RESOURCES: Review - Young carers need support and understanding

As recently as the 1990s, young-carers projects emerged to support children with caring responsibilities for family members. Some disabled parents felt these projects' services portrayed children as victims of their parents' disabilities: adequate services would eliminate caring by young people.

This familiar argument is the core of Newman's "new thinking" about families affected by disability. He attacks prejudice about disability, distorted thinking on risk and resilience and services for young carers with equal vigour.

A cause of controversy has always been the vagueness of the term "disabled parents". Newman is most insightful on physically disabled parents, but less knowledgeable about parental mental ill-health and excludes parental substance misuse. But young carers who support parents with mental health and substance misuse problems form the majority of projects' work, and have different needs to those supporting physically disabled parents whose emotional abilities remain intact.

Newman is clear that we should stop seeing disability as a bad thing in itself. It is a normal part of life and not every young carer suffers because they are a carer: that, for Newman, depends on the relationship they have with their parent. It also depends on the level of responsibility taken on and the support received in making informed choices about this, something that even loving parents can find hard to provide objectively.

Newman argues cogently that preoccupation with childhood risk leads to underestimating children's resilience, but he is selective in his use of young carers' voices. His belief that children's rights become unhelpful concepts when thinking about families is worrying.

Newman calls for more research into the prevalence of caring and the effectiveness of support. Loughborough University has established the effects of caring roles in young carers known to projects, but there is still no reliable figure for UK young carers. Newman's own research with children asks vague questions and selectively believes their answers, while the views of parents are represented by one campaigner.

Young caring is stigmatised. Support for these families is in its infancy and independent research can only be of help. In the meantime, it would be unfortunate if politics continued to affect young carer's services that are rated as a lifeline by young carers and by parents who often have no other support.

Reviewed by Alex Fox, young carers development co-ordinator for The Princess Royal Trust for Carers.

0113 2306022 afox@carers.org

Children of disabled parents: New thinking about families affected by disability and illness by Tony Newman Published by Russell House Publishing 2003

Price 14.95, 138 pages

ISBN 1 903855 20 9.