Life After Care: From Lost Cause to MBE

Life After Care follows Mark’s journey with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression, and we learn about the enduring impact his childhood had on his mental health.His diary entries bring to life the thoughts and feelings of Mark, as a teenager, struggling to understand how he came to be placed in care, and how to deal with his adolescent feelings of loss and love.

On the verge of breakdown, Mark tried to take his own life and he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. We follow his journey from local authority care to the wards of a crumbling Victorian psychiatric asylum, and beyond into life on the streets...This is a heartfelt, true story of how a troubled young man managed to turn his life around. From being imprisoned in the care system and mislabelled as a violent boy with no hope, we hear how Mark became a successful, happily married family man, and a prominent figure in his local community.

Mark Edwards spent a majority of his childhood in local authority care, spending short amounts of time between placements with his father. He has served as a lifeboat crew member and also served as a police chaplain to Northumbria Police. Mark is now a vicar to two parishes in the diocese of Newcastle and is a volunteer Ambulance First Responder, receiving the Queen Diamond Jubilee medal as a volunteer member of the emergency services. Mark is now happily married and has 4 children and one grandchild.