Hampton College has once again been awarded Caring Together’s Carer Friendly Tick Award – Education, in recognition of their continued work to identify and support carers.
Lynda Johnson, wellbeing and early intervention coordinator, Hampton College, said the college had been supporting young carers for over ten years. She added, “We have worked with outside organisations and have been successful in gaining many awards. The Carer Friendly Tick Award – Education has been one award that has been important to us and has allowed us to improve our support of young carers even more. The renewal means that the support is not forgotten and embedded in school life.
“We were pleased to have again been awarded this and continue with not only supporting our Young Carers but also raining awareness across the school community.”
Hampton College in Peterborough received the Carer Friendly Tick award for reasons including there being a young carers group in college, a young carers notice board and there is a young carer folder and noticeboard in the staff room area.
During carers week, the college held a young carers breakfast on each morning to allow young carers to come together.
Andy McGowan, head of carer services at Caring Together, said: “We know that young carers found it particularly hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. They told us that their education and mental health had been negatively impacted during the various lockdowns and restrictions. Community projects that take the initiative to identify and support young carers who use their services is hugely important and makes a real difference.
“Therefore, we are very pleased to see Hampton College having their work to identify and support young carers recognised by the Carer Friendly Tick Award. We want to congratulate them on this and to thank them for the work that they are doing which brings real benefits to young carers and their families.”
Caring Together works to help raise the awareness of carers in the community with health, social care and education professionals, and employers.
The Carer Friendly Tick Award was originally developed for education by young carers from Caring Together’s Norfolk Young Carers Forum (NYCF) project. The success of this meant the awards have been rolled out across Norfolk, Peterborough and Cambridgeshire to now include community, health and employer awards.
These recognise the valuable work done in identifying and supporting carers carried out by each type of organisations. The Carer Friendly Tick is a set of standards which were designed with carers, and which are assessed entirely by carers.
For more information about the Carer Friendly Tick Award please visit caringtogether.org/carer-friendly-tick or email [email protected]
