Young Carers Face Significant Sacrifices in Their Daily Lives

Ava-Grace Britton is a 17-year-old student at college in north London. She enjoys going out with friends and wants to attend university next year. However, unlike most of her peers, Ava-Grace also cares for her father, Paul, who has significant mobility and memory issues after suffering a series of strokes eight years ago.

Ava-Grace's caring responsibilities include monitoring her father's blood glucose levels, giving him medication, and helping with dinner and household chores. She is not alone in this situation. Officially, there are around 130,000 carers under the age of 18 in England and Wales, but the true figure is thought to be much higher, with the Carers Trust estimating that there could be as many as 1 million carers under 18.

For some young carers, the responsibilities are significant, amounting to more than 50 hours a week. This can have consequences on their social and academic prospects. Ava-Grace's situation is a prime example of this. She has had to make sacrifices, such as giving up dance and moving schools several times due to bullying and struggling with attendance because of her caring responsibilities and epilepsy.

## Life Upside Down

Paul's condition deteriorated significantly after a sepsis infection, which he caught after cutting his thumb at work. He also has diabetes, which requires careful monitoring. His health issues have had a significant impact on his life, forcing him to give up work as a borehole engineer. He is now cared for full-time by Ava-Grace and her mother, Karen, who runs her own charity that organises lunch clubs for the elderly and vulnerable.

"It turned our life upside down," said Karen. "Paul spent three months in hospital and in rehab. I don't know how I would cope without Ava-Grace."

Ava-Grace's caring responsibilities have demanded a number of trade-offs over the years. "You have to make sacrifices. I can't do all the things my friends do," she said. "At one point I was really enjoying dance and could have started competing, but it would have been a huge time commitment which wasn't possible."

## Support for Carers

Some support is available for young carers. They are entitled to assessments from their local council to look at the impact on their health, education, and wellbeing. However, the support in place to help is patchy, and it really depends on where you live.

Andy McGowan, the lead on young carers at the Carers Trust, says that even when help is given to the young in the form of respite breaks, peer support, and counselling, the underlying issue - the caring demands being placed on them - is often not addressed. "The threshold to get adult social care from councils to relieve the caring burden is so high, many don't get help. Until that is addressed, the inequalities young carers face will not be tackled."

The NHS could do more, particularly in terms of preventative and early support for things like substance misuse and mental health, which are also contributory factors to the caring responsibilities young carers have.

In July, the government published an action plan for unpaid carers, which included measures to support young carers, including improved help in schools and joined-up support between the NHS, social care, and education.

For families like the Brittons, more help cannot come soon enough. "I worry about the impact caring has on Ava-Grace," said Karen. "She has had to grow up very quickly - that has had benefits, she is calmer and more mature than many girls her age and she has a real strength about her. But Ava-Grace and others like her need more help and understanding.