Through Care and Beyond

By Patrick Lawler

Patrick Lawler's Through Care and Beyond is an honest and deeply personal memoir about growing up in County Durham.

Beginning with childhood and the experience of being separated from his birth family, Patrick takes the reader through the years that followed: foster care, school, social services, changing homes, and the challenges of finding where he belonged.

Alongside his memories, the book draws on surviving social-work records, allowing the official account of his childhood to sit alongside the memories of the man who lived through it. The result is a story that explores not only what happened, but what those experiences meant- and how they shaped the person Patrick became.

Set against the changing Britain of the 1970s and 1980s, Through Care and Beyond is a story of childhood loss, resilience and ultimately finding a way forward.

This is not simply a story about growing up in care. It is a story about discovering that the circumstances of your childhood do not have to define your life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HFCFMS4P
• ISBN13: 9798191503196
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"