Identification Practice of Young Carers in England – Review, Tips and Tools
Downloads
This resource is primarily aimed to be a guide for local government. The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on local authorities to take ‘reasonable steps’ to identify young carers in their area who have support needs. This resource sets out these duties and shows how local government can work with education, health and social care partners to take the steps necessary to increase identification of young carers.
This resource will also be useful to leaders, commissioners and professionals in health, education, voluntary and young carer services. In the full report, we have drawn out sections which may be of relevance to particular sectors.
Key points
The importance of:
- The Children and Families Act 2014 and Care Act 2014 – particularly whole system and whole family approaches.
- Commitment from multiple agencies and a fundamental change in organisational culture.
- Senior statutory leadership and integration into wider identification and support mechanisms.
- A national response which promotes transformational change and emphasises young carers as a priority both locally and nationally.
About the resource
The Carers Action Plan was published in June 2018, setting out a cross government programme of targeted work to support carers between 2018 and 2020. The Plan includes a series of commitments which seek to improve the identification of young carers, enable them to get early access to support services and so that safeguarding arrangements can be put in place quickly where necessary.
The Department of Health and Social Care commissioned Carers Trust, in collaboration with the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), to conduct a review into best practice in identifying young carers in England.
This project and its outcomes are intended to support joint working between the statutory and voluntary sectors, and wider communities, as part of developing carer-friendly communities, to achieve better identification and support of young carers. This Review, Tips and Tools evidences and shares best practice in identifying young carers.