Your young carer assessment

A young carer assessment will help you to voice your feelings about what it is like for you to be a young carer and what your needs are.

An assessment will help make sure that you are listened to, especially about decisions that affect you. It will help you work out what help you need and then plan how to get the right help from the right people.

Young carer assessments help to make sure that young carers are not left with caring tasks that are too much for someone of their age to deal with. They look at the needs of everyone in the family, particularly the person or people being cared for.

Once the assessment is complete, if the young carer is eligible for support, the local authority must provide it. Even if the young carer does not meet the criteria for support, the local authority may still be able to help.

Young carers can refuse the offer of an assessment. If they do, young carers organisations may still be able to offer them help but it may be more limited without an assessment.

What’s included in a young carer assessment?

The young carer assessment includes lots of different information about your circumstances and caring role. It will cover: 

• the care you provide to the person you look after and the impact your caring has on your wellbeing and day-to-day life.
• how able and willing you are to provide care.
• whether the responsible authority thinks it is appropriate for you, as a child or young person, to be a carer for the person you care for.
• emergency and future care planning, including any arrangements that are in place.
• what will help you to continue to care and have a life alongside caring, and to improve your own health and wellbeing.
• support available to you if you live in a different local authority area from the person you care for.
  whether support should be provided to give you a break from caring.
• support available to you locally.
• any support which the responsible authority intends to provide to you.
• how your young carer assessment will be reviewed.

Once you are 18, your young carer assessment will continue until you are given an adult carer support plan. If you don’t want to continue providing care, you can choose not to have an adult carer support plan.

You will normally be given a copy of your young carer assessment, unless there is a reason that this would not be appropriate.

For example, if the person you care for hasn’t given consent to share sensitive medical information. You can also ask for your assessment to be shared with another person.

Who will carry out my young carer assessment?

If you decide that you want a young carer assessment, the person who will help is likely to be your social worker or another professional that you feel comfortable with.

It’s important that you have a say about who you would like to help you to complete your assessment. For example, you may want to ask someone you trust from a young carers organisation, a charity or your school.

Understanding your rights

It is important that you understand all the information in your assessment. It is the job of the person who made it with you to explain it to you.

You have the right to see the information in your assessment and, if you are not happy with what it says, to ask for it to be changed.