Cheshire East Young Carers Service and the Cheshire East Carer's Hub

What is a Young Carer

A Young Carer is someone aged 5 to 17 who helps to look after someone in their family who is unwell, disabled, has a special educational need or misuses drugs or alcohol. This may be a sibling, a parent or another family member. They may care for more than one person or even have a condition or SEND themselves. 

The Care Act 2014 gives Young Carers more rights to ask for help and Local Authorities must offer a check of what support a Young Carer might need as soon as they can through the Cheshire East Young Carers Service.

Support for Young Carers

The check is called a ‘Young Carer’s Needs Assessment’ which is completed by Assessors from the Cheshire East Young Carers Service. Our Assessors will talk with you either at school or somewhere else you feel comfortable to consider the care you are giving to someone else and to understand what support you may need for your own education or work, health, hobbies or activities. We may ask your parents or someone at school for their thoughts too. 

This helps us to understand about your caring role and the impact it has on you. Then we can look at what support you feel you might need and how we can help with that. There are organisations across Cheshire East who can help to provide that support. 

After the assessment, some support may be continued with the Young Carers Service but it also may be offered by the Cheshire East Carers' Hub. 

Young Carer support could look like:

• 1:1 or group support
• Providing respite activities 
• Providing opportunities to meet and get to know other Young Carers
• Notifying your GP of your caring status
• Signposting or referring to specialist organisations for wellbeing or other interests
• Talking with school or college to help to overcome barriers you might find in being able to do your best in education
• Supporting with transition to further education or into the work place 

Someone from the Assessor Team or the Carers’ Hub will check in around six months later to see that the support we have offered has been helpful. We’ll check in again every year to see if you are ok or perhaps needs something else to help.

Page last reviewed: 18 December 2023