Being a young carer can affect your physical and emotional health and impact on your education or training. As a young carer, you have legal rights to ask for a young carers assessment which looks at the impact the care and support that you provide has on your wellbeing. The assessment will also look at other aspects of your life, like education, training, and your leisure time such as if you get a chance to play sports or see friends, and discuss what support would help you.
Why ask for an assessment?
If someone in your family needs to be looked after, you may really want to help them. But as a young carer, you shouldn’t be doing the same things as adult carers. Nor should you be spending a lot of your time caring for someone, as this can get in the way of you doing well at school and doing the same kinds of things as other children or young people.
Through a Young Carer Assessment, you can decide how much and what type of care you’re willing or able to give, or whether you should be a carer at all. You can decide whether you’re the right person to offer the care needed by the person you look after and what support you need the council to put in place to help you.
What are the benefits of an assessment?
An assessment can result in you accessing:
- Support to help you look after the person you care for
- Support for your wellbeing
- Someone you can talk to
- Carer social clubs and activities give you valuable respite time from your role where you can also meet others your age in similar situations
- Support in school or college
- Support with your homework
- More time for sport or other leisure activities
Who is involved in the assessment?
When conducting a young carer’s needs assessment, it must involve:
- The young carer
- The young carer’s parents
- Any person whom the young carer or their parents request be involved
What will happen during the assessment?
During the assessment, the local authority will determine the following:
- The amount, nature, and type of care you provide
- The extent to which this care is relied upon by your family to maintain the well-being of the person cared for
- Whether the care you provide impacts upon your well-being, education, and development
- Whether any of the tasks that you perform are excessive or inappropriate to perform, in particular for your age, gender, wishes, and feelings
- Whether it is appropriate for you to provide care for the person you care for
- What your support needs are.
