Here is a piece of work written by one of our young carers about his experiences.

I am standing here today because I want to talk to you about being a young carer. This is a topic that is very important to me. Did you know that in the UK today there are more than 700,000 young carers? That is a huge amount. I hope you are shocked at this statistic.

You may not know the answer to this question. Who is a young carer? It is not a really well known subject so I am going to explain in detail. A young carer is a person aged between five and eighteen years old who looks after or helps someone to look after someone at home who may have an illness or a condition. This could be a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, or another relative. The carers could support a range of conditions or illnesses such as: physical disability, mental health illness, a learning difficulty, alcohol or drug misuse or a sensory impairment such as blindness or deafness. A young carer would typically have to: wash clothes; cook food; clean the house; do the grocery shopping; bathe and dress their family member; help and remind them to take certain medications; maybe even to translate if their first language isn't English and most of all provide emotional support.

An average child who is a young carer does not have a good childhood. They miss out on so much fun stuff like making and playing with friends. They had to grow up fast which may make the person that they care for feel bad or guilty. It is a very stressful and demanding situation for anyone and especially so for a child.

I personally understand what it is like to have a huge responsibility towards someone at a young age. I am a young carer and this has made me grow up so fast it is unbelievable.

Much more support is required for young carers. In certain councils there are charities set up to help young carers have a break from caring and some support if it is needed. I am lucky because in my borough there is a very good scheme set up with nice people working there. Not all carers across the country are so lucky.

Furthermore, young carers aren’t supported in the place they need it the most, school. I feel that it is very hard for a young carer to keep up with homework, and they may feel too tired to even come to after school catch up sessions. If a teacher or tutor could come to a young carer’s house to help them to catch up with homework or coursework at a time that suits them that would help them a lot.

I also believe that young carers should be entitled to the carers allowance for caring for someone at home. I believe this because being a young carer can be like a full time job on top of school. Young carers have to sacrifice a lot time just to be with their family members. It has been worked out that volunteer carers save the UK is £119bn per year. Some of that money should be going back to young carers and young carers charities.

In my borough there are 451 young carers registered to the Kingston carers’ network as of November 2015, and it is growing so I am told. My local young carers’ charity doesn't get a specific amount of money every month it changes frequently. This means that some staff have a chance of losing their job which can be deeply upsetting to kids who get emotionally attached to them. Young carers’ charities need proper funding from the government.

I know that I have fed you with lots of information and given you a lot to take in but you may have friends who are young carers and you might have not understood what they go through till now. So I hope you have learnt that they may need your help from time to time.