Raising the question of excellent provision for young carers

When it comes to the delicate question of how to provide for young carers in school the first question has to be what do THEY need?

It was whilst working as a youth worker in one of our academies that I first posed the question of excellent provision for young carers. Within one morning I had spoken to two young people who were struggling with their behaviour at school and likely to face exclusion. As they spoke openly about family circumstances it dawned on me that they were caring for people in the family and unable to concentrate or truly care about school life.

It may be perceived as fortunate in this case that I have a background as a young carer myself- this means that I have first hand knowledge of what they are likely to need although obviously each individual will have unique needs as well. As soon as I had identified these traits and needs it made me question how many young people were actually caring for someone within the school. Some of the young people were registered young carers and being provided for by Barnados; an amazing young carers charity, but many had not been identified at all and so I began to do some student consultations with those that the school thought might be struggling at home.

It quickly became apparent that simply starting an after school group would possibly not be the best option; many of these young carers start the real work as soon as they get home-but some said that if transport was provided they could attend for an hour after school and so in partnership with another local agency we started after school sessions that helped them to deal with stress and anxiety as well as gave them some respite from home life and routines.  We also provided trips three times the first year including our first residential which was simply a night camping but was so fantastic in building not only relationships but confidence.

I was also acutely aware that the young people were struggling to focus in school time and so the youth agency I work for in collaboration with the school allowed me to focus on giving each young person some time to simply offload every week, meaning that they could focus on schoolwork on their return to the classroom. Working in school time to support the young carers also often entails becoming an advocate for those that struggle with equipment issues such as not doing homework or not having P.E kit, something that is often blamed on the childs lack of responsibility when often these children have several responsibilities already!

In conclusion the provision for young carers must be a multi agency approach teamed with a willingness to learn from the young carers as much as from websites and other places that will enable the school to understand how to make excellent provision for these important young members of society.

This guest blog was written by Carol Barwick who is project manager at Raise Children's Project which is currently based in West Yorkshire. If you would like more informationon on the service they provide please email her at carolbarwick1@aol.com or follow Raise on Twitter @raisechildrens