Parents

A panel of practitioners give their opinions on the case of a young disabled women who is being looked after at home by her elderly parents. The case highlights the importance of providing support to carers.

Findings of a two year study by the Young Carers Research Group (in partnership with Rethink, formerly National Schizophrenia Fellowship) which looks at the experiences and needs of children who care for parents with mental illness, their caring and filial relationships and the nature of professional interventions in these families.

An increasing demand for both formal and informal care is likely to result from the ongoing demographic transition at the same time as there is a further move away from the traditional domestic division of labour. Public policy-making that aims at increasing the supply of informal care necessitates knowledge about the relative importance of various incentives for individual care providers.

This study aimed to (1) examine relations between youth adjustment and three sets of predictors: parental illness/disability characteristics, caregiving, and parent–child attachment, and (2) explore differences on these variables between youths of parental physical illness/disability and youths of parental mental illness.

Objective: Research into youth caregiving in families where a parent experiences a significant medical condition has been hampered by a lack of contextually sensitive measures of the nature and breadth of young caregiving experiences. This study examined the factor structure and measurement invariance of such a measure called the Young Carer of Parents Inventory (YCOPI; Pakenham et al., 2006) using confirmatory factor analysis across 3 groups of youth.

This study explored youth caregiving for a parent with multiple sclerosis (MS) from multiple perspectives, and examined associations between caregiving and child negative (behavioural emotional difficulties, somatisation) and positive (life satisfaction, positive affect, prosocial behaviour) adjustment outcomes overtime. A total of 88 families participated; 85 parents with MS, 55 partners and 130 children completed questionnaires at Time 1. Child caregiving was assessed by the Youth Activities of Caregiving Scale (YACS).

As the baby boomer generation ages, the need for laws to enhance quality of life for the elderly and meet the increasing demand for family caregivers will continue to grow. This paper reviews the national family leave laws of nine major OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and provides a state-by-state analysis within the U.S. We find that the U.S. has the least generous family leave laws among the nine OECD countries. With the exception of two states (California and New Jersey), the U.S.

The article provides an overview on young carers the services they need within their community. It notes that young carers are individuals under 18 who provide primary care in their families due to parental addiction, disability, illness. Further, it states that parental absence due to divorce, desertion, or overseas military service can also serve as a ground for youth to become young carers.

The authors studied a group of older carers of aging adults with Down syndrome (DS) to ascertain what effects such caregiving may have on them given the presence or possibility of age-associated decline or dementia. The study also examined the comparative levels of care provided, key signs noted when decline was beginning, the subjective burden experienced, and what were the key associated health factors when carers faced a changed level of care.

The collection of 1300 picture symbols in ISPEEK at Home provides an easy-to-use and enjoyable tool for overcoming communication difficulties in children with autistic spectrum disorders. The CD-ROM contains symbols for a wide range of situations typically encountered in the home and beyond, from feelings and facial expressions - common problem areas for people with autism - to health and hygiene and holidays.