Tag Archives: young carer

The importance of Young Carers Action Day #YoungCarersActionDay

Welcome fellow unpaid carers and carer activists. Did you know at the time of this blog post that it is Young Carers Action Day 2024?

Young Carers Action Day or YCAD 2024 takes place on the 13th of March each year. The carers awareness day is lead by Carers Trust and supported by many organisations across the country

The purpose of the day is to raise public awareness of the challenges faced by young people because of their caring role, and to campaign for greater support for young carers and their needs.

The theme for Young Carers Action Day 2024 is ‘Make Time for Young Carers‘. The theme looks at fair futures for young carers which will be focussing on why caring should not be a barrier to learning.

It is not good news if you are a young carer. Stats say that 1 in 3 young carers struggle to balance caring with our education, this can have a big impact on whether they can get on at school, go to university, or get a job or an apprenticeship.

The impact on young carers can be tremendous. If someone is providing unpaid care, they will struggle to do schoolwork and even when at school the young carer will be tired. All this will impact on the carers school performance, which will have a knock on affect for further education.

It is not just about education, young carers can be isolated and stigmatised, especially if caring for someone with mental illness. Young carers are often bullied and excluded, by only doing what is expected of a caring community.

So what can you do to help make a difference for Young Carers Action Day?

Tips

  • You can raise awareness by using social media, just like my blog post.
  • As a carer activist you can appeal to the UK Government for more help to be given to young carers.
  • Network partners of Carers Trust can get a resource pack promoting YCAD
  • Schools should listen to carer centres on best practice in identifying and supporting young carers, offering free tools and resources
  • Young carers, make yourselves known to us, as well as your school/college, employer and your GP.

Every young carer should have the chance to develop their own futures. Young Carers Action Day aims to create a future where young carers do not have to struggle so much.

Promo of Young Carer by Matthew McKenzie

She did not know. She only went along with it. Her mother needed her and that is all she knew. It was time to care, but was it all too soon? Story number 9 from the audiobook “Providing Care & Other Short stories”. I labelled this story “Young Carer”, because I wanted to get straight to the point. What is that point you ask?

The answer is to state that Young Carers exist and in these times they face all sort of challenges. What is a Young carer?

Well a young carer is someone under the age of 18 who looks after a family member or friend who has a physical or mental health condition. This is the story of Jenny a young girl about to finish her primary school. Unlike the carers in the other story, it is not easy for Jenny to reach out for help. Most of the time she just reacts. A lot of her roles focus on guess work and even though recognition of young carers has increased, Jenny still face challenges.

The story starts of with Jenny trying to make sense of her life. She is trying to make sense as to why she is so different from the other children at school. She is quiet about her struggles because she feels guilty and does not want to make anyone else feel guilty. Jenny is lucky to get some support, but is that enough?

As usual the story will be in audio dramatization. I have been experimenting with voices to bring the story to life. With the age of technology, storytelling has changed. Things spring to life and if you are a campaigner or activist then it makes sense to use technology. The story of Jenny can be difficult to listen to as it shows how vulnerable we really are.

We need to raise awareness of young carers or how can we claim this is a caring society? Many carers in my previous stories often had some choices, but when you are young then your choices might be limited. Will keep you posted to how the story develops soon.

To watch my other stories about unpaid carers check my video playlist below.