Support Group Identifies 6,000 Unaccounted Young Carers in Gloucestershire

An organization dedicated to assisting young carers has stated that approximately 6,000 young individuals providing care for others in Gloucestershire are currently unidentified. Gloucestershire Young Carers (GYC) reported having engaged with over 1,000 young carers in the county, yet national statistics suggest a total of 7,000 young carers reside there. To diminish the number of potentially unsupported young carers, the charity convened a conference in Cheltenham last week. The event aimed to facilitate a state where the “whole county become young-carer aware.” Luna, a 16-year-old young carer who looked after her mother during her primary school years, expressed that connecting with and getting to know individuals with similar experiences through GYC was “such a big support.” Luna indicated that on a favorable day, she would typically need to care for her mother for an hour or two, but on “down days,” she was required to be at home for the entire day. “It was a lot harder to explain to other peers what I’m going through because it’s quite hard to understand at that age,” she informed BBC Radio Gloucestershire. She further elaborated, “I tended to struggle quite a lot in lessons, sometimes I’d find it hard to concentrate as much, or I wouldn’t be able to go and spend time with friends and sometimes people wouldn’t be able to understand why.” While Luna noted that the friends she has made through GYC “all have different stories,” they nonetheless “have a similar idea” of what her day-to-day life entails. Hana Gill, the director of GYC, expressed her desire for Gloucestershire to become “a beacon of best practice.” “We’re already doing really well as a county, but we want to make sure there’s no wrong doors for any young carer,” Ms Gill stated. Cheryl Rhodes, chief executive of GYC, confirmed that every school in Gloucestershire now has a designated person responsible for young carers. “We need to try and make sure lots of other organisations, agencies, and professionals are much more tuned into looking out for that young person and then we’re in a position to go in and do an assessment,” she said. She concluded, “Then our focus is very much on the young carer.”