Natalie Hirst spent eight years living in foster care in Greater Manchester and had a mixed experience, but her resilience helped her to develop the strength and skills to overcome many challenges. “My experience has taught me the importance of having kind, supportive adults in the lives of children in care to help them feel safe, cared for and treated like one of the family,” she says. “These experiences have shaped who I am today, an independent woman, passionate about my career and working with local authorities in Greater Manchester to ensure every young person has a voice, choice and control over decisions made about them.” Michelle Brown

An intelligent and sensitive child, Stanley descends into a life of crime and drug abuse. During his time spent in various young offender’s institutions and prisons he battles with addiction and slowly begins to turn his life around. My own interests and experiences also weave into my stories so that readers can get an insight into my South Asian heritage, as you can see from this story about Karak Chai which I'm ever so passionate about!The issues around growing up in care don’t magically stop at 25, just because public policy stops,” says Jim Goddard, who went into care in Liverpool aged three. “They carry on, and people deal with them in various ways.” Goddard is the chair of the Care Leavers’ Association, which focuses on care leavers of all ages – it might help people access their care files, or deal with issues around social isolation. “The level of invisibility of the issues facing young people leaving care has not fundamentally altered in the past 20 years.” Akiya Henry Best known for designing clothes for Diana, Princess of Wales, Bruce Oldfield was born in Durham and fostered at 18 months by a seamstress, Violet Masters, who taught him how to sew. From 13, he lived at a Barnardo’s care home in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Chris Fretwell Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. Becoming a young parent motivated her to return to education as an adult. She is now employed by the NHS in Greater Manchester, leading a programme to create trauma responsive communities and organisations and to improve health outcomes and opportunities across the region. She is also a trustee of the charity Pure Insight, which supports young people to have a better care-leaving experience than she did herself. Derek Owusu This year I became a finalist for the British Muslim Awards in the Media Achiever of the Year category - and I hope to make a difference every single year with my work. I was born in the era of forcible adoption – my mother was coerced into giving me up,” says Louise Wallwein. Her adoption broke down when she was nine and she moved through various children’s homes around Manchester until leaving care at 17 – “because I came out as a lesbian and it was a Catholic children’s home”. Wallwein later dramatised her search for her birth mother in the acclaimed one-woman show (later a book) Glue. Chris Wild

My own “success” happened in spite of my time in care, not because of it. I am not defined by my scars but by the incredible ability to heal. Healing can hurt too. Here are a few organisations for support and information: Become has been supporting and campaigning for children in care and young care leavers since 1985. The Care Leavers’ Association is a national user-led charity aimed at improving the lives of care leavers of all ages. The Fostering Network is the UK’s leading fostering charity; it champions fostering and seeks to create vital change. PAIN – Parents against Injustice is a voluntary organisation, run and funded by volunteers who provide help and support to families caught in the care system. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. One of the greatest signs of my own sense of independence when I left care was the day I could ask for help when I needed it. Browne, Derek. ‘Centenary Year of Dr Stanley Browne’. Leprosy Mailing List Blog. 23 May 2008. Online. His impact on leprosy was a major one. His many official roles in leprosy committees and organisations afforded him a platform to advocate for scientific research on leprosy and for high standards of patient care. His bibliography includes over 500 scientific publications, mainly on leprosy, as well as many books and pamphlets. He died at home on World Leprosy Day, 29 January 1986, survived by his wife, Mali, and their three sons, Derek, Alastair, and Christopher. Mali Browne also died on World Leprosy Day in 2006. As Vessels, Browne exhibits an unhinged personality that fits with his internal struggle to simultaneously love and hate his ex-wife, the mother that took his children from him when he simply aspired to change the world into something worth growing up in. That’s one opinion anyway. It isn’t difficult to empathise with the alternative – Grace’s plight, wife of a radical that kills for his beliefs, manifest in the carnal need to protect her children from their monstrous father. Both sides of the story are credibly acted out on stage, a power play where each actor jostles for the position of moral superiority. The individuals are indeed committed; Grace and supportive crutch Easley at times forget that they are held at gun point, such is their moral obligation to exert their supremacist views. He said: "We were in a Children's home with other white people, so when you walk in it's a different smell, the food is different, washing powder is different, sheets smell different, your whole world changes. They want to help me and my siblings of course, but when you're torn from your family you just think these strange people have taken us away from my mum.Browne was born in London in 1907. He was awarded two scholarships, which covered his education in medicine and theology at Kings College, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1934, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons the following year. After completing an additional qualification in tropical medicine, he was recruited by the Baptist Missionary Society to work as a medical missionary in what was then the Belgian Congo.

Graeae is a world renowned innovator in theatre and its productions place creative access at their heart. This play will feature a creative use of captioning and will have audio description on offer at every performance (ask the Box Office for details).

Performances / Venues

The 51-year-old says his life changed when his mum was diagnosed with schizophrenia (Image: MyLondon)