Young Adult Carers: Our Voice By Kira and Michael Introduce workshop. Hi my name is Michael and this is Kira. This is Jess our young adult carers worker but she’s not talking today for a change! Welcome to our workshop which we’ve called ‘young adult carers: our voice’. We have invited you all here today so that we can tell you who young adult carers are and what we need from you as professionals so that you can make a positive impact to our lives.

Who are young adult carers? Definition: ‘Young adult carers are young people aged 16-24 who carry out significant caring tasks and may assume levels of responsibility for a family member which would ordinarily be taken on by an adult.’ They might care for a brother, sister, mum, dad, grandparent or any family member they are close to with: An illness or disability. A mental health condition. Substance misuse issue. Explain that young adult carers could care for anyone in their family for multiple reasons. Examples include – sibling with autism, family member in a wheelchair, parent who drinks too much or has depression. Young carers are anybody who has to look after someone for any reason. However we are not just a definition. All young adult carers are different and we are here to put a face to the definition.

A day in the life of Kira 7:00: I wake up 7:25: I wake siblings up, get breakfast ready if Dad hasn’t 7:45: Go to school 8:15-15:30: School 16:00: Get home 16:00-18:00: Revision 18:00-23:00: Caring 23:00 (hopefully): Go to bed 7:25 – My siblings are quite lazy 8:15 – I do all my homework at school so that I can care in the evening and because it’s hard to do it at home because it’s not a great environment. 16:00 – I do want to hopefully pass my A-Levels – I need to get A*AA for Cambridge. Lots of work. 18:00 – May have to sit with mum, talk through the day, make sure she takes her pills, make sure she doesn’t do anything reckless, help her bathe, help her walk around 23:00 – Depends on the day

A day in the life of Michael 8AM – Get up and make mum breakfast, give mum medication as. well as feed the pets – As well as have a shower. 9AM – 10AM – Persuade mum to get out of bed and get dressed. 11AM – 12PM – Go shopping (Weekly food shop or clothes etc) 1PM – 4PM – Complete household chores such as washing, ironing cleaning etc 5PM – 6PM – Make my way to college for evening maths class. 6:30PM – 9PM – Evening maths class 10PM – Get home and short out mums medication for bed and make sure she is happy to go to sleep or wants to talk about her problems before bed. 11PM – I have dinner and go to bed. 8AM – Get up and make mum breakfast, give mum medication as. well as feed the pets – As well as have a shower. 9AM – 10AM – Persuade mum to get out of bed and get dressed. 1AM – 12PM – Go shopping (Weekly food shop or clothes etc) 1PM – 4PM – Complete household chores such as washing, ironing cleaning etc 5PM – 6PM – Make may way to college for evening maths class. 6:30PM – 9PM – Evening maths class 10PM – Get home and short out mums medication for bed and make sure she is happy to go to sleep or wants to talk about her problems before bed. 11PM – I have dinner and go to bed.

This Is The Title Slide And one more thing.... We asked other young adult carers what messages they wanted us to get across in this workshop and one suggestion was (read out above). It’s really important to us that we aren’t pitied and sympathy does not help. (Show video). We think you will agree that some of the things in that video are not helpful and you would be surprised at some of the things people say to us. So please please please don’t tell us to: (Kira read out and Michael write them up) 1 -Don’t worry about it – OF COURSE IM GOING TO WORRY ABOUT MY MUM 2 - Put yourself first – EASIER SAID THAN DONE 3 - They will snap out of it – THERES A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MENTAL ILLNESS AND JUST BEING SAD AND THATS NOT HELPFUL 4 - Just take a break – CARING IS A FULL TIME JOB AND I CANT ALWAYS TAKE A BREAK WHEN I NEED ONE. 5 - It’s not your place to worry about that – THAT DOESN’T MEAN IM NOT GOING TO WORRY ABOUT IT, WHO IS SUPPOSED TO? IT AFFECTS ME TO. We don’t need you to feel sorry for us and if we talk to you we just want you to listen. This Is The Title Slide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

To summarise…. Our situation is out of our control but we are trying our best. There is more to us than our caring role hence the YOUNG ADULT before carer. Listen to us and don’t show us pity. When we ask for help it’s because we need it! We are BUSY not lazy!

Confidence Building Workshops Caring Counts programme NEW! Young Adult Carers Service @ Glos Young Carers Support for carers aged 17-24 Activities & Confidence Building Workshops 1-1 support A lot of my 1-1 work has been supporting young adult carers to re-engage in education or employment after a long period of being NEET. 1 in 20 young carers miss school regularly and this turns into a huge cycle. As a result a lot of the young people I’m working with have developed crippling social anxiety so just some of them out of the house has been a big achievement. Over the next few months will be developing our partnership with Carers Glos to make sure there is a smooth transition between young person and adult services. Caring Counts programme Steering Group

1-1 support Emotional support Social anxiety Job seeking Getting back into education Relationships Debt management Applying for benefits Stress management Everybody else gives up on me and I’m glad you haven’t. It’s really nice to have someone to talk to that listens to me (young adult carer)

CARING COUNTS

ACTIVITIES & WORKSHOPS Talk through activities these plus ‘time for me’ stress management workshop and mocktail course + first aid course.

Why refer? Because we can help! 68% of young carers experience bullying at school and 39% said that nobody in their school was aware of their caring role (The Princess Royal Trust for Carers, 2010). Young adult carers aged between 16 and 18 years are twice as likely to be not in education, employment, or training (NEET) (Audit Commission, 2010).