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Young carers’ needs and changing experiences during an era of austerity

Yes / Many children caring for ill or disabled family members remain ‘hidden’ and ‘invisible’ in our communities. This study is the first to explore patterns of change, over time and throughout austerity, for children with caregiving roles to better understand how their lives differ from those of their non-caregiving peers. A survey of 2154 children, aged 9–18 years in the general population, and a further 21 children, aged 8–18 years and known to be young carers from the same English unitary authority, was conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of children’s perceptions and experiences of what they do to help at home. This study shows that children with caregiving roles remain a distinctive group who assume more domestic and caring responsibilities than their peers, and who also perform many of these activities more frequently than young caregivers in 2001. Approximately 19% of the respondents in the general population showed signs of being in a caring role, double the percentage identified by the author in 2001, 72% of whom were from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds. Indicating over time higher levels of unmet needs among parents and other family members who are ill or disabled, these findings have important implications for professional policy, planning and practice across adult and children’s services.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19343
Date16 February 2023
CreatorsWarren, Janet L.
PublisherMDPI
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Published version
Rights© 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)., CC-BY

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