In March 2024, a new Young Carers Covenant was launched. It contains ten key changes that will improve young carers’ life chances and secure a fair future for all young carers and young adult carers. Individuals and organisations can sign up and pledge an action or actions to help make the outcomes a reality.

Why should I sign up? There are at least one million young carers aged 17 and under in the UK and over 600,000 young adult carers aged 18 to 25. Many young carers and young adult carers feel they are missing out on large parts of their childhood. Caring can also have a serious impact on a young person’s ability to learn and their long-term future. Worse still, many children and young people are left to cope alone, often with little or no support.

This should not be happening in the UK in the 21st century. No young person should see their life chances suffer because of their caring role at home. It’s time we all came together to make a change and create a fair future for all young carers and young adult carers. The Young Carers Covenant has been developed to help all of us - from governments to schools, employers to charities, health services to businesses – do exactly that.

How to sign up: You can find full information about the Covenant here, including detailed guidance with examples of the actions you could take.

We hope that you will join us and other individuals and organisations in signing up! Please let us know if you do - we’d love to share this on our social media/website. If you have any questions about this before signing up, please email ceo@sheffieldyoungcarers.org.uk.

Sheffield Young Carers Covenant Actions: We’re signing the Covenant for Carers Week 2024. We’ve spoken to young people in our Action Group, our staff, and our trustees to think about all the actions we pledge to take. One action will be promoting the Covenant and encouraging other organisations to sign up. You can see all the other actions we came up with by clicking on each outcome below. Hopefully it will give you ideas for an action or two that you could take when you sign up!

Here is what we are committing to for each of the Covenant outcomes…

We will…
- Coordinate and grow our Young Carers School Network and Young Carers College Network to ensure local providers are aware, trained and have resources to identify and support young carers in their settings.
- Offer free young carers awareness training and resources to education providers in the city.
- Work in partnership with other relevant agencies to ensure the best possible education opportunities and outcomes for young carers in our city (e.g. Higher Education Progression Partnership (HEPP), Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Sheffield, Learn Sheffield).
- Ensure that young carers needs are considered in the city-wide strategic attendance group when developing local attendance policy and strategy.
- Work with education settings and policy makers until every school has a Young Carer Lead with enough time and training to do the role well.
We will….
- Offer free young carers training to all professionals in the city (e-learning and multi-agency).
- Provide tools to help schools identify young carers early.
- Work with local health providers by providing training, developing of resources and working in partnership to support early identification.
- Coordinate Young Carers National Voice who are campaigning around early identification during 2024-25
We will…
- Offer respite opportunities to give young carers access to time for themselves.
- Administer an Activity Fund to give individual and groups of young carers access to a £300 respite fund.
- Work with schools and other providers to help them understand the needs of young carers to get breaks and time to themselves.
- Work with parents in our service to help them get support, so that their children’s caring responsibilities are reduced.
- Provide bus training to support young carers to have more independence to travel to leisure activities.
- Link with local leisure services to enable young carers to get free and discounted activities.
We will…
- Provide 1-2-1 support for young carers making choices for their education and future employment.
- Work to get young carers identified and supported in education settings, which will also help them in their futures careers.
- Work with HEPP to give young carers access to local raising-aspiration programmes.
- Engage with the Carers Trust Young Carers Futures programme.
- Liaise with education settings/employers if young carers/young adult carers are having difficulties in their education/employment.
- Provide information and offer free young carers training to the local post-16 providers network.
- Offer our Action Group opportunities to build their skills and experiences, and to complete ASDANs, to support them in accessing future employment/training.
- Offer our Action Group the opportunity to influence the city’s strategic carers implementation plan, which includes education and employment representatives
We will…
- Do safety planning with young people in our service and provide a template for other services in the city to do this with young carers in their settings.
- Run sessions on online safety, healthy relationships, safety in the home, and drug and alcohol awareness with young people in our service
- Advocate with local services if young people are experiencing housing or neighbourhood safety issues.
- Refer families for Safe and Well checks from the fire service where relevant.
- Provide resources to schools to use in assemblies and lessons to raise awareness of young carers to all students with the aim of reducing bullying.
- Provide multi-agency safeguarding training on understanding the needs of young carers.
- Sit on the Sheffield Children’s Safeguarding Executive Group to ensure young carers and their families are considered in policies and developments relating to safeguarding in our city.
- Work with Sheffield City Council to write specific guidance about young carers to enhance the city’s new Thresholds of Needs safeguarding framework.
- Provide safe and appropriate methods of transport where young carers and their families require it to access our support.
We will…
- Work with the local hospital trusts to ensure young carers are consulted when a family member is admitted to and discharged from hospital.
- Work with Sheffield City Council around transitions assessment, so that young carers feel able to make the choices they wish in education and in their futures.
- Work with the local FE and HE providers to ensure young carers are supported and encouraged to continue their education if they wish to do so.
- Provide 1-2-1 support for young carers making choices about their current situation and their futures.
We will…
- Offer direct support to c.200 young carers and 40 families each year.
- Use a whole family approach to reduce the impact of caring through the family accessing support to meet their needs.
- Provide free training and resources for other services in the city to provide 121 and group support for young carers.
- Run a programme for families impacted by parental substance misuse.
- Fund a counselling service for young carers in need of therapeutic support.
We will…
- Provide a range of 121 and group activities focused on improving young carers wellbeing
- Link with local leisure services to enable young carers to get free and discounted activities
- Fund a counselling service for young carers in need of therapeutic support
- Provide bus training to support young carers to have more independence to travel to leisure activities.
We will…
- See actions around education and employment
- Provide all our activities to young carers for free and provide transport or pay back public transport costs.
- Work with families of young carers to ensure they are accessing all the benefits and other funds they are entitled to.
- Administer an Activity Fund to give individual and groups of young carers access to a £300 respite fund.
- Link with local leisure services to enable young carers to get free and discounted activities.
- Give out the local Carers Card to young carers in our service and via schools so they get discounts across the city.
We will…
- Work with the city council and other partners to improve access to/impact of Young Carers Assessments in the city
- Work with the local hospital trusts to ensure young carers rights are being met in accordance with legislation, including the Health and Care Act 2023
- Coordinate our Action Group and Young Carers National Voice to enable young carers to get the skills, confidence and opportunities to campaign together to have their rights met
- Be partners in academic research to ensure there is robust evidence around young carers needs and rights.