London’s unpaid carers number in the hundreds of thousands – perhaps 600,000 at least, according to the most recent Census, saving the NHS billions a year. They constitute an “invisible workforce” without which our health and social care systems would collapse, says a new report from the London Assembly.
And young carers are perhaps the most invisible of all, according to Carla Brain, manager of the young carers service at Enfield Carers Centre. Awareness is key, she told the Assembly’s evidence-gathering session earlier this year. “There are thousands and thousands of children caring out there, and because they are not being identified and there are so many hidden young carers, it is difficult to get the support and funding they need because we do not have accurate numbers.”
That’s certainly an issue in Enfield, Carla explained when I visited the centre last month. The government’s annual school census started recording pupils identified as carers in 2023, but getting the full picture is very much a work in progress. “We support more than 600 young carers in Enfield, and there are going to be so many more out there, but the schools only recorded 80 in our borough in 2023, and that was down to 57 the following year,” she said. “We know that’s not accurate. There will be so many more who are not registered with us.”
It’s not always straightforward. As is the case with their adult counterparts, young carers, and sometimes their parents too, don’t necessarily see what they are doing as being a “carer” rather than just helping, said Carla. But a survey last year for the national Carers Trust network revealed a stark reality: as many as three in five young carers aged between eight and 17 spend at least three hours a day caring, including almost half of eight to 11-year-olds.
Young carers take on significant responsibilities: getting people to hospital appointments, dealing with medication, cooking and cleaning, housing issues and more. One nine-year-old registered with the centre was effectively managing the family finances, said Carla. “They could tell us all about what benefits were claimed, the household income, the tenancy arrangements, issues with the landlord…”
Some will be looking after siblings too, as well as a parent or grandparent. A 12-year-old supported by the Enfield service was caring for five family members in all, Carla said, with conditions including autism, cerebral palsy and cancer. “People don’t realise what these young people are coping with. And the incredible skills they develop,” she added.
Caring takes its toll. Young carers can struggle to balance school with their responsibilities at home, falling behind, not finding enough time for homework, even going absent. Separate Carers Trust research suggests young carers are missing 23 days of school every year on average, often severely limiting their opportunities as they move into adulthood. They can miss out too on friendships, hobbies and extracurricular activities and can be targets for bullying.
Supporting young carers’ education is a big part of Carla’s work, from homework clubs to one-to-one help and liaison with teachers, who may not fully understand pupils’ home lives. “It’s so important that young carers are recognised as early as possible and support is in place,” she said. There’s family support too, and training sessions, in First Aid, financial literacy and managing in particular conditions such as autism or dementia, as well as signposting to specialist help where required.
But it’s also simply about providing a space for young carers, said Carla, to “ask questions”, to feel “less alone”, to get together with other young carers. And for respite – there’s a busy programme of music and drama sessions, trips to the cinema, holiday outings to the seaside, to museums, or to see the Lion King in the West End – “opportunities they haven’t had before”. Teenage carers from Enfield have been active campaigners too, recently speaking at Carers Trust conferences and addressing parliamentarians.
There are funding pressures in Enfield and across the capital. Councils have statutory responsibilities, in particular for assessing carers’ needs. But the London Assembly investigation found that with no overall city-wide strategy in place the actual level of support then provided varied from borough to borough, and was often “limited to signposting to information and advice”, while voluntary agencies working in the field were “hampered by a lack of stable and predictable funding”.
The London Assembly report calls for ring-fenced multi-year funding for carer support services, and urges Mayor Khan to both work with the NHS, boroughs and local carer organisations on a “unified protocol” for identifying carers, and to put his weight behind the Carers Trust and Children’s Society Young Carers in Schools programme, which helps schools identify and support young carers. A mayoral awareness-raising campaign on public transport, “helping children to think ‘maybe I am a young carer’,” would be helpful too, Carla told London Assembly members.
Meanwhile, though Enfield Carers Centre’s work on assessment and support for adult carers is council funded, there is no commissioned young carers service in the borough. Carla’s team currently relies on a National Lottery grant, which will run out at the end of this year. Their bid for further funding has cleared the preliminary hurdle, but there are no guarantees. It’s an anxious period then, investigating other potential funding sources, refining bids, and waiting. “If funding goes,” said Carla, “we can only signpost. But I have no service that I can refer those 600 children to.”
Follow Charles Wright on Bluesky. Image from Create Charity video.
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