Young Carers
© Carers Trust
Are You a Young Carer?
Can you relate to Lottie’s story in the video above?
Many young people have a relative or friend with care needs. If you have someone in your life who cannot manage without your support, you may be a young carer.
Young carers do all sorts of things to help like cooking, shopping, or looking after younger children. It isn’t just helping out with physical care, it is giving emotional support too. This can affect the time you have to be yourself and how you manage at school and during the holidays. It can be lonely.
These young bunnies are some of the very youngest carers. They are under 5 years old so not even at school yet. Can you see how they are helping? Just being there for support can be caring too, when someone in your house needs you.
Thanks Ana Graça for these lovely drawings.
What we do to Support Young Carers
At Crossroads, as well as supplying care workers in the home to help out, we also support young carers by fundraising to arrange days out, in groups or with your family. If your family is supported by Crossroads Care, you can ask to be included on our next outing. It could be trampolining or climbing, a pottery or drum class, or going to see Oxford United. We have even gone to see Father Christmas and the Blenheim lights. We try to adapt what we offer to you and your family. Email us at care@oxfordshirecrossroads.org.uk
© Crossroads Care
Young Adult Carers
© Crossroads Care
Young carers who are aged between 18-25 are officially called young adult carers. If you are in this age range, you can access the same benefits from us. We are sorry we didn’t mention you separately above, but it all became a bit of a mouthful! We haven’t forgotten you!
If you are 16+ you can also access our Carers funding through Carers Trust of up to £300. There is a form to complete, and it could fund household items, breaks, transport costs, skills and courses (but sadly no driving lessons). There is a one-hour administrative fee for this. To get the form and more details email care@oxfordshirecrossroads.org.uk and mark it for the attention of Ruth.
Our Commitment to Young Carers
At Crossroads we are a proud member of the Young Carer’s Alliance – this is a National group of individuals and organisations who are committed to improve the support available for young carers and give them a platform to be heard.
We are also signed up to the Carers Trust Young Carers Covenant, and are committed to doing everything we can for a fair future for young carers.
We often send out information and guidance for schools so they can support young carers better. Do you know who to contact for help at school? Does your school know about the Young Carers Schools Challenge? You can remind them about it (or ask us to) so they can better support you and other young carers.
Some General Advice and Resources for Young Carers and Young Adult Carers (Supplied by Carers Trust)
- The Booklet for Young Carers has been developed for young carers, by young carers and covers topics such as looking after yourself, growing up as a carer and dreaming about your future.
- You can also look in the Help and advice section of the Carers Trust website to find the information you are looking for, although please be aware it has been written for carers who are 18 and over so may not always be relevant if you are under 18.
- The Children’s Society works with children and young people and has lots of advice and resources for young carers on its website.
- Sidekick is a confidential helpline for young carers in the UK. You can text or email the service about anything that’s bothering you as a young carer. You’ll hear back from a friendly Sidekick coach, usually within 24 hours.
- Carers UK is the UK’s membership charity for carers of all ages offering advice, information and an online forum for carers over 18.
- The Mix provides support for young people aged 25 and under on things such as mental health, relationships and money. It has recently launched an online group chat for young carers/young adult carers which takes place on Friday evenings.
