Young Carers Project

A young carer is a child or young person who provides substantial unpaid care for a relative who has disabilities, long-term physical illnesses, mental health difficulties and/or drug or alcohol issues. We agree with our colleagues at Sheffield Young Carers that it is the right of every young carer to be recognised in their role and have the same opportunities as other children and young people of a similar age.

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 also enable us to better understand the barriers and challenges those young carers in our city face.

We believe that young carers are significantly under identified in national data.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry into Young Carers and Young Adult Carers in 2023 suggested that approximately 10% of all pupils will provide high or very high levels of care – equating to an average of two or three young carers in every class.

Analysis of census data in January 2024 tells us that the proportion of identified and recorded young carers nationally is currently less than 1% and that, in Sheffield, this figure is even lower.

We know in Sheffield for example that the January 2024 census data above was based on 334 children and young people being recorded as a young carer. The local young carers register (held by Sheffield City Council) had 879 recorded young carers in July 2024. This suggests that there is a disconnect between management information systems in settings and the actual number of identified young carers in Sheffield. If 879 young carers had been recorded the overall proportion would increase from 0.39% to 1.03% in Sheffield.

Our working assumption, however, is that even this figure would only capture a fraction of the children and young people providing high or very high levels of care.  We therefore have only a partial understanding of the outcomes of young carers and the nature and intersectionality of the cohort. For example, the 2022/23 national data suggested that 39% of young carers are persistently absent from school, almost twice the rate of their peers, but we know that this may be based on a sample of less than one in ten of the actual cohort. Better and more complete analysis of the outcomes of young carers would help settings and those who support families to make the case for greater support.

In order to address these issues we are seeking, in the first phase of this project (in 2024/25) to ensure that:

1. All Sheffield settings are capturing any identified young carers in their census return in January 2025.

2. All Sheffield settings have a good understanding of how to identify and support young carers in their community.

We are working with Sheffield Young Carers, Sheffield City Council and Sheffield’s education settings to ensure that any identified young carers are included in both the city register and the census return of their setting. We will develop guidance to support this during the autumn of 2024.

In 2025 we will work with our partners to increase everyone’s understanding of how to identify and support young carers in Sheffield.