Young Carers

What is a young carer?

A young carer is when a child or young person helps look after another member of their family at home. This could be a parent or sibling who needs extra help and support.

Young carers may need to do more things at home and take on more responsibility.

This may include: helping with dinner, reading with their brothers/sisters, helping siblings get dressed.

What we do at St James for our young carers.

We are able to refer children to young carers and offer them extra support. If you feel like your child maybe eligible please come and talk to us so we can help. We may also recognise that your child is a young carer and ask to refer them ourselves.

If your child’s referral goes through we then offer support in school for them.

Things we offer in school:

• On Monday’s there is a drop in with Miss Ryde at lunchtime. The children can come to talk to her or just have a space to chill out for part of the day.
• Once a half term we get all the young carers together to complete a fun activity.
• Once a half term they will have a check in with an LSA who again will give them a space to talk and play a game.
• At St James we understand that our young carers may need a space to talk about how they are feeling and need to be able to discuss any issues or worries. We have put in place things to allow them to do this. Mrs Cox has a box outside her room that the children can write in any worries they want to discuss or they can ask to speak to Miss Ryde who will find a time in the day to talk to them.

We think it is really important in our school to understand the challenges our young carers face and help them with this. All the things we have put in place have been agreed in consultation with them. 

Things coming up:

It is young carer day on 16th March. We will be asking all the children to wear jazzy socks to continue to bring awareness to young carers.