1. Step 8 Tool 3: Assembly/Tutorial activities
This PowerPoint aims to support schools to:
Raise pupil awareness about who young carers are and the sorts of caring responsibilities they may have.
Support pupils to recognise if they are a young carer and how to get help.
Help pupils understand the challenges faced by young carers and the impact, both positive and negative of being a young carer.
It contains information and activities for use in assemblies/tutor time. Accompanying notes for staff can be found below each slide. When using the slides with pupils/students, staff can select an activity or activities, and hide the rest of the slides.
N.B. Outside agencies, such as a local young carers service, may also be able to provide support or deliver an assembly themselves. The Young Carers School Operational Lead may wish to invite relevant local services to make presentations about topics, such as mental ill health.

2. Who are young carers?
This short film could be played in an assembly to show who young carers are and what young carers do.
Prior to showing the video, staff may wish to explain:
A young carer is someone under 18 who looks after someone at home who is ill, disabled, has a mental health condition or addiction problem.
Young carers are just young people with caring responsibilities. They look the same as everyone else but can lead very different lives!
Through the video you are going to hear from several young carers about their experiences.
Suggested questions staff could ask pupils/students during/after playing video include:
How many young carers are there in the UK?
ANSWER: A survey in 2010 by the BBC estimated there to be 700,000 young carers in the UK
How many young carers would you expect in a secondary school of 1000 pupils?
ANSWER: A recent survey estimated that 80 pupils in a secondary school of 1000 pupils would be young carers
Do any young carers spend more than 10 hours caring a week?
ANSWER: Yes. 1 in 3 young carers spend between 11–20 hours each week caring.
What might a young carer have to do?
ANSWER:
Practical tasks, such as cooking, housework and shopping.
Physical care, such as helping someone out of bed
Emotional support
Personal car, such as helping someone dress
Managing the family budget and collecting prescriptions
Helping someone give their medicine
Helping someone communicate
Looking after brothers and sisters.
What skills may they develop by being a young carer?
ANSWER: Many young carers have to develop key skills needed to support their family. These can include:
Financial skills
Cooking
Managing house
Ability to multi-task
Effective communication skills
Time management
Mature outlook
Compassion, consideration, determination, empathy, understanding and tolerance of disability and illness can also all be acquired through a caring role.
(At end) What things could YOU DO to make it a bit easier for a young carer?

3. A day in the life
This video ( was produced by Vinspire with The Children’s Society and shows a day in the life of a young carer compared with a student without caring responsibilities.
Prior to showing the video, staff may wish to explain:
A young carer is someone under 18 who looks after someone at home who is ill, disabled, has a mental health condition or addiction problem.
Young carers are just young people with caring responsibilities. They look the same as everyone else but can lead very different lives!
Through the video you are going to hear from several young carers about their experiences.
It is likely that there will be many young carers at every school.

4. What do young carers do?
Young carers often take on practical and/or emotional caring responsibilities that would normally be expected of an adult.
Practical tasks
Emotional Support
“As a young carer you often have many worries which can limit concentration.”
Young Carer
Physical Care
Looking after siblings
Personal Care
Household Management
This slide contains information about what young carers do.
You could show the video clips below prior to discussing the slide.
(an animation made by young carers showing tasks often carried out by young carers)
Key points to discuss after showing the video:
The tasks and level of caring undertaken by young carers can vary according to the nature of the illness or disability, the level and frequency of need for care, and the structure of the family as a whole.
These can include:
• Practical tasks – cooking, housework and shopping.
• Physical care – lifting or helping someone use the stairs.
• Personal care – dressing, washing, helping with toileting needs.
• Emotional support – listening, calming, being present.
• Managing the family budget, collecting benefits and prescriptions.
• Medication management.
• Looking after younger siblings.
• Helping someone communicate.
Young carers have to juggle caring roles ON TOP OF all the other responsibilities – such as their school work.
Medication Management
Interpretation

5. Potential impacts Caring can affect a young person’s: Physical health
“I have witnessed young carers grow from strength to strength once they are identified and support is in place.”
A Young Carers School Operational Lead
Caring can affect a young person’s:
Physical health
Emotional wellbeing
Socialisation
Stable environment
You may want to start this slide by showing this short video about the potential impacts of caring roles on young carers made by Young Carers at Kids in Peterborough:
Key points to discuss after showing the video:
Caring can affect a young person’s:
• Physical health: Young carers are often severely affected by caring through the night, repeatedly lifting a heavy adult, poor diet and lack of sleep.
• Emotional wellbeing: Stress, tiredness and mental ill-health are common for young carers.
• Socialisation: Young carers often feel different or isolated from their peers and have limited opportunities for socialising. A quarter of young carers in the UK said they were bullied at school because of their caring role (Carers Trust, 2013).
• Stable environment: Young carers can experience traumatic life changes such as bereavement, family break-up, losing income and housing, or seeing the effects of an illness or addiction on the person they care for.
Aspirations and life chances : Young carers have to juggle their caring role with other responsibilities, such as school work.
Young carers can also develop important life skills such as
Financial skills
Cooking
Managing house
Ability to multi-task
Effective communication skills
Time management
Mature outlook
Compassion, consideration, determination, empathy, understanding and tolerance of disability and illness can also all be acquired through a caring role.

6. Support in school
You should include a slide here on the types of support available in your school for young carers
You should also signpost to other relevant services, for example, the local young carers service

7.  Slides 7 - 9 contains key information about free online support for young carers.
Babble and Matter
Babble and Matter are Carers Trust’s UK wide help and support services, provided directly to young and young adult carers every day of the year. Staffed by a team of qualified social, youth and community workers, they support young and young adult carers with fast, age-appropriate and confidential support through helplines that are monitored daily and answered within 24 hours. They also offer the opportunity for young and young adult carers to discuss, comment, chat with and support one another through supervised and moderated message boards; and with live chatrooms to interact with staff, with other carers and with a variety of guest experts on subjects that matter to them.
Babble
Babble is for carers aged 18 and under. It focuses on fun, community and the chance to escape and be young for a while in the company of people who understand.
Matter
For carers aged 16–25
Enables young adults to post photos, update statuses, ask for help and share their thoughts and comments from wherever they are.
N.B. You can also send off for posters promoting Babble and Matter for your school noticeboard by ing

8. This is Babble…

9. This is matter…

10. Online support Young Carers in Focus
Young Carers in Focus
An online network that provides a safe, moderated space for young carers to use – to communicate, share their stories and campaign for the things that matter most to them.
Any school can join the YCiF network and invite the young carers they work with to create their own user account, through which they can blog, upload media and communicate with other young carers across the UK.

11. Make sure you finish your assembly/tutor time with details about who the young carer should talk to within the school if they think they are a young carer