Free Loaves on Fridays is a recent anthology with more than 100 care-experienced voices, including poetry, essays, stories, and open letters that brings out a complete and nuanced picture. The anthology by the editor, Rebekah Pierre, published through Unbound, includes narratives of individuals aged from under 13 to almost 70, revealing the experiences following foster care, adoption, kinship care, and semi-independent living, among others. Pierre initially declined the project but eventually came up with an anthology with a no-rejection policy to offer an inclusive platform to everyone who submitted work.
She found name misspellings over 100 times and inaccurate and disrespectful information in her case files. Pierre’s experience highlights how care-experienced individuals have never had their say and have often been discussed only as passive subjects. By encouraging care-experienced individuals to control the narrative and provide their perspectives, the book seeks to overturn that mindset. Rebecca also shares an open letter with regard to the notes to the social worker who wrote her notes.
The initiative by Rebekah Pierre and other authors comes in the wake of the UK government’s proposed reform of children’s social care expected in 2023. The book, with financial support from John Lewis, is being sent to the care select committee’s MPs, the children’s commissioner, and the children’s minister with the aim of communicating the distinctive experiences of those involved and promoting systematic change in public policy and the social work profession.
The anthology’s name is inspired by the factory gifts given to Rebekah and the other hostel residents every Friday. They often received a thick, white-sliced bread, on which “toastie” was printed. She realized that society gave them what it was willing to donate, with nobody bothering to inquire about the sort of bread they liked. The book aims to highlight diverse experiences and foster a community that has been ignored because no two individuals experience their care journey in the same way
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