Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support through the NHS, social care and voluntary sector her Department provides for child and young person carers helping parents with chronic and terminal illness.

The government has changed the law to improve how young carers and their families are identified and supported. The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on local authorities to identify and assess the needs of all young carers, regardless of who they care for or what type of care they provide. These provisions work alongside those for assessing adults in the Care Act 2014 so that when a young carer is identified the needs of everyone in the family is considered, triggering action from both children’s and adults’ support services.

We funded the Making a Step Change project, which sought to identify, champion and embed best practice around effective integrated whole family pathways between voluntary and statutory sector partners.

In May 2014, NHS England published the ‘Commitment to Carers’ which set out commitments across a range of themes to improve recognition and support for carers, including young carers. As part of NHS England’s work to support young carers, the Young Carers Health Champion Programme was established in July 2016 to support improved health literacy, promote health and wellbeing and develop the capacity of young carers to participate in the planning and development of young carer-friendly services.

There is a wealth of resources that enable local authorities, schools and voluntary sector partners to support young carers and their families, based on evidence of what works. Carers Trust host many of these materials on their websites which can be accessed at either: www.thecarershub.co.uk or: www.makingastepchange.info/.