Young Carers Action Day (YCAD) in March 2023
Survey results
Our survey found that many young carers and young adult carers have experienced a real intensification in their caring role recently, both in terms of the time they are spending on caring and the number of people they care for.
The survey also found the cost of living crisis has had an alarming impact on young carers with some saying they were having to use savings to help with everyday household expenses.
All of this, of course, is having a detrimental effect on young carers’ mental health and wellbeing.
Earlier this year, a group of our young carers took part in a spoken word workshop with Write2Speak.
They wrote about being young carers and around the theme for Young Carers Action Day 2023: Make Time for Young Carers.
Hear from our young carers here: https://carers.org/young-
Young Carers from 6 different Carers Centres, including Rosie from Enfield Carers Centre, have come together to create a video raising awareness for Young Carers Action Day by reading the Late Crew!
Check it out on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/s2ulscizTQc
There are some additional materials that you can use with this video – a ‘Create Your Own Alien To Help Young Carers’ activity, and a written version of the extracts of the story used in the video.
Make Time for Young Carers – Carers Trust are looking for young and young adult carer stories!
Carers Trust would love to hear about what this means to you – tell us about your caring role, why it is important to make time for young carers (or what you do to make time for yourself!), and what would support you to have good health and well-being.
Your story could be in the form of a blog, video, infographics, artwork, photo, poem, song – any format or media you feel most comfortable with. Carers Trust can provide support if you want to get involved but are a bit stuck for ideas.
Created content will be shared on the Carers Trust YCAD webpage and social media in the run up to YCAD to help generate campaign buzz.
Why was this theme chosen?
Over the past few months Carers Trust have chatted with hundreds of young carers at festivals in Hampshire, Wales and Scotland. The one issue that kept coming up was just how important their health and wellbeing is to them.
Carers Trust know it’s easy for young carers to start feeling overwhelmed because of everything they need to do for their caring role on top of all their schoolwork and revising for exams. What young carers told us was that it doesn’t need to be this way. They think the things that would make them feel less overwhelmed, healthier and happier are:
- improved support in schools
- more access to breaks,
- better access to counselling support
- and more financial support.
But what does ‘Make Time for Young Carers’ really mean?
‘Make Time for Young Carers’ highlights two things that are really important for young carers:
- the need for professionals and responsible adults to make more time to listen to young carers explain the challenges they face as young carers, so they can better understand the support young carers actually need.
- Once they understand the sort of support that’s required, responsible adults then need to make time to put that support in place.
