Children's services
Councillors asked to continue supporting Walsall’s 314 young carers
Published on
Walsall Council’s Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee will be asked to continue supporting the borough’s 314 young carers at a meeting next week.
The committee, taking place on Monday 29 January 2024, includes a report which details how young carers are supported by the Early Help team at the council, what progress the service has made over the last year and what improvements are planned for the next twelve months.
Young carers are children and young people under the age of eighteen who provide regular and ongoing care and emotional support to a family member who is physically or mentally disabled or misuses substances.
Young carers help with a range of practical home tasks such as shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, overseeing medication, personal care and often look after younger siblings.
The report identifies 314 young carers in Walsall, 127 male and 187 female. 179 of Walsall’s young carers care for their parents.
The council works with key partners such as schools, healthcare organisations and cross-council teams to ensure young carers can benefit from a range of support to help them through their childhood. This help includes ensuring carers have the right support at school, professional and peer support, and fun activities and trips to give young carers the opportunity to enjoy themselves and make friends.
The service coordinates a young carers group, held once a month for two different age groups, which provides essential carer-to-carer time where young people can connect and talk with others in similar situation to themselves.
Young carers champions have also been identified across the borough in North, West, East and South locality areas and the council has worked closely with the Joseph Leckie Academy who peer mentor other schools. This allows schools to share good practice, ensure they are inclusive, and have appropriate support mechanisms in place for young carers.
The report outlines in summer 2023, the service was able to take 10 young carers away for the first time to a young carers’ festival, which gave them an opportunity to have fun away from their caring responsibilities. The trip included a camping experience, rock-climbing, and time for the carers to make friends from across the country.
The report identifies key priorities for the young carers service for 2024-2025. One of which is to strengthen links with adult social care, to ease the transition for those young carers who will become adult carers once they turn eighteen.
Other key priorities include: to continue the young carers champion programme, to deliver employability skills courses for young carers, to ensure all carers have support plans in place, and to continue to raise awareness of Walsall’s young carers.
“ The report outlines some of the amazing work the council is doing to support our young carers.
Young carers sacrifice so much of their own childhoods to support their nearest and dearest, so it’s important we support them as much as we can to help them thrive through their childhood.
It’s amazing to read some of the impacts this work has in helping our young carers. The report highlights one young carer who said going on a trip away with the Early Help team made them realise how much they matter as a carer, but also as an individual too, which I think summarises how important this work is perfectly.
Thank you to the council team who deliver this vital work, and thank you to our brilliant young carers in the borough. “
The committee will discuss this report on Monday 29 January 2024 at 6pm.
You can watch the meeting on the Walsall Council website.
