Schools fail to meet young carers' needs, study finds

A survey of 295 young adult carers, aged 15 to 25, found half had received no additional support from their school to help them cope with their caring duties, while 42 per cent attended a school where there was no particular person who they could turn to for help.

Less than half of those surveyed thought the careers advice offered by their school was good and only one in five said it took their caring role into account.

Although 84 per cent of the young carers surveyed by the University of Nottingham said they intended to go on to further education, 41 per cent were unsure if they would be able to afford it and 24 per cent said they would not be able to.

The report on the study, commissioned by the Carers Trust, calls on schools to establish a clear framework of support for young carers, which is widely communicated to parents, and to appoint a named teacher to provide help and advice on academic studies to young carers.

A third of survey respondents said there was “no point” in telling schools about their caring responsibilities, prompting the report’s authors, Dr Joe Sempik and Professor Saul Becker, to recommend schools develop better systems for identifying who young carers are.

Regular reviews of the impact that being a young carer has on their educational performance and attendance would also help to personalise support, it adds.

“Schools should record ‘absence due to caring role’ as a specific category so that data can be collected and statistics can be analysed,” the report suggests.

The challenges that being a young carer brings to a young person’s school life are also highlighted in the report: less than half said they enjoyed school, a quarter reported being bullied because of their caring role, and 38 per cent reported having a mental health problem.

The report also says schools need to develop and implement policies for dealing with the bullying of young carers.

The schools study is the first of a series of reports on the challenges facing young adult carers over the next year.