Young Carers Awareness day — 28th January 2016

Thursday 28th January is Young Carers Awareness Day and is a national day in recognition of the care and support provided by young carers. Young carers are children and young people under the age of 18 who provide unpaid care to a family member who is phy

Often, young carers don’t even know that they are ‘young carers’… They just do what’s needed to help the people they love and don’t think of themselves as doing anything special. But being a young carer can take up a lot of time and can cause a lot of concerns and emotional distress. Their childhood and teenage years can be very different from that of their friends as they often don’t have time for hobbies or to see their friends and do ‘normal’ things that their friends do. Their caring ‘duties’ – cooking, cleaning, shopping, administering medicines, looking after siblings etc. – can really take a toll on schoolwork as well and many misses out on classes at school and homework because other things seem more important.

Being a young carer is not all about burdens though as helping someone you love can also make you very happy. Many of you here at riprap may not think of yourself as young carers but many of you are probably helping out more at home now than you used to do and it is not only about the practical things that you do, it can be helping and supporting family members in many different ways.

Young carers can feel very alone because their friends have a different life and can’t possibly understand what it’s like being a young carer. There are lots of support for young carers but you may not know where to find it. We have details and links to various national organisations from our website and also to local services so you could have a look there. And because today is Young Carers Awareness day – we have included some links below to various features about being a young carer. So you can see – you’re not alone!

First, here is the Carers Trust’s feature

And here is a feature in Express about 3 young carers and their lives

Action for Children website features interviews with young carers

ITV “This Morning” – interview where Emily who is 11 and her family talks about their lives of Emily being a young carer.

ITV “This Morning” where a young carer Amy gets a surprise

YouTube video with Oritse Williams from JLS answering questions from young carers

This article was first published : 28.1.2016