Helping schools be ready for young carers being added to the school census
From spring 2023, young carers are for the first time going to be included on the school census return. This will provide a much better picture of the number of young carers in schools, but also presents opportunities to use this data to monitor attendance and attainment of young carers.
Who are young carers?
A young carer is someone under the age of 18 who looks after someone who has a disability, illness, mental health condition, or drug or alcohol addiction. As well as those caring for parents, they may also look after brothers, sisters or elderly relatives too. Research suggests that 10% of all children are providing high or very high levels of care. Locally it is estimated that there will be one or two young carers in every class.
Through the work of Centre 33 and Caring Together, over 300 schools across Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Norfolk have a young carers champion so that young carers in the school knows there is a trusted adult they can talk to if they are in need of support. A number of these schools also have a young carers’ agreement / policy / statement so that young carers and parents know what help is available if young carers need it.
Ahead of young carers being added to the school census for the first time in Spring 2023, Caring Together, Centre 33 and other young carer organisations in the area are setting a challenge to every school.
By the end of the academic year 2022-23, we would like as many schools as possible in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to:
- Attend Centre 33 training sessions to understand more about the young carers champion role
- Have a view to their school having a champion in place by the end of the academic year
This involves having a young carers policy / agreement in place so that every young carer knows what support is available to them in school.
Get in touch
If you have a young carers champion in your school but have not yet let Centre 33 know who it is, please email [email protected]
Support available
There is a lot of support available to schools looking for support with the young carers challenge. Please contact Centre 33 to find out more.
If you have any questions on Centre 33 training please contact [email protected]
Help us to make sure that every young carer in Cambridgeshire has someone they can talk to in school and knows what support is available to help them.
Resources
Click here to view resources available to schools
Template letter / email for young carers
Below is a template email which Ash, a young carer, put together so that other young carers could send to their school. Simply change the parts that are highlighted to personalise the content for you and your school, and then copy and paste into an email.
Click here to download the young carer email or letter template [Word, 55kB]
School letter / email for parents
Below is a template email that parents of young carers could send to their child’s school. Simply change the parts that are highlighted to personalise the content for you and your child’s school, and then copy and paste into an email (taking out the highlighting once you have put in your details).
Click here to download the parent email or letter template [Word, 49kB]
