1st April 2007 – 31st March 2008

Background

The Young Carers Service is a three-year commissioned service from Children’s Services run by Off The Record. The commission commenced in April 1996 and was re-commissioned in April 2007 to run until April 2010.

The service commissioned is to provide  advice, information and support on a one to one basis; access to other services provided by Off the Record-Advocacy, counselling, information and advice;  group work; a newsletter and provision of information; training & short breaks to young carers living or studying in Bath and North East Somerset.

A young carer is defined as someone aged 5-17 who provides a significant amount of care to someone with a physical disability or enduring illness, someone with enduring mental health issues and someone with drug or alcohol dependency.

Staff Team

The staff team consists of:

• Young Carers Manager – full time.
• 4 Volunteers
• 1 Social Work Student for an 85 day placement
• Operations Manager (Off The Record) – a percentage of hours per week devoted to strategic development of the service

Outcomes

1.         To provide the service to 70-90 young carers and 300 professionals.

• 120 young carers received 4 editions of the newsletter and agencies, schools, surgeries and offices have received 3 editions of the newsletter and one Service Update and have been asked to circulate the newsletters and service update. Details of the year’s activity programmes and trips have been advertised in the newsletters and Service Updates to ensure all service users and local professionals are aware of what is available.
• 11 young carers received 44 sessions of one to one support and advocacy on issues around school, caring, cared for person going into hospital, bereavement, carer assessments, school, bullying, sleep, anxiety and understanding disability .
• 2 young carers have begun attending youth centres as a result of joint work with the Youth Service in the summer.
• 43 new referrals were received over the period.

2.         Enable young carers to access short breaks (10 to go on a residential break, 15 to get individual awards for breaks and 15 to join in with group activities).

• 276 places were filled on 25 trips and activities last period. Short breaks including, waterparks, survival skills, safety centres, beach resorts, adventure playgrounds, drama workshops, youth centre activity days, sponsored walk, cinema, sports, panto, and 5 training days covering assertiveness, communication, first aid, manual handling and participation.
• 31 individual awards were given to 10 different young carers towards short breaks for; a bursary to act in the The Egg Storm on the Lawn Production; cinema; swimming; Bowood and transport to attend groups.
• The Autumn activities were suggested and chosen by young carers who were given the budget for the activities most of which was raised by them by raising money through a sponsored walk in May.

3.         To deliver the new service plan, which includes the following targets -

• To produce clear, written protocols and procedures for the service
• To influence the strategic direction of carers services through awareness raising in schools and by representing young carers within the Carers Advisory Group
• Evaluation of the impact of strategic work

• A new Risk Assessment Form has been designed to ensure activities are adequately risk assessed.
• The Information Pack Young Carers receive has been revamped and a workers pack has been created to support workers on initial visits.
• The Young Carers Service has worked to change the Carers Strategic Plan to ensure young carers are explicitly included within the plan and mentioned as a type of Carer as well as having individual targets. These targets are based on young carers’ priorities which have been fed in through the Carers Strategic Implementation Group (SIG). 
• Young Carers have been included as target areas in the Local Authority Area Agreement.
• The service has attended team meetings at the Disabled Children’s team, St Michaels Surgery and Project 28, 117 project, Adolescent Team, Disabled Children’s team, First Steps, Face to Face, Rush Hill and West View Surgeries. Assemblies and teacher training has also taken place at Beechen Cliff, Wellsway, Bathwick St Marys and Chew Stoke Schools.
• Meetings with BME Families Support Service, Rethink, The Care Network, Extended Schools Services, Wiltshire Young Carers and multi agency meetings all over B&NES have been attended to raise the profile of young carers and find ways to work together to meet their needs. Several pieces of joint work have come out of these meetings and many new referrals.
• Procedures have been written regarding the newsletter mail out, referral and initial visits, induction and volunteering.

4.         Enable young carers and their families to be involved in the development of the service by:

To evidence the ways in which the Project can demonstrate its effectiveness in the following areas; evaluation; participation; accountability

• Young carers continue to be consulted and have more control of the design and content of the newsletter at the Newsletter Group. An average of 7 attended monthly meetings and 10 young carers came to the Mayor’s Unsung Heroes Award to be recognised for their participation and 5 attended a trip to At Bristol to thank them for their participation. The Newsletter Group is enjoyed by young carers and we now have internet connection as young carers wanted to be able to research the issues page. We also have more varieties of fruit available to eat, which the group asked for.

• 6 attended the Newsletter Group in September and were consulted on their 5 priorities for young carers, these were fed into the Carers Strategic Plan and the Local Authority Area Agreement.
• 1 young carer has participated in the design of Off the Record’s new website.
• 1 young carer was on the interview panel for Off the Record’s new director.
• 4 young carers attended a Participation Event where their views were listened to.
• Young carers have evaluated the service through writing, verbally and through games.
• The short breaks are extremely popular and activities that were not enjoyed as much such as ‘It’s a knockout games’ by the older young carers will not be run next year.
• Young Carers decided all the short breaks in the October half term, some wrote in their ideas these were then costed and a group decided which were their favourites and were given the budget for the half term to help them decide what to do.
• Young carers have evaluated the service through writing, verbally and through games.
• Training sessions are now being run because young carers were feeling anxious about certain aspects of caring and around bullying at school. These have given young carers new skills and have been popular.
• 4 young carers have started the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme to accredit their participation.
• The short breaks are extremely popular and feedback has been positive from young carers and parents.
• 3 young carers are now regularly attending Off the Record’s Youth Action Committee to have a greater influence across Off the Record.

Feedback

Young carers, their families and professionals views and feedback are sought in a number of ways.

• Feedback on one to one work has shown that young carers have found it helpful “they helped my bullying problem” and found the sessions “fun”.
• Success of training days have been measured before and after through forms to see how much has been learnt during the day these have shown young carers have increased in confidence and knowledge.
• Questionnaires have been collected to find out young carers experience of health care particularly around visiting hospitals in order to find out what young carers would find useful in a hospital pack. Feedback has been mixed with some young carers having good experiences and others having bad experiences. Young carers feedback shows they want more information and things to keep them occupied whilst waiting around.
• The Newsletter Group has been consulted about what they would like the new Off the Record Leaflets to look like using group activities to get their opinions. Ideas for Carers Week were sought through Newsletter Group Activities using art and group work. The Newsletter Group has fed back that it’s “fun”, that they “enjoyed everything” and “want to come again”.
• Young carers sent in ideas for activities and then had a day where they played activity monopoly to spend the budget and make all the decisions for the October half term activities.
• Verbal feedback is gained at each activity to ensure the short breaks offered are meeting the Every Child Matters Values by checking young carers are being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic well-being through the skills and experiences they are gaining through the breaks. The Young Carers and their families said:

‘the young carers service lets me get out and do things and learn new skills, with out young carers, I wouldn’t be able to do anything’

‘really fun’

‘learnt new stuff’

‘It lets me get away from taking care of (my sister) and it gives me time to chill out with new people to make new friends’

• The service raised awareness of young carers’ issues with a variety of professionals through the newsletter and by visiting team meetings, schools and multi agency meetings across B&NES. Professionals have gained understanding of the issues and have been able to identify young carers and referred them to the service. The feedback has been positive about these meetings professionals have found it interesting and helpful.

Additional Funding

The Young Carers Service has been able to exceed it’s targets and provide additional value by gaining extra funding. Value has been added to the commission by taking part in free activities such as youth service activities and donated activities such as the Frome Drama days and the Unearth Project. Costs have also been shared for activities with other Young Carers Services such as the Egg Project.