Young People: Carers

(asked on 24th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that young carers are (a) identified and (b) adequately supported to ensure attainment at school.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 3rd March 2020

The government is committed to supporting young carers so that they are properly protected from excessive or inappropriate caring responsibilities and supported to achieve their full potential. Consistent identification remains challenging, with many being ‘hidden’ and therefore unrecognised and/or unsupported.

Changes through the Children and Families Act 2014 simplified the legislation relating to young adult carers’ assessments, making rights and duties clearer to both young people and practitioners. This included promoting whole family approaches which triggers children and adults’ support services into action – assessing why a child is caring, what needs to change and what would help the family to prevent children or young people from taking on this responsibility in the first place.

Schools also monitor attendance and if a child’s absence reaches a level of concern, the school will wish to raise this in the best interest of the child’s education. Schools have a duty to inform the local authority of any child who fails to attend school regularly. Schools and local authorities should consider the individual circumstances of each case and take the appropriate course of action to ensure the child receives consistent education.

The Department for Education provides schools with £2.4 billion each year in additional funding through the pupil premium to support disadvantaged pupils. We expect schools to make effective use of their pupil premium budgets; schools know their pupils best and will spend the grant according to meet pupil needs, which includes where needs are based on a parent’s health issues or disability.

We published the Children in Need Review conclusion in 2019. This sets out our approach to helping schools and children’s social care improve the educational outcomes of children in need, including those young carers assessed as being in need of help and protection.

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