Young Carers Action Day

Today is Young Carers Action Day. This is a day when we all have the opportunity to raise public awareness and to recognise the huge contribution that young carers are making to those close to them, all around the UK. According to The Children’s Society, there are over 800,000 young carers aged 5-17 who care for an adult or family member in the UK. A young carer is someone who cares for another person. This could mean helping a parent to dress, doing shopping, or taking a sibling to school.

Unfortunately, many young carers experience loneliness as a result of their caring role. According to the Carers UK Research Report, 81% of carers have felt lonely or socially isolated as a result of their caring role. This number rises to 89% when focussing on carers under the age of 24. Almost half of all carers said that this feeling of isolation stems, in part, from the fact that they have less time to get out of the house and attend social groups or activities. In addition to this, one-third of carers said that they had felt lonely or isolated because they didn’t feel comfortable talking about their caring role with their friends.

To respond to this, Young Carers Action Day have committed to making this year all about taking action on isolation. This means having support in the right places and can range from offering them the opportunity to take breaks from their caring role to something as simple as attempting to make sure that as many people as possible understand and can empathise with the experiences of carers across the UK.

Here at Branch Out Together we want to give a huge shout out to all of the young carers who give so much to their families and communities. To find out more, and how you can support young carers across the UK, head to Young Carers Action Day 2022.