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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

Date Revised:

Friday, February 24, 2017 - 13:30

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To meet the needs of young carers in your school, it is vital that all school staff understand why young carers need support to enjoy and achieve at school, and the simple things they can do to raise the attendance, attainment and wellbeing of these pupils as part of their wider roles within the school.

Having the ability to ask yourself 'who is having a bad day?' and adjust your behaviour accordingly is one of the most important things teachers have.
Teacher

Building staff understanding about young carer issues does not mean creating additional functionality within staff’s existing roles. Rather, by being aware of how to identify and support young carers, staff will be better equipped to fulfil their existing roles within the school, and schools will identify and support young carers more effectively.

Identifying a young carer early can stop them taking on caring roles which are excessive or inappropriate. No child or young person’s education, wellbeing and potential should be affected by their caring role.

What guidance is available to help raise the awareness of school staff about young carers?

Download Step 7: Raising Awarness of School Staff about Young Carersto find out more about:

Why it is important to raise the awareness of all staff members
The different ways in which awareness can be raised, including top tips for developing and maintaining effective young carer noticeboard material. As schools will be in different stages of their journey to implementing support for young carers, the ways to raise awareness are categorised into the basics, beyond the basics and best practice.

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

Tools available to support Young Carers School Operational Leads to raise school staff awareness include:

The Young Carers School Operational Lead may also with to download and use Step 5, Tool 1: Recommended points to include in a whole school commitment to create a whole school commitment to young carers to display on staff noticeboards and the intranet.

What to do next

Once you have raised the awareness of school staff, go to Step 8: Raising awareness of pupils and families about young carers.

Step 6: Setting up Systems to Identify, Assess and Support Young Carers

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff, helps schools to set up systems to identify and support this vulnerable pupil group.

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

Date Revised:

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - 09:45

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To help ensure no young carer slips through the net, schools need to take a proactive approach to identifying and supporting young carers.

It's difficult to talk to teachers. It's not easy to explain ... It's always in the corridor or class. I just don't tell them.
Young carer

All schools should ensure they have agreed procedures in place in place to identify, assess, support and refer young carers and their families.

What guidance is available to support schools set up the appropriate systems?

Step 6: Setting up Systems to Identify, Assess and Support Young Carers provides key information about the different systems schools can implement to meet young carers' needs effectively.

It aims to make it as easy as possible for schools to prioritise which systems they will implement next, by categorising the systems into:

The basics
Beyond the basics
Best practice

The [peer support] group allowed me to talk in a safe place without being laughed at.
Young carer

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

What to do next

Once you have set up processes to identify, assess and support young carers, go to Step 7: Raising awareness of school staff about young carers.

Step 5: Acknowledging Young Carers in Principal School Documents

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff, supports schools incorporate the needs of young carers in their principal school documents.

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

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Friday, February 24, 2017 - 13:15

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It is vital that schools acknowledge young carers in their principal school documents and proactively communicate these to pupils, families and staff.

I really do thank [my supportive teachers] for helping me get my uni place and carry on the dream that I had for my careers and not let it get affected by my caring role.
Young carer

Doing so will support the creation of a whole school ethos where young carers and their families are respected and valued. It will also provide clarity about the roles and responsibilities of school staff in relation to young carers, and the type of support available to pupils and their families.

To achieve these benefits, schools will need to take a number of key actions:

Develop a whole school commitment for young carers.
Develop a school policy for young carers.
Revise existing policy and documents to reflect young carers’ needs.

What guidance is available for schools?

Step 5: Acknowledging Young Carers in Principal School Documents sets out the key ways schools can incorporate young carers’ needs into their principal school documents.

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

The following tools aims to make incorporating young carers' needs in principal school documents as easy as possible:

What to do next

Once you have acknowledged young carers in your principal school documents go to Step 6: Setting up Systems to Identify, Assess, and Support Young Carers.

Step 4: Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers, supports schools to introduce a Young Carers School Operational Lead.

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Step 4, Tool 1: Young carers school operational lead duties checklist

Date Revised:

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - 11:45

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It would help me if my school understood [the] pressures at home...with extra help I could achieve better grades.
Young carer

To ensure the effective management of the school's provision for young carers, it is crucial that each school's senior leadership team (SLT) identifies a member of staff who will act as a Young Carers School Operational Lead in the school.

This member of staff should understand young carer issues and be clearly identifiable to pupils, families and staff.

What is the role of the Young Carers School Operational Lead?

As part of their wider role within the school. the Young Carers School Operational Lead should:

Manage the school's provision for young carers and their families on a day-to-day basis.
Act as the main contact for young carers and their families in the school.
Advise and support school staff about how to identify and support young carers.
Be the contact point for external agencies, such as the school nurse and local young carers' service,and feeder/linked schools.

To find out more about the role of the Young Carers School Operational Lead download Step 4 Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

This tool supports schools by setting out the actions that need to be carried out at an operational level to ensure the effective identifcation and support of young carers in schools.

Schools will be at different stages in the journey to implementing support for young carers and to enable Young Carers Operational Leads to prioritise, these actions are categorised into three categories:

The basics
Building on the basics
Best practice

What to do next

Once you have a Young Carers School Operational Lead in place, go Step 5: Acknowledging Young Carers in Principal School Documents.

Step 3: Securing Commitment of School Leaders

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff, provides key information and tools to help you gain the commitment of your school leaders to identify and support young carers.

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

I work in:

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

Date Revised:

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - 10:30

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Effective identification and support of young carers in schools requires the development of a whole school approach where young carers and their families feel safe and confident to access support.

It is therefore vital that your senior leadership team (SLT) and governing body understand young carer issues and are committed to meeting their needs.

What do school leaders need to know?

Once identified young carers have become more confident to reach out for support. As a consequence, attendance has increased as have their school grades.
Young Carers School Operational Lead

How the identification and support of young carers forms part of their wider roles and responsibilities
Why the commitment of school governors and senior leadership teams is vital to effective identification and support of young carers in schools. main contact for young carers.

To find out more about the securing the commitment of your school leaders download Step 3: Securing Commitment of School Leaders

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

Tools available to support you to secure the commitment of a school governing body and senior leadership team include:

What to do next

Once you have secured the commitment of your school leaders, go to Step 4: Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead.

Step 2: Reviewing your School's Provision for Young Carers

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff, supports schools to review their current provision for young carers.

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

Date Revised:

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - 09:45

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When I found out about her family situation I suddenly understood when she was often late...I was amazed at just how well she had done but frustrated that we as staff had not known.
Teacher

Whether your school has been developing systems to identify and support young carers over many years, or is developing or just starting to develop its provision for young carers, a key next step to using this Step-by-step Guide is carrying out a baseline review.

By reviewing your school's current provision for young carers, you will identify strengths, weaknesses and priorities, and agree actions to be taken forward.

What guidance is available to support schools to carry out this review?

Step 2: Reviewing your School's Provision for Young Carersprovides introductory information about:

The key members of staff to involve in this review
The tools available to support schools to review its provision for young carers
How to achieve best practice when reviewing provision

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

The following tools have been developed with school staff to support you to review your provision:

What to do next

Once you have secured the commitment of your school leaders, go to Step 3: Securing commitment of school leaders.

Step 1: Gaining an understanding about young carers

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff, provides key information about young carers for schools.

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Prevention Wellbeing Health inequalities Carer awareness Identifying carers

Date Revised:

Friday, February 24, 2017 - 14:15

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As a young carer you often have many worries which can limit concentration. Young carers should have someone there within school to talk to about their caring roles with confidence and trust.
Young carer

Young carers experience particular challenges that impact on their capacity to achieve and enjoy their time at school.

To ensure your school's provision meets the needs of young carers, an essential first step is to develop your knowledge about young carer issues.

What guidance is available to help me learn about young carer issues?

Step 1 Gaining an Understanding About Young Carersprovides essential information for schools about:

Who young carers are.
The types of activities their caring role might involve.
The likely number of young carers in each school and why so many are hidden.
The potential impacts of caring responsibilities on a pupil’s achievement and wellbeing.
Why a whole school model of identification and support is essential to meeting young carers’ needs.
Government’s and Ofsted’s approaches to young carers.
Young carers’ rights.

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

I have witnessed young carers grow from strength to strength once they are identified and support is in place.
A Young Carers School Operational Lead

What to do next

Once you have built your understanding about young carers, go to Step 2: Reviewing your school's provision for young carers.

Supporting Young Carers in School: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff

Designed with teachers and schools staff, this resource helps make the identification and support of young carers in schools as easy as possible.

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Mental Health Physical illness

Date Revised:

Friday, February 24, 2017 - 13:15

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My caring role...sets me back and means I can't reach my potential.
Young carer

Welcome to Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-teaching Staff. This resource has been written in association with teachers and school staff to help make the identification and support of young carers in schools as easy as possible.

It forms part of the Young Carers in Schools programme, a free England wide initiative making it as easy as possible for schools to support young carers and awarding good practice.

Together with the programme's free webinars, videos, case studies and the termly e-Newsletter , the Step-by-step Guide will help schools achieve the Young Carers in Schools Award. To start working towards an Award, please see our 5 key actions to getting involved.

Who is the Step-by-step Guide for?

The Step-by-step Guide is for use in secondary and primary schools in England but could be easily adapted for use in the rest of the UK.

What does the Step-by-step Guide offer your school?

Identifying early means an improvement in achievement, attainment and wellbeing, if the right support is offered.
Young Carers School Operational Lead

Many schools are delivering exceptional practice, making a real and positive difference to the young carers they support. Other schools have told us they want to achieve these excellent outcomes, but don't know where to begin. This Step-by-step Guide sets out ten key steps to implementing effective identification and support for young carers in schools:

Like other aspects of school life, the development of effective support for young carers is reliant on regular reviews of current provision and the identification of areas for continual improvement. The steps are therefore a cyclical process, which schools should engage with throughout the school year.

Schools are perfectly placed to offer the support these children and young people need. The… Step-by-step Guide will act as an invaluable resource for schools in providing the right assistance to pupils as and when they need it.
Edward Timpson, Children and Families Minister

Making it as easy as possible for schools to support young carers

The Step-by-step Guide has been developed with teachers and school staff who understand the pressures that schools face to deliver the very wide range of demands placed upon them. As a result it is designed to be as flexible and helpful as possible.

Each step is accompanied by key information and practical tools, which schools can use and adapt to suit their school structure and local circumstances.

Not all schools will need to use all the tools included. Some may find it more helpful to choose those that will help enhance the support they already offer to young carers and their families while other will want to simply start and build their activities over a number of years.

Find out more

To find out more, and for a full list of the tools accompanying each step, download the introduction to the Step-by-step Guide. Other tools and resources that you may find useful are included in our helpful additional resourcesguide.

Let us know if you use the Step-by-step Guide

Your feedback about the Step-by-step Guide is invaluable to us. It will steer any future resources we create and help ensure that our guidance and tools reflect the busy realities of school life and make the identification and support of young carers in schools as easy as possible.

If you have read or used any part of the Step-by-step Guide, and are happy to give us your feedback, please let us know by filling in this form.

Improving Health Outcomes for Older and Young Adult Carers

In 2011 Carers Trust was selected by People’s Health Trust to coordinate the delivery of health related projects managed by carers centres, Crossroad Care schemes and young carers services across England, Scotland and Wales.

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Wellbeing

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Whole UK

Date Revised:

Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - 14:00

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An Evaluation of the Improving Health Outcomes Programme

As part of its Healthy Places, Healthy People funding programme, carers centres and schemes in locations pre-determined by People’s Health Trust were invited to submit project proposals detailing how they would spend funding to develop effective services to improve health outcomes for either older carers (those aged 60 plus) or young adult carers (aged 16–24) from socio-economically disadvantaged communities.

Programme aim

The overarching aim of the programme was to improve the physical health and emotional wellbeing of carers across England, Scotland and Wales.

For older carer projects, Network Partners’ aims were divided into two categories, with Network Partners opting for either category:

Increase the opportunities for older carers to access activities aimed at improving health outcomes.
Increase the ability of older carers to access breaks from their caring role and improve the emotional, physical and/or financial health of older carers.

For all young adult carers projects, the specific aims were:

Improve the life chances of young adult carers.
Increase access to and/or develop support structures to enable young adult carers to move from appropriate children’s services to adult services.
Increase the support available for young adult carers to make informed choices about their own physical and mental health.

31 Network Partners were awarded funding in 30 geographical areas. 23 Network Partners planned to work on developing services for older carers, and eight Network Partners aimed to work with young adult carers. The grant available for each area was £40,000 for 12 months during 2012–13.

Evaluation

The evaluation of the programme concentrated on the project design and the impacts created for the beneficiaries supported by the projects. It also looked at the wider impact of the grant funding on the Network Partners, in particular exploring how grant funding can be used to address five wider issues that Network Partners are facing:

strategic
demand
asset
preventative and
carer-led challenges.

Download the improving health outcomes - impact report.

Improving the Health of Carers:
A Casebook of Projects

This report takes an in-depth look at nine projects funded through the Improving Health Outcomes programme.

The report highlights the practical lessons from these projects about how to set up and deliver local support, and what to consider in the separate stages of work.

Download the improving health outcomes - casebook.

Older Carers Voices and Stories: The Personal Impact of Funding

This report aims to bring together older carers’ thoughts and feelings about dedicated services and activities delivered by Carers Trust Network Partners under the Improving Health Outcomes programme and the positive impact it has had on their lives.

Opinions have been gathered from 39 older carers who attended six focus groups held with Network Partners at Redbridge Carers Support Service, Derbyshire Carers Association, Helensburgh and Lomond Carers, Hillingdon Carers, North Argyll Carers Centre and Carer Support Wiltshire.

Older carer’s personal views about targeted services and activities, which would not have existed without the financial support of People’s Health Trust, are combined with five real life case studies. These provide a taste of the challenges older carers have to face on a daily basis and how just a little funding and support can have a significant and often life changing impact on carers’ health and wellbeing.

Download improving health outcomes - older carers voices and stories.

Downloads:

Improving Health Outcomes - Impact Report

Improving Health Outcomes - Impact Report (Summary)

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Promotional

Carer-friendly pharmacy resources

Resources to help community pharmacies support carers.

Area of Care:

Primary Care

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Wellbeing Carer awareness Identifying carers

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Primary care Pharmacy Services Commissioning

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