Leu, Agnes

Background: Carers (including young carers) experiencing negative outcomes due to their caring role are more likely to report a lower sense of coherence. This article explores young carers' support needs for support provided by professionals. Methods: A total of 20 interviews with young carers and the persons for whom they provide care were analysed by applying Antonovsky's paradigm of salutogenesis. The dimensions of manageability, comprehensibility and meaningfulness served to categorise the data.

Background:  It is unknown how Swiss professionals support for young carers.  Previous national research suggests a lack of support services for young carers.  Professionals do provide individual as well as a family-centred support.  Social services seem to be most inclined to initiating interdisciplinary support. The situation of children, adolescents, young adults with caring responsibilities and their families has only recently been addressed in the Swiss context.

Findings from international research emphasis the need of these young people to be identified and recognised. Therefore, a nationwide quantitative study of professionals' awareness was conducted in the Swiss context. Data were collected from professionals working in education, healthcare and social services.

Although up to 8% of European youngsters carry out high-intensity care for a family member, adolescent young carers (AYCs), especially those caring for their grandparents (GrPs), remain an under-researched group. This study aimed at addressing the current knowledge gap by carrying out an online survey in Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The analysis included a final sample of 817 AYCs aged 15-17 years old.

Background: Across Europe, young carers (YCs) and their need for support receive limited attention in the media, policy and empirical research, even though, similar to adult carers, they also provide care to ill family members. The Delphi study, a qualitative research methodology, which provides the focus for this article, had the overall aim of exploring existing successful strategies to support YCs. Compared to YCs, even less is known about adolescent young carers (AYCs), a group that is in a critical life transition phase.

Many children, adolescents, teenagers, and young adults have caring responsibilities for parents and family members. These young carers and young adult carers are present in every country. Their responsibilities include domestic chores as well as intimate personal care and other forms of helping which are generally seen as the responsibility of adult professionals. First, this article provides an overview and critical perspective on young carers research.

An online survey of children in school grades 4–9 (mostly aged 10–15) was conducted in order to determine the prevalence of young carers in Switzerland using a 2-stage stratified sampling approach. 4082 respondents were drawn from 230 schools. A total of 3991 respondents were included in the analysis and of these 307 (7.7%) were identified as young carers. The population estimate of prevalence was 7.9 per cent. This suggests that there are around 38 400 young carers in school grades 4–9 in Switzerland. Extrapolating to the 9–16 age group gives a figure of almost 51 500.

Although there is already general recognition of the fact that many relatives provide unpaid care for family members, there is still little awareness that children, adolescents and young adults under 25 also provide such care. Until recently, the situation of young carers and young adult carers, as those young persons are referred to in international research, has not been in the focus of professionals, research and the public in Switzerland.

In Switzerland, the issue of young carers and young adult carers - young people under the age of 18 and 24 respectively, who take on significant or substantial caring tasks and levels of responsibility that would usually be associated with an adult - has not been researched before. The number of these younger carers is unknown, as is the extent and kind of their caring activities and the outcomes for their health, well-being, psycho-social development, education, transitions to adulthood, future employability and economic participation.

Methods

While political and public interest in providing support for family carers is growing, so called young carers and young adult carers—young persons under the ages of 18 and 25 respectively—mostly remain unrecognised. Yet, this vulnerable group is in need of special attention and support from professionals in order to get along with the situation of an ill family member and the caring duties they perform.