Young Carers Project @ Off the Record
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Contact
Jonathan Andrew
Email
Project funding
£147,633
Funding round
The Young Carers Support Project provides support and advocacy for young carers in Croydon. A young carer is a young person who looks after a parent or brother or sister who has a long-term illness, physical disability, mental health issue, learning disability or a drug or alcohol problem. The child/young person has to be under 18 and over 7 years old at the point of referral and can stay with the project until the age of 25.
The project provides one-to-one support and advocacy, educational support, holidays, fundraising and a befriending scheme. We also provide an extensive trips and activities programme during the school holidays. Young carers in Croydon now receive statutory Carers Assessments delivered by the Young Carers Project. These assessments form the basis of client support plans and underpin service development.
Target Group: families where a child or young person is caring for a parent with mental health issues, or other severe long-term need.
Structure: the project has recently received funding for a part-time support worker for young carers whose parents have mental health issues. These families consistently present with the highest levels of complex and long-term need.
The Parenting Fund based work would build on this, with the support worker becoming full-time, and the addition of a part-time life coach and part-time counsellor. Inputs from a parenting practitioner will be bought in from a parenting organisation. This work will target families where there is a parental mental health issue. Also, in order to support the maximum number of families, the provision will be extended to families who have equivalent long-term need.