Case Study: Covenant for young carers
Working with multiple stakeholders who interact with young carers to understand what “great” looks like
“I am feeling really optimistic and hopeful for our young carers. I’ve worked in this sector for a long time and this is the first time this is all coming together in this way.”
The problem
There are an estimated 700,000 young carers (<25 yo) living in the UK today, working incredibly hard to care for their loved ones - but they represent a largely forgotten community and often face significant disadvantage as a result. Many struggle with mental health, educational progress, or even having the time to simply be a young person. The rights and support given to young carers vary hugely between different local authorities, between England/Scotland/Wales, and sometimes even between schools in the same area.
The Carers Trust, as part of the wider Young Carers Alliance group, wanted to develop a Covenant for Young Carers to be published in time for the Young Carers Action Day 2024. This document aimed to constitute a promise from the nation that young carers and young adult carers will be treated fairly, to which employers and local authorities may pledge their commitment.
Our solution
The Carers Trust carried out a series of consultations with young carers over summer 2023, seeking their ideas on what was most important to them and how they could be better supported. Building on this foundation, Telescope designed a series of workshops to bring together a wide range of stakeholders who interact with young carers in different ways. From university support officers to nurses to people with their own experience of being a young carer, these participants brought a huge range of expertise, and our job was to draw out the key themes and challenges they had identified in the current system. We used a series of exercises to map the journey of different young carers, and to imagine what the future could look like for young carers. The richness of the insights could scarcely be captured in the Covenant document, so we shared all the details and ideas directly with the Carers Trust so they can take them forward into further action this year.
Outcomes
All our synthesis, analysis, and workshop outputs have come together into the Covenant for Young Carers, released on Young Carers Action Day on March 15th 2024. From the start, it was clear that for most people, it was mainly “useful to hear from different organisations and perspectives...it’s clear that partnership working is important”.
Many participants came up with their own actions off the back of the workshops, such as presenting the Covenant at mental health trust roadshows with young carers, setting up new workstreams around support for younger young carers (3-8yo), or reviewing the “best practice” advice provided by UCAS for universities.