Young carers

Who is a young carer?

A young carer is someone aged under 18 who looks after person. This could include an adult, or someone younger like a sibling.

Caring for someone might involve things you do every day like cooking and cleaning,. or you might have to do much more if the person can't do some things themselves. For some, it can involve a lot of physical tasks, for other people can mean providing emotional support.

There are lots of reasons you may care for another person, for example someone might:

have an illness, disability or mental health condition
need extra support because of their age
difficulties relating to drugs and alcohol
need help communicating or talking to others, for example signing or translating for health appointments
have additional needs, or learning differences.

Some young people tell us they aren't sure if they can actually call themselves a 'young carer'. Even if you aren't the only one who’s caring for someone, you are still a young carer. Especially if it takes up a lot of your day or impacts how much time you have for your schoolwork or yourself.

5 things to remember:

you are not alone and it's okay to ask for help
there is support available
you can ask a teacher to get help with schoolwork
it's not okay to be bullied about being a carer
we're here if you ever need to talk.

they tease
me
for being
DIFFERENT

Talk to us

Getting support if you’re a young carer

It can sometimes be hard to talk to your friends or other people about your situation. You might be embarrassed or feel like they wouldn't understand. You might be worried about whether you’re allowed to ask for support, or if you’d be letting anyone down.

It’s always okay to ask for help when you’re caring for someone. Even when you’re managing on your own, getting a little help can make things easier for everyone and help you to feel less alone. You’re never letting anyone down by talking about it.

Help for you and your family

As a young carer, you shouldn’t have to provide care that is having a negative impact on you, your education or your health. If your caring role is affecting any of those, your local services have a duty to support you with that.

The service that supports you can vary based on where you live in the UK. It may be your local council or local authority, social services, or your local health and social care. If you’re not sure, it can help to speak to an adult you trust or someone at school for advice, or you can talk to us.

The way you’ll get support by doing something called a “Young Carers Assessment”, or a “Young Carer Statement” in Scotland.

This may sound scary, and it might be called something different in your area, but it’s just a chat. It’s a chance to talk about:

what things you are doing to help care for someone else
about any difficulties you and your family are having
how this affects you.

It’ll be with an adult who’s there to support you and you’ll get a say in who you complete it with. For example, you might want to do it with a teacher, a youth worker or someone like a social worker. It’s a chance to think about what kind of help you can get in the future.

Young carers assessments and young carers statements aren’t a test of whether you’re doing a good job or not, or how well adults at home are looking after you. It’s just to look at how best to support you as a young carer.

If you'd prefer, you can speak to someone at school instead of at home, but you'll need to mention if you don't want them to call at your school.

If you or an adult you trust would like to find out more about young carer assessments/young carer statements, your legal rights and other help that young carers should be getting, Carers Trust have produced a guide which you can find here.

If you find your physical or mental health have been affected because of caring, then there are other people who can help such as school nurses or your GP. If you speak to your doctor, then you can also ask them to make a note that you are a young carer.

Places to get support

There are lots of places you can get support:

Your local young carers service or local council can help you find out what help is available in your area
You can find a list of different organisations who have help for young carers on the Carers Trust website
Young carers aged 13 to 18 can contact Sidekick online or on the phone to talk about being a young carer

If you're worried or not sure where to start, you can always speak to us.

Feeling less alone

There is lots of support available for young carers. Getting involved with your local young carers service can be a great way to meet people in similar situations to you, make new friends and give you time off from caring. You can find your local young carers service here.

If you're nervous about going to a young carer club or support group, it can help to talk to the staff involved to find out more and see how they can make you feel more comfortable. You could also go once, just to see what it’s like. If it's not for you, that's okay. But other people there will know what it's like to be a young carer.

Being bullied

If you're a young carer, it can feel like you have to grow up much quicker than other people your age. Some young carers get bullied because of their caring role but we want you to know that bullying is not okay. And it's never your fault.

It's also important to talk to your school or an adult you trust if you're being bullied. Your school will have an anti-bullying policy. This means they have to do something to stop any bullying that's happening.

Message boards

Share your experiences, have fun and get support from other young people in similar situations.

Asking an adult for help

Get tips on starting a difficult conversation.

Making time for yourself

Being a young carer can take up a lot of your day and mean you don’t have much time to yourself.

It's important you find the time to get on with schoolwork, meeting up with friends and have time do to things that make you feel good.

Meeting up with friends

You might wonder how you can find time to see friends as a young carer. But it's really important that you do see your friends sometimes. And if you join your local young carer organisation, this can help you make friends with others in a similar situation.

Make sure to have time for you. If it's hard to get time away from the house, you could invite a friend over. This can be a good way to spend time together as well as helping your friend to understand your situation at home.

For some young carers it can be difficult to have friends around, so you might like to join online activities. These might be available through a local young carers group or through national organisations like Sense.

Try something new

If you're feeling low or overwhelmed, it can be hard to know how to cope. But distracting yourself or doing something positive can really help.

Try out the Coping Kit for loads of fun activity ideas that you can try out. Making time for an activity can help to make some time for yourself, and help you manage how you're feeling.

Schoolwork

It's really important that you're still able to do as well as possible at school or college. If you're struggling to do homework or concentrate in class, you should talk to an adult at school or college that you trust. Lots of schools have a young carers champion who you can talk to and find out about help available.

Your school may be able to do things like:

give you extra time to do homework or coursework
find ways for you to be able to do your work in school rather than trying to find time or a quiet space at home
make sure teachers know not to talk about your family situation in front of others
be flexible around things like using phones and make arrangements so you can phone or message home if you need to check things are okay
be understanding if you are late because of your caring role
help you with decisions like going to college or getting a job
arrange for someone to talk to if things get more difficult at home
help you find out about the illness or disability of the person you care for
allowing time to re-sit exams if your exam results have been affected.

Finding things hard as a young carer

Young carers say there are often a number of positive things about being a young carer. You might feel closer as a family, and young carers are often more mature and have other skills that their friends might not have. But we know there are lots of reasons why you might be finding things hard if you are a young carer.

You might be worried about:

the health of the person you care for
your school work or exams
money, finding a job or your future
not being able to meet and go out with friends
feeling you don't have any other choice
being hurt or feeling unsafe at home
having to look after brothers or sisters.

It can be really hard if you feel like you're not in control of your life. It can make you feel angry or sad and depressed.

And if you can't see your friends as much as you'd like, you might feel lonely and isolated.

However you feel, you can talk to us. We can help to talk your options through.

Coping with stress

Get our tips to help you deal with stress, no matter what’s causing it.

Building confidence and self-esteem

Try boosting your confidence with our top tips.