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Free Loaves on Fridays: The Care System As Told By People Who Actually Get It

A powerful anthology of stories, reflections and letters by care-experienced people, including contributions from Lemn Sissay, Sally Bayley, Kirsty Capes and many more

Publication date: 18 April, 2024
Status: Published
Book: Ebook Download
Regular price £6.99
Regular price £6.99Sale price £6.99

Description

This book is all about the care system, and it's written by people who have experienced it first-hand.

Free Loaves on Fridays is an anthology of stories, poems, reflections and letters by nearly one hundred people who have experienced care, which aims to challenge worn-out stereotypes. This collection gives voice to diverse experiences including foster care, adoption, kinship care and semi-independent living, among others.

Headlines written about care often entrench negative ideas and dominate the narrative, leaving people who have experienced the system with nothing but crumbs. This anthology is an opportunity to redirect the dialogue and present a window into a world that has been overlooked for too long.

Free Loaves on Fridays presents a spectrum of joy and sadness, laughter and tears, love and loss, and reminds us that bread tastes so much better when it’s been chosen.

In support of Article 39 and the Together Trust

'A raw and emotive account of the real care sector and the most important book you will read in 2024. Absolutely gripped from the first page. It is more than just a book’ Chris Wild, author of The State of It and Damaged

'An emotional journey that will make you cry and laugh. But most of all understand the reality of our care system and why it absolutely must change' Emma Lewell-Buck, MP for South Shields and former social worker

'An incredibly poignant and powerful book . . . This is a must-read for every social worker, we must hear and learn from the voices of the care-experienced community, and influence and change practice and systems for the better’ Maris Stratulis, the national director for the British Association of Social Workers

About the Author

Rebekah Pierre

Rebekah Pierre lives in south London and is a care-experienced writer and campaigner. She has written extensively about the care system, and has appeared in publications including the Guardian, the Independent, and on BBC Radio 4 among others.

Rebekah is deputy director of the charity Article 39, which campaigns for the rights of children in institutional settings, and she has drawn upon her lived experience to expose wider policy failures. Her peer-reviewed journal, 'Revisiting Diary Entries from Care: An Exposition of the Challenges of Unregulated Placement Settings', is the first-known auto-ethnographic paper to feature childhood diary extracts written while in the care of the state.

@RebekahPierre92

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