Good Practice

Legislation into Practice: Making the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Care Act 2014 a Reality for Young Carers

Resource title: Legislation into Practice: Making the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Care Act 2014 a Reality for Young Carers
Published: 2018    Author: Carers Trust

A resource for local authorities working with schools to identify and support young carers. It sets out how using the Young Carers in Schools programme supports local authorities to ensure they fulfil their statutory duties as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Care Act 2014.

Key points

  • Local authorities must take ‘reasonable steps’ (Children and Families Act) to identify young carers in their area who have support needs. Commissioning schools work using the nationally recognised Young Carers in Schools programme – as part of services for young carers – is one effective way to take these reasonable steps.
  • This toolkit can help local authorities consider means of embedding Young Carers in Schools in collaboration with schools.
  • Local authorities have identified the following as among the benefits to commissioning local schools’ engagement:
    • Increased, and earlier, identification.
    • Better Ofsted inspections.
    •  Improved family working and/or support.
    • Improved attainment.

This resource supports the case for the effective and economic ways that local young carer services offer both preventative and responsive support for young carers and their families. It also sets out the case to include the Young Carers in Schools programme in all aspects of educational support and collectively how this would support local authorities to ensure they fulfil their statutory duties as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and Care Act 2014. Most importantly, it will help achieve positive outcomes for young carers and their families.

There are too many examples of good practice to include them all in this resource, so where appropriate, links have been given to full evaluation reports and other relevant documentation. 

This resource has been designed with a primary focus on supporting commissioners and leads within local authorities with statutory responsibility for young carers. In the spirit of the whole system approach however, we would also hope that it would be of interest to other colleagues including the lead members for children’s services. It is for use in local authorities in England but could be easily adapted for use in the rest of the UK.