Research shows that 1 in 12 children and young people are young carers: children and young people who help to look after someone at home who has a disability, an illness, a mental health condition or a drug or alcohol problem.
Lockdown is having a real impact on these children and young people: many are unable to take a break from their caring and they are all missing out on the support and distraction that school provides. Access to other services that young carers and their families rely on, including charities, social care workers and their wider family has also been reduced under lockdown.
Isolation for young people out of school
Many parents have been worrying about their children’s education, but for young carers who spend every day supporting an ill or disabled family member at home, school provides much more than a formal education. School is a distraction which provides respite from their daily caring responsibilities; it’s a chance to see friends and to do things other young people do. Sara, a young carer in Year 12 in Sheffield, helps care for her older sister. “Before the lockdown, I had school, I could go to school and take my mind off everything.”
The coronavirus lockdown has changed all of that, with the transition to ‘home schooling’ causing huge difficulties for many families. Young carers are one of the vulnerable groups that are still allowed to go to school, but as many are helping to look after family members with high risk conditions, they feel too scared to go to school in case they bring coronavirus back home.
Meet Sara
Sara’s older sister has epilepsy and tuberous sclerosis which causes tumours around her body, both of which mean she is particularly vulnerable to Covid-19. The family have had to be especially careful about going out of the house and, as her sister’s carer, Sara has been under a lot of mental strain. “You always have in your mind that something could go wrong ... it makes you on edge all the time.”
Sara is not alone: the pandemic has affected many young people’s mental wellbeing. In some households, especially where people were already struggling with mental health difficulties, tensions are building for everyone and there simply aren’t the usual escape routes or support systems available to help reduce the pressure.
Problems with free school meals
For many families on low incomes, free school meals are a vital provision to keep young people healthy and enable them to concentrate on their learning. When schools closed due to the pandemic on 20 March, families were forced to wait for Government school meal vouchers and many were unable to afford enough food. Some of the young people that we are supporting waited for over a month before receiving their vouchers, and even then, difficulties around where and how they could spend them caused further problems. The delay led to school staff driving round delivering emergency food parcels to some families and our staff referring others to foodbanks.
Before the pandemic, the financial situation for young carers was already worse than their peers. Research from the London School of Economics in 2018 suggests that poverty rates are higher than average for families with young carers.
Digital poverty and support
In addition, many young carers in Sheffield have struggled with a lack of digital access. Some families with several children have been trying to manage school work on a single mobile phone. Having little or no digital access has also compounded young carers’ isolation from their friends.
At the start of lockdown, one third of the young people that we were supporting did not have the right digital equipment to be able to do their school work from home. One family did not even have any paper and pens to write or draw with.
To address this serious issue, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, one of the UK's largest independent grant-giving organisations, supplied us with an emergency grant to provide young carers with laptops and WiFi access. With this money and with help from local Sheffield technology company Millgate, we have been able to equip 30 young people with the laptops and mobile WiFi access they needed to do their school work and stay connected with family and friends.
We’re continuing to provide young people and families with remote support by text, phone and group video chats, as well as linking them in to other vital services. However, with much of the support available to families during the pandemic being offered online, the issue of digital poverty in our city presents a very serious challenge.
To find out how you can help us to support young carers like Sara, please visit the ‘Support Us’ section of our website.
