organised about portrayal. I was busy finding my mother and brother, dealing with the fallout in my relationships from reunion. As a group we were fighting for legal changes, for whole files to made available to us, for realism in our searching groups around another stereotype - the reunion story - and for acknowledgement of race to be a factor in adoption. But we had not yet organised about stereotyping. That's had to wait until recently, see Care Experience & Culture. In the job I did - adult literacy - we were conscious of early childhood differences and had regular training sessions for our comfortable, well-meaning volunteers to remind them that not everyone had a happy childhood and we shouldn't assume beginner writers would want to write about theirs. That was about as inclusive as the real world got. TV was years behind and for me, as an adoptee, honestly, I had educated myself and at work I felt part of the privileged world. I did feel annoyed about the murderers though. My antennae were up and I began to notice the stereotype in other TV crime dramas. A stereotype is something that doesn’t change. In studying writing, you learn that character driven plot is largely about the character changing. But these murderers weren't really characters. The police were the characters. The murderer was one dimensional. This was schlock though, so why take it seriously? As I look back it's no stretch to say that the stereotype affected me. I felt I should be grateful. I was lucky to be relatively sane, have a social life, have a job I believed in and get by financially. After all I could have gone to the bad. Not going to the bad was also my compensation and my moral containment. Only later in life have I seen how small my aspirations were. It's a pauper's aspiration. A stereotypical orphan's. As if, despite growing up in a lower middle class home, not going to the bad had to be my main drive and everything else was just a dream. Never mind imposter syndrome, what about unconsciously absorbing-the-bad-news on-every-day-TV syndrome. I can't say this is true for every #cep. But my bet is that staying right, not going bad, whatever it means to each of us, is a big thing we do. But what about the implications of having this stereotype fed into the common consciousness each evening? What effect on the population who switch on the box each evening? The tension is exciting, problems are solved and in the end justice seems to be served but oh, wait...watch out for those people without families... They all end up in prison, right, though. So the world is safe. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries orphans were most often heroes - as they are today in children's books and comics. Without the constraints of parents they were free to get into all kinds of jolly scrapes. Moll Flanders and Tom Jones are not one dimensional, they change and survive everything life throws at them mainly because of their good natures - and despite their parental absence or rottenness. Later in the nineteenth century with the rise of the middle classes, orphans like Oliver Twist were also likely to suffer trials but through their true nature be restored to their rightful (usually middle class or wealthy) place in society. But since the twentieth centry and TV, our most common plotline is that because our parents were dead, dysfunctional, unable...we must be serial killers. I started counting eventually and by my reckoning 90% of TV serial killers were orphans. Even great writers were using this fixed image. Three examples - all by such wonderful writers it pains me to call them out. But in the name of awareness let me do it: The Bridge - great Scandi drama. The plot point at the end means the killer has to have a birth mother. He uses her garage to wall up his victim. The Fall - by the wonderful Paul Abbott: the murderer was ‘fostered in different homes'. No Offence - the plot is about the betrayal of the main character. Beautifully done. But the murderer ‘came from the nuns.’ So why have even great writers succumbed to this laziness? Some of it is perhaps because #ceps have all this complexity in our lives - in The Bridge the killer takes advantage of the invisibility of birth mothers to...commit a series of murders of course. But the main serial killer type seems to stem from some FBI statistics prepared in 1999 and written up in journals ever since. The internet was a baby in 1999, so I imagine some writer's excitement of coming across a journal in a library after an afternoon's search. Of 500 serial killers in the United States, the FBI had found, 16% were adoptees. The figure was big, given that only 2-3% of that population at large was adopted. The problematizing began: the 16% got all the attention. Adoptees were 8 times more likely to be serial killers. On and on...too much to read in journals of social work if your imagination is a scriptwriter's and you have started seeing the possible plot... It’s not uncommon for adopted people to be studied and problematized in the post-Freudian world. The one that always gets my goat into battle mode is the twins separated at birth and adopted by different families. The twins grow up to have identical tastes, or properties. There's only one word for the people who did the ethics review on that study...the people who knew where the two siblings were and studied them rather than reunited them...and the word is not writeable. The point though, surely, now, so many years later, that 84% of serial killers presumably come from average, biological, unseparated families. What about them? Why don't they get portrayed in proportion to their prevalence? There may be all kind of plotting reasons why not but...84% of all people are serial killers.? Shout it from the rooftops! The wider picture has to be that the narrative of the killer adoptee is so acceptable because a normal family is the primary unit of capitalism and we need to reinforce it's importance if this world is to continue on it's jolly, unconscious path to destruction and extinction. Simple really. But it's not simple for people who through no fault of their own have grown up with a wound. For that wound to be explained away without any hope of redemption is rotten and lazy. It's just one more travesty. So come on writers out there, lets look at the 84%. Let's problematize them for a change. Even the right way round: 84% of serial killers are ordinary people, is so much more interesting than the bad blood angle. There is hope. There are exceptions. Jane Campion's second series of Top of the Lake portrays the whole, messy, imperfect, triangle of mother, adoptive mother, adoptive father and teen-aged adoptee. The beauty of it is that...perhaps because I've watched so many... I did suspect the adoptee the whole way through. No spoilers. If you were adopted, over to you, it's on Netflix. You can switch on the box and relax for once.

Amberleigh Care (UK) has two locations which run as formal therapeutic communities for teenage boys: deliberately structured settings that make real use of groups and relationships. Each community has a large children's home, a registered school and a therapy team that works across both communities. There are up to 19 boys on one site and up to 12 on the other. The boys come to stay with us from all over the country and are with us anywhere from 18 months to 6 years. Poetry is always a popular topic for the boys in school because it's a way of expression that they find fun and more free flowing - especially when they can then alter their poems into songs and raps! This time the lesson was based around the NHS graffiti art of Banksy. With the first focus being about how much the NHS is now valued by everyone, the short lessons deepened in thought and reflection to how the boys have had to adapt their lives in lockdown. The poems mention memories, how the world has changed and confusion. The boys are all very proud of their work and have all enjoyed sharing their poems in the school assembly. Each poem brings a small insight to their shared experience. We hope you enjoy them.

Dr Dee Michell reflects on Careless, the new novel from Kirsty Capes It was wonderful to read Careless by Kirsty Capes. I’d had the book on pre-order for ages and was delighted when it finally arrived. It’s a beautifully written novel, one of those where I’m immediately immersed in the story, and I love that. Careless is the tale of 15 year old Bess who is in foster care, has had a relationship – if you can call it that – with a hapless 19 year old called Boy who stacks shelves in a supermarket, and we journey with Bess as she decides what to do next. Friendship, the state care system, and a girl’s right to decide how to live her life are central themes in the novel. There’s the friendship between Bess and her school friend, Eshal, and the later friendship that develops between Bess and Boy’s sister, Keris, and between Bess and her foster sister, 10 year old Clarissa. I was glad when Keris finally took a stand against Boy and stood up for and supported Bess. For much of the book I was concerned no one was talking about statutory rape, but then no one apart from Keris knows who the ‘father’ is. At the other end of the age scale, there is an offering of friendship with the woman who runs the knitting group at the church; at least Bess knows there are women who are non-judgmental and accepting in the local community. The friendship with Eshal was heartwarming (even if the account of the hot bath and gin is horrific). There’s a bit where Bess recognises the difficulties Esh faces – ongoing racism, the threat of forced marriage—and she understands she’s not the only one who has life tough. But the lovingness of Esh’s family toward Esh, and toward Bess, is both a contrast with Bess’ life with Lisa, her foster mum, and a blessing for Bess in that at least there is somewhere she encounters unconditional positive regard. It’s probably not only foster kids who experience love bounded by strict rules. “As long as you live in my house you live by my rules” sort of thing. When Lisa finds out Bess is pregnant, she is happy to keep Bess on, as long as Bess does what Lisa wants. I felt angry and disgusted with Lisa—would she have behaved similarly with her biological daughter? Perhaps she would have, but there are indications otherwise, like the abundance of presents Clarissa receives compared to the sparsity of those for Bess. I related to the story in a number of ways, despite being 50 years older than Bess and in foster care in Australia. Like Bess, I was in the one long term ‘placement’ from the age of 4. When it came to Bess knowing about Lisa being paid to care for the girl, it’s not until Bess objects to Lisa flashing around receipts for reimbursement that Lisa becomes more discreet with collecting evidence of what she has spent. I recall feeling shocked that my mum was paid for 15 years to look after me. I didn’t find that out until I read my files when I was in my 30s and yet I have vague memories of writing to the relevant government agency for funding for extracurricular items, like going on a school trip interstate (request rejected), and I understood mum didn’t cover the cost of high school uniforms because we’d go somewhere other than a shop for those (an agency run store or warehouse?). Still, at some deep level I didn’t understand that allexpenses were covered by the state. On the one hand, I think carers should be paid for their work, although I doubt my mum was paid for her time. I want to say she definitely wasn’t paid to do any emotional labour, but such a term is anachronistic and she shouldn’t have been anyway as I remember her as emotional neglectful and verbally abusive, always finding fault, rather like Lisa picking on Bess relentlessly. On the other hand, and like Bess, kids can feel like commodities if money is all there is about caring for them. The commentary on the different types of social workers was thought-provoking. Henry appeared to be only minimally interested in Bess and was on Lisa’s side when ‘trouble’ loomed. Shelly, however, was emphatically on Bess’ side, encouraging Bess in her idea of becoming a film maker and later supporting her practically to get the requisite skills. I don’t recall social workers being as actively involved in my life as either Henry or Shelley, but given a choice I would have wanted Shelly. I felt quite conflicted through much of the novel. On the one hand I wanted Bess to live life as she wants to, even if that means keeping the baby, and Keris is a positive representation of a young single mum who is doing a good enough job with her child. On the other hand, I didn’t want Bess to keep the baby, I wanted her to do what she’s always wanted to do, learn how to make films. She could have done both, and there are advantages in having babies early, but I didn’t want that for Bess. That internal conflict I felt, my reaction toward Lisa (and even Rory who reminded me a bit of my foster father, hovering benevolently in the background while mum ruled, as Lisa does), my fondness for Eshal, and wish that Bess lives her best life unencumbered by others’ expectations is a measure of Kirsty Capes’ storytelling and writing skills. 5/5 stars from me.

The Care Experience & Culture Digital Archive Launch took place Sunday 11th April. 11.00 - Welcome Dr Dee Michell & Rosie Canning 11.15 - Kenny Murray talks about his call for improved representation of care experience 11.30 - Kirsty Capes will be talking about her debut novel 'Careless' 12.00 - Open forum to reflect on favourite care experience characters 12.20 - Official launch by Polly Jones, Trustee from The Welland Trust (Our thanks to The Welland Trust for their support and Jamie Crabb for website help.)