Strong Local Voice, Strong Local Champion

Young Carers Speech

Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): Young carers are children and young people under 18 who help to look after a family member who is disabled or physically or mentally ill, or who has a substance misuse problem. Helping out around the house is a normal part of growing up, but young carers regularly carry out significant or substantial caring tasks and assume a level of responsibility that is inappropriate to their age. Caring can involve physical or emotional care, or taking responsibility for someone's safety or well-being. Many young carers spend a lot of time doing household chores or looking after younger siblings, in addition to helping a sick or disabled parent with tasks such as administering medication-often without training or support-helping someone to get up and dressed, or helping someone to use the bathroom. Some young carers help parents to look after a disabled sibling.

The last census, in 2001, found 175,000 young carers in the United Kingdom. Of those, 18,000 children, aged between five and 15, provided 20 hours of care or more a week. That is nearly three hours a day. Nearly 9,000 provided at least 50 hours-more than seven hours a day. However, it is generally accepted that there are many unrecorded and unrecognised cases. The culture of secrecy is strong among young carers and their families, and many young carers are invisible to the agencies that are there to help them. Perhaps that is because of fear that if social services become involved the family will be broken up. Local research has suggested that there may be up to 30 young carers in a large secondary school. Government estimates show 250,000 young people living with parental substance misuse, and the latest research by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children suggests that 4 per cent. of children will be young carers at some point during their childhoods. Fifty-seven per cent. of known young carers are girls and 43 per cent. are boys.

Last year, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I attended the annual young carers festival at Fairthorne manor in Hampshire, and I was approached, after the formal question and answer session, by a group of young girls. They were very challenging. What they said was, basically, "All you politicians ever do is talk, but nothing ever changes for us." I came away with an even deeper commitment to try to make a difference to their lives. I felt quite ashamed, to be honest.

The types of issues that young carers consistently raise include comments such as the following: it is

"not just the caring that affects you. What really gets you is the worry of it all. Having a parent who is ill and seeing them in such a state ...you think about it a lot";

"If I'd have gone regularly to school I would have done all right. But under the circumstances I'd have felt I couldn't have gone. It would have just made me feel more guilty that I was going if you know what I mean. I just didn't want to do that".

Another comment is:

"I used to run away from school because I always wanted to be with my mum. I used to think that my mum was going to die. I was about eight .... they treated me as if I was playing truant."

Other comments include:

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"It is just something I do. It has to be done and there is no one else to do it";

"She was in hospital in and out going on two years. She couldn't go to the bathroom on her own, she couldn't walk. She couldn't go to bed-she just slept in the chair downstairs. So it was everything really. She couldn't cook, she couldn't clean, she couldn't look after my little brother. She was in a lot of pain, for a long time".

This is another:

"Mum spends a lot of time alone, so it doesn't seem right not to keep her company".

Each young carer has different needs, and so does the person whom they are caring for, but being a young carer has heavy costs, such as being unable to do the sorts of things that other children do; taking on much more responsibility than other children, which sometimes leads to emotional and stress problems and clearly affects school attendance and performance; and even experiencing bullying at school. As one young carer said:

"There are a few young carers at my school and I'm sick to death of people hurling abuse at us. Sure I'm not the coolest or I wear all the latest fashions, but who gives? People think we do nothing at all, and if they were in our shoes, they would scream. So why give us abuse, if we wouldn't do the same to them?"

I was pleased to be able to raise issues affecting young carers throughout the passage of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, and to have a meeting with the Minister for Schools. I should like to welcome some great improvements: the revised Department for Education and Skills guidance for schools on promoting attendance for vulnerable and at-risk groups, which includes an updated section on young carers, and the draft school transport guidance, which sets out the rights of disabled parents to free school transport to get their children to school. I think that I also wish to welcome the commitment in "Our health, our care, our say" to improving things for young carers, but I look forward to seeing the details.

Something else that is greatly to be welcomed is DFES funding for the young carers initiative at the Children's Society, which is developing principles of practice for professionals who come into contact with young carers. Funding for many other initiatives and projects that support young carers in a variety of ways is welcome, too, and I hope that the funds will be continued for many successful projects, and not suddenly chopped off.

Nevertheless, there is much more that needs to be done for the particularly vulnerable group of young carers. Research by Barnado's showed that on average each young carer had spent four years looking after a relative or parent before they received any support. I would start by requesting that every school had a named young carers lead in line with DFES guidance. I should have liked that to be a duty, as it is in the case of looked-after children. It is very sad that we have not moved further on that point. Most young carers are not known as such by school staff, so being a young carer can be a hidden cause of poor attendance, under-achievement and bullying, and many young carers drop out of school or achieve no qualifications. Poor attendance by a young carer should not be equated with truancy or attract punitive measures. Appropriate

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support is needed. Teachers are generally not aware of the support services, if any, in their school or the wider community.

There should be a young carers champion in every local authority. Some local authorities include such a role, which allows them to knit together the work of children's and adults' services at a strategic and practitioner level. It is vital that every authority mentions young carers in its children and young people's plans. In his recent report on statutory children and young people's plans the Children's Commissioner for England calls young carers

"another much neglected group in the Children and Young People's Plans"

and goes on to say:

"There is a risk that children affected by the illness or substance misuse of adults who would otherwise be expected to care for them are in danger of falling through the gap between adult and children's services."

On this issue I recently asked a parliamentary question, and, indeed, the Minister replied at column 1398W on 19 January. I should be much reassured, I suppose, because we do have a framework for the assessment of children in need and their families, and guidance for fair access to care services, but what is happening on the ground? We cannot afford to be complacent.

In a report called "The state of social care in England 2005-2006" the Commission for Social Care Inspection said:

"Given the separation of adults' and children's services, and our assessment that no more than 20% of councils are taking a wholly strategic approach to carers' services, it is hard to see how young carers' issues can be routinely addressed unless there are clear and robust interdepartmental policies and procedures...Care needs to be taken that addressing the needs of disabled parents and young carers does not fall between stools."

I cannot emphasise that point enough. Some young carers, when asked about assessments, said that social services decided that

"all was well because the young carer seemed to be coping".

The report quotes one comment that

"because we can cope day to day they say we can manage-but we need help as well".

Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): I applaud the hon. Lady for securing the debate. She and I have done a lot of work on the subject and I share her shame that more is not being done. Is there not an enormous neglected army of young carers, who are not properly recognised, and whom it is convenient not to recognise, because of the payments that go with that? In addition, is it not true that that lack of recognition extends to health as well as education, and that many of those children are not taken into the confidence of doctors dealing with the disabilities of their parents or other charges, and that they feel excluded? They are doing the job unpaid and without being looked after, and without being included in the process of finding out how to do the job better and look after the parents or loved ones they care for.

Annette Brooke: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention, and I agree that we must pay tribute to that invisible army of young carers for all that they do. We need a joined-up approach in education, health and social care.

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I have one particular example. The names have been changed. John's mum, Jackie, had a stroke and lost mobility. John, 13, was caring for mum, including helping her with intimate care such as using the toilet during the night. The provision of intimate care resulted in a deteriorating parent-child relationship, tiredness and behavioural difficulties in school. It encompassed all three strands: education, social care and health. The intervention needed to prevent John's excessive caring role was identified as night support for Jackie. However, Jackie did not qualify for night support from adult services in her own right, while children's services felt that it could not fund night support for an adult. The services debated who should pay while John carried on caring.

I should therefore like every local authority to have a joint working protocol between children's and adult services, and perhaps to be inspected on their joint working. I should also like a commitment to review the effectiveness of the fair access to care services guidance in ensuring that every adult service asks all its clients, "Are you a parent? How does your condition/disability/etc. affect you as a parent? And how can we support you as a parent?"

It would also be worth while reviewing the fact that 16 and 17-year-old carers, who try to juggle education and caring, lack an entitlement to carer's benefit. It makes no sense to give them a financial motivation to leave education when the Government are proposing education until age 18. The Government must consider in their new proposals how they will support young carers.

We need a securely funded young carer service in every area. Young carers speak highly of their local young carer groups; they make such a difference to their lives. Many voluntary organisations are involved in the provision of such groups. They include the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, NCH, the children's charity, the Children's Society and Barnado's.

The challenges that young carers face are beginning to be recognised, but there is still a lack of knowledge on the parts of families and of those people in the work force who could offer more support. The principles of practice that the Children's Society is developing should be included in the training of all relevant professionals. It is vital that front-line staff in education, health and social care are offered consistent training and access to ongoing information to deliver whole-family working and joint working between children's and adult services. Practitioners must understand the needs of young carers and their families.

I conclude by paying tribute to the enormous amount of good work that is done in many local authority areas by many organisations in the voluntary sector, particularly by the Princess Royal Trust, which has provided me with a great deal of material for today's debate.

For the past few years, it has not been possible for a Minister to attend the festival about which I spoke earlier. I hope that the Minister present will be able to attend in the summer next year, because young people want to talk to people and they want us to listen, but most of all, they want action to make their lives better.