How-to-guide

Young Carers in Schools. Step 4: Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead

Resource title: Young Carers in Schools. Step 4: Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead
Published: 2017 Author: Carers Trust

Downloads

This step, taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and non-teaching staff, supports schools to introduce a Young Carers School Operational Lead.

To ensure the effective management of the school's provision for young carers, it is crucial that each school's senior leadership team (SLT) identifies a member of staff who will act as a Young Carers School Operational Lead in the school.

This member of staff should understand young carer issues and be clearly identifiable to pupils, families and staff.

Key points

As part of their wider role within the school, the Young Carers School Operational Lead should:

Manage the school's provision for young carers and their families on a day-to-day basis.
Act as the main contact for young carers and their families in the school.
Advise and support school staff about how to identify and support young carers.
Be the contact point for external agencies, such as the school nurse and local young carers' service,and feeder/linked schools.

To find out more about the role of the Young Carers School Operational Lead download Step 4 Introducing a Young Carers School Operational Lead

This step is taken from Supporting Young Carers in Schools: A Step-by-step Guide for Leaders, Teachers and Non-Teaching Staff. The steps from this guide are designed to be used in order.

Tools

Step 4, Tool 1: Young carers school operational lead duties checklist

This tool supports schools by setting out the actions that need to be carried out at an operational level to ensure the effective identification and support of young carers in schools.

Schools will be at different stages in the journey to implementing support for young carers and to enable Young Carers Operational Leads to prioritise, these actions are categorised into three categories: