Child

To learn more about the needs and experiences of young carers for patients of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in order to create a relevant support website for young caregivers to dementia patients.

Two focus groups were held with a total of fourteen young carers aged 11-18. The data corpus was collected through a semi-structured interview facilitated by a medical journalist who had prior experience as a caregiver to a patient with FTD. The transcripts were narrowed to a dataset for descriptive analysis using a coding scheme to reveal the main themes of their responses.

Children as young as five are spending more time caring for a relative than they spend at school. Catharine Sadler reports on how nurses can identify and support young carers.

Yet further evidence has emerged of the huge number of young carers whose caring roles are not known to their school and who are therefore not receiving the support they need. Almost 500 young carers who were previously unknown to their schools were discovered during a project to offer young carers better recognition and support. The 35 schools taking part in the Young Carers in School programme reported a dramatic impact on the attendance, achievement and confidence of pupils who care for a loved one.

Alex Fox highlights the hidden struggles of young carers and the signs health practitioners can look out for to identify those who need support.

In less than a decade, children who provide care for ill or disabled parents and siblings have become a major target of social welfare services. 'Young carers' suffer, it is suggested, from a degradation in mental and physical health, have damaged educational careers, restricted social networks, and will suffer long-term consequences in adult life as a result of their childhood caring roles.

Dear Editor, For too long, the needs of young carers have fallen between the growing gap that separates adults’ and children’s services. Recent news coverage has once again highlighted the needs of these children but it is time to move forward and look at implementing solutions.

In 2009, the NHS National Centre for Involvement and Liverpool Primary Care Trust undertook a national pilot project to establish how best to undertake patient and public involvement in respect of end of life (EOL) services. This article describes the outcomes from its sub-project which focused on young carers. It is projected that there are substantial numbers of young carers in the UK, at any one point in time, supporting their (grand)parents, or other adult family members, during their terminal illness.