Students

Background: Students living with a chronically ill family member may experience significant pressure, stress, and depression due to their caregiving situation. This may also lead to them delaying or dropping out of school when the combination of being a caregiver and their education program are too demanding.

Aims: When experiencing mental health difficulties, university students turn to their friends for support. This study assessed the consequences of caregiving among a university sample, identifying predictors of caregiving burden among students. Methods: A total of 79 students with experience of supporting a friend with mental health difficulties were recruited through a UK student mental health charity to complete an online survey.

Background Most young carer studies on parentification, resilience and coping concentrated on child carers up to age 18 years, whereas the group of young adult caregivers (18–24 years) has been neglected. In our study, we focused on these young adult caregivers, who are in a life phase in which young people usually are distancing themselves from their families and are striving for autonomy and freedom. Aim To explore young adult carers’ perceptions of parentification, resilience and coping compared to young adult noncarers.

Meeting family carers who recount their experiences of being on the receiving end of health and social care provides a 'real life' context in which undergraduate students from different professions can explore together and learn about interprofessional care and teamwork. This paper draws on data from a three-month in-depth evaluation of palliative care workshops in which medical, nursing, social work and rehabilitation therapy students interview family carers who are caring for someone with a terminal illness or who have recently been bereaved.

Penny Hibberd introduces an innovative idea for involving carers in higher education, and carers Caryn and Ted Bird explain how they have benefited from the approach 

Purpose – It is generally agreed that carers in mental health care play a vital role in helping people to maintain their place in the community and reducing the time clients spend in hospital or residential settings. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual approach to involving carers in higher education by acknowledging their contribution to improving practice and identify the impact upon student learning in mental health and social care professions. 

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.