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Listen
Y
Young Carers
Many children and young people find themselves in
circumstances where they provide significant support to
siblings when their parent is incapacitated, where they
care for the parent or where they contribute to the care of
another family member. For many reasons, parents and
children may be reluctant to seek help or let staff know
when this happens. In particular, they may fear losing
their children.
Where a pupil is taking on caring responsibilities,
there are a number of issues to be aware of:
- the difficulty may be short term or long term.
Parents or the person being cared for may go through
'good' and 'bad' patches of health or mental
health
- the pupil may feel under pressure and extremely
anxious about the parent or person they are caring for,
and the impact of the situation on any siblings. They
may feel very protective of their family and hide the
situation as much as they can
- the burdens of caring may include lack of time to
do homework and undertake domestic tasks (sometimes
beyond what might be considered appropriate for their
age), caring for siblings and taking them to school,
managing medication for the person being cared for
- pupils may lack the emotional support that healthy
and coping parents usually provide; they may lack the
time for contact with friends and their social skills
may not be practiced
- pupils may be absent from school in order to cope
with the situation
- pupils' own health and wellbeing may suffer
- pupils may appear neglected.
Where there is a marked deterioration in a pupil's
wellbeing, the child's needs for support may lead to a
Co-ordinated Support Plan for the child, involving the
appropriate agencies in providing support to the child and
family. At times, it may be considered that the child has
to be looked after for a period of time (see Looked After
Children).
However, it is possible that the signs that a pupil has
caring responsibilities are overlooked, unless schools'
pastoral care systems ensure good monitoring of pupils and
sharing of information between staff. Patterns of
unfulfilled homework tasks, lateness or absence, signs of
emotional unease, for example, may point to the fact that
the child is a young carer. Home School Link Workers or
Family Support Workers may follow up schools' concerns when
there is no immediate fear for the child's safety; staff
may consider appropriate enquiries to any schools attended
by siblings to gather and share information.
It will be helpful for education authorities and schools
to maintain positive relationships with Carers'
organisations and Young Carers' projects, and health
services, in order to identify and support children and
young people with caring responsibilities.
There is a range of organisations that specialise in
supporting young carers who may provide advice to
professionals or will offer support direct to the child, in
http://www.carers.net/organisations/YoungCarers.html
"It is good to feel they understand where the
stress is coming from, as long as they remember I love my
mum."
(pupil)
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