Warwickshire County Council is joining partners to highlight the needs of young carers for this year’s, Young Carers Action Day on Wednesday 15 March 2023. The theme this year is ‘Make Time for Young Carers’.
For many young carers, downtime is not an option as they take on additional responsibilities. This often means having to help around the house with tasks such as helping to dress young siblings, cook, clean for the family help siblings with homework, or even providing emotional support to family members.
Cllr Margaret Bell, Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Health said: “Warwickshire County Council and its partners work together to provide young carers with the respite they need. It’s vitally important that young people have the freedom and downtime to enjoy a hobby, to socialise with friends and to take time to switch off. There is a close supportive network in Warwickshire that can help young carers to do all of these things, along with young carers of similar ages and experiences. To find out what support is available please go to Young Carers Caring Together Warwickshire www.caringtogetherwarwickshire.org.uk/youngcarers
Mental Health is an important aspect to everyone’s lives, especially to young carers who don’t have the time to meet up with friends to socialise. Online apps such as Kooth.com, are a great way for young carers to share their thoughts and feelings anonymously with experts within the mental health sector. A daily journal, in addition to discussion boards and helpful articles provide young carers with the help they need.
Warwickshire has its own service for young carers called Young Carers Caring Together Warwickshire (Young Carer CTW). Young Carer CTW has targeted support that can help with every aspect of a young carer's life.
In addition to an assessment that will help with assistance for both the young carer as well as the cared for, there is also support with the following:
- Provide information and advice about every aspect of caring for young people
- Arrange groups and activities to meet other young carers
- Help you with your educations aspirations (college, university) and next steps
- Provide one-to-one emotional support in a safe place
- Help you to access support to look after your health and wellbeing
Claire Dale, Chief Executive Officer at Carers Trust, Heart of England, said: Young Carers Action Day is an important opportunity to amplify the voice of young carers who are providing a caring role in addition to everything else that comes with being a young person (schoolwork, etc), all of which can have an impact on their own health and wellbeing.”
She added, “In consultation with Carers Trust nationally, young carers have said that access to improved support in schools, access to breaks from their caring role, easy access to counselling and financial support would help to make them feel less overwhelmed, healthier, and happier. Whilst we aim to support young carers with these issues every day, on Young Carers Action Day 2023, we will be shouting that little bit louder on behalf of young people with care responsibilities and offering them more opportunities to take some time for themselves.”
For information and advice please visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/carers
For information about Young Carers Warwickshire Caring Together please go to http://www.caringtogetherwarwickshire.org.uk
For online support for young people mental wellbeing please go to www.Kooth.com
To learn more about young carers and how you can support them, please click on the link to the Free online Young Carers Aware Training - https://youngcareraware.warwickshire.gov.uk/index.html?lms=none&enable-assessment=true