Young carers facing huge challenge during lockdown

LOCKDOWN is a huge challenge for young carers, says a Coventry academic - and authorities still don’t fully recognise the role many children play in looking after their family, it is claimed.

Michael Wyness, from the University of Warwick’s Centre for Education Studies, says that the true number of children caring for family members isn’t known because of the stigma attached.

Plus, some youngsters and their families mistrust the authorities, meaning that they may not reveal their true circumstances. He added: “Despite an increase in awareness of and support for young carers, there is still limited state recognition of the role that many thousands of children and young people in England play in meeting the emotional and physical needs of chronically ill parents.”

Official data suggests that 166,000 children in England have significant caring responsibilities for parents with a range of physical and psychological conditions.

Dr Wyness points to a number of ways that lockdown is raising new challenges for young carers - and shared a number of contacts where young carers can get advice. There are links to these at the bottom of the page.

Dr Wyness points to five reasons why the coronavirus lockdown is raising new challenges for young carers. These are:

Health support: Regular and routine medical support for chronically ill parents living at home may become difficult to sustain. Where an increasing proportion of medical work is diverted to the virus, health support within the community may become less frequent. Children may have to take on more caring responsibilities within the home for their chronically ill parents.

Shielding: The lockdown will have particular implications for vulnerable categories of parents at home that need to be ‘shielded’ from others.

The parents of young carers are likely to come into this category. Parents rely on support from their children for certain things, in other respects chronically ill parents are still able to provide for their children.

Parents and children build up a shared responsibility over time for various aspects of each other’s care. Shielding disrupts this routine, putting children under particular pressure to minimise contact with others. This could also have negative effects on young carers’ mental health.

Shopping becomes a bigger task: Young carers are used to popping out for small amounts of food and medicine to the local corner shop and pharmacy within walking distance of their homes.

While many of these shops remain open, young carers will also have to travel longer distances to supermarkets for food and medicine.

Moreover, children will have to follow the strict rules on shopping, sometimes with minimal instruction from adults. This will add more stress to children with caring responsibilities, highly sensitised to the vulnerable status of their parents.

School: Research suggests that young carers have more difficulty attending school, completing their homework and maintaining friendship networks than children with no caring responsibilities.

However, young carers continue to juggle their caring responsibilities with their schooling and socialising.

The school becomes an important social focal point for young carers: support groups in some schools, set up by teachers and young carers, value the routine social contact that children have with their peers and friends.

The closure of schools due to Covid-19 has temporarily suspended valuable face-to-face social engagement with others and young carers will struggle to maintain their school work at home without consistent adult support.

Support: In the absence of statutory support for young carers, local organisations and charities are often the main source of advice and respite.

Many of the charities will provide information and support through their websites.

Nevertheless, there is now no opportunity to physically interact with other young carers and gain valuable time outside caring and schooling for rest and relaxation.

Dr Wyness recommends that people in contact with young carers ensure that there is a virtual support network in place to support them.

Young carers can then continue to talk to medical personnel, teachers and people in the voluntary sector. Neighbours can help by making regular contact - even if that’s just a friendly wave from the window or a telephone call. They can also make sure young carers and their parents are able to get food and essential medicines.

Information is available from: Carers UK, Children’s Society, Warwickshire Young Carers, Coventry Young Carers Service.