A BBC broadcaster is due to speak in Jersey about his experience of going from a childhood in care to reporting and hosting national programmes including The One Show.
Ashley John-Baptiste, a senior BBC journalist, was the lead reporter on The Mall for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, her funeral, and King Charles III’s coronation.
In June, he published a book, “Looked After: A Childhood in Care”, about his experience growing up in care.
Tomorrow, Mr John-Baptiste will speak in Le Rocquier School’s auditorium from 6pm to 8pm, where he will answer questions from the audience and sign copies of the book.
Mr John-Baptiste was in foster and residential care from the age of two in south-east London. Over the next 16 years, he would be placed with four different families and a residential home.
In school, he faced exclusions and suspensions, but got a place to study history at Cambridge University.
Shortly after graduating, he made a BBC documentary about his experience in foster care – and has since gone on to create programmes on topics including the care system, Black students’ experiences at Cambridge, and the Grenfell Tower fire. He was shortlisted as the Royal Television Society’s Young Talent of the Year in 2018.
To inspire young people in care, he founded Be Inspired events.
He was also a contestant on the X Factor and has hosted The One Show, Sunday Morning Live and Expert Witness.
He has written about feeling abandoned when he moved homes and finding out in his mid-20s that he had siblings – having been told by social workers that he was an only child.
His book was described as “an unflinchingly honest memoir” that reflects on the UK’s care system as well as the dynamics of race and masculinity.
Tickets for the event cost £7 and are available at: eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-award-winning-broadcaster-ashley-john-baptiste-tickets-1034812230237.
