Learn Sheffield are working with Sheffield Young Carers to improve the identification of young carers and our ability to understand their outcomes. The project team have produced an update to share, which includes some next steps for settings.
Learn Sheffield are working with Sheffield Young Carers to improve the identification of young carers and our ability to understand their outcomes. We believe that these two things will improve the support that can be provided to children and young people in the city and enable us to better understand the barriers and challenges that young carers in our city face. More information about this project can be found here: https://www.learnsheffield.co.uk/Projects/Young-Carers-Project
We are seeking to ensure that:
- All Sheffield settings are recording any identified young carers in their census return in January 2025.
- All Sheffield settings have a good understanding of how to identify and support young carers in their community.
To produce accurate data, we need schools to record their young carers in the spring census, wherever possible. The spring census date is Thursday 16 January 2025, with a return date of Wednesday 12 February 2025.
Through our work on this project so far, we have determined that the under-reporting of young carers is not as simple as staff not knowing how to record young carers on their MIS systems and the census. Instead, there are a number of barriers to identifying young carers, including staff capacity, a lack of dedicated roles, disparate knowledge and under-sharing of this between staff, and unfamiliarity of pupils around the topic.
Through their work, Sheffield Young Carers have noted that not enough school staff are aware of young carers and how to support them, and young people then don’t know who to ask for help. These factors contribute to young carers often suffering in silence and struggling with their schoolwork and attendance. It’s crucial that school staff are identifying these pupils so they can offer them the tailored support they need.
The young carers recorded on the 2024 school census were from just 28% of schools. If the numbers from these schools were replicated equally across the remaining 72% of schools, then the number of young carers identified through the school census would increase by 257% in England.
Young carers face a unique set of challenges that can significantly disrupt their education and put them at a disadvantage compared to their peers. In addition to being late to school or struggling to complete homework due to the demands on their time, many young carers are preoccupied with worries about the well-being of the person they care for, making it difficult for them to concentrate in class. This emotional strain and tiredness can lead to distractions, underperformance, and increased anxiety. These factors make young carers particularly vulnerable, and without proper support, they can face significant barriers to their educational success and personal development. Schools must view them as a vulnerable group, ensuring they receive the same care and consideration given to other pupils who need extra support.
To support young carers, schools need to identify them and provide appropriate, flexible support proactively. This applies to primary and secondary schools, special schools, and alternative provision providers. This will enable a much better picture of the number of young carers in schools and also provide opportunities to use this data to monitor the attendance and attainment of young carers.
Our shared ambition is to have all young carers in the city recorded in our census data, so that we can analyse them as we would any protected characteristic or group.
How schools can help
- Start to prepare for the census now
- Have conversations with your staff, so that they are all aware of the definition of a young carer and clues to look for in identifying potential young carers
- Make sure staff know the internal procedures for identifying young carers
- Ensure all children at your school are aware of what a young carer is and does, and the support that’s available for them if they are one.
We will continue to work on improving young carers census data. If you have any suggestions on how we can help with this or any questions you have that could form the basis on an FAQ, please send these through to enquiries@learnsheffield.co.uk
Once you have identified young carers in your school, we recommend that you support them to get a young carer’s assessment (this is a legal right given to all unpaid carers from the Care Act 2014). If the assessment shows they need further support, please refer them to us. SYC supports young and young adult carers aged 8-25 through one-to-one and group support, holiday activities, and support for their families.
You can find out more information about this work Sheffield Young Carers do here: https://www.sheffieldyoungcarers.org.uk/