Halton Borough Council and Halton Carers’ Centre marked Young Carers’ Awareness Day with events in schools, consultation between teenagers and council officers and a stall in Runcorn ASDA where young people chatted to shoppers about what they do.

All Halton schools have been sent awareness posters and information to be put up on noticeboards and activity ideas and teachers encouraged to be more understanding of the needs of young carers, who may need extra time off or flexibility with deadlines.

Pupils can also be signposted to services offered for them by Halton Borough Council and Halton Carers’ Centre.

Young carers in Halton also spoke with council officers about the uncertainty they felt regarding future involvement with adult services, colleges and employers being sensitive to their needs as they moved on from school or as their caring role increased.

This consultation is to be extended to inform future service development for young adult carers (eg 16 – 25yr olds) who do not feel as though they fit within children’s services or provision for older adults.

Halton Young Carers Team and Young Carers from the Spoken and Heard group hosted a stall at Runcorn Asda superstore on Thursday 26 January to raise awareness of young carers. They ran out of the 150 leaflets they had and had to call for some more.

A few people took information to give out in their organisations and ‘Brighter Futures’ Halton’s Young Carers strategy booklet proved popular with relatives of carers who said they would pass it on.

Volunteers and officers said people they chatted to couldn’t believe children as young as seven were registered as young carers, helping look after relatives.

Young Adult Carer Sarah Crompton, aged 23, from Widnes, said: “I feel that the day was successful it did gain a lot of interest and hopefully more referrals come from it. Halton Borough Council and Halton Carers’ Centre are aiming to make sure young carers get the help they need and deserve.”

Molly Neild, aged 18, and also from Widnes, joined Sarah at ASDA in Runcorn. “We talked to a lot of people during the day,” she said: “Hopefully some people will contact the service for the first time so they can be offered help and support.”

Young Carers Awareness Day was a national day of recognition for the 700,000 young carers in the UK.

Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Health and Wellbeing, Cllr Marie Wright, said: “We wanted everyone to recognise the challenges that young carers face.

“It is difficult for young carers to realise their hopes and dreams for the future unless they have the right support in place. This is why we want young carers to get in touch so we can support them.”

‘Brighter Futures’, Halton’s Young Carers Strategy 2016-2019 includes local and national resources for young carers and was also a celebration of Halton young carers’ achievements.

If you are a young carer or a professional wanting to know more about young carer services please contact the Young Carers Team at the Carers Centre on 01928 580182.

Who are young carers? https://carers.org/sites/files/carerstrust/ycad2017-whoarethey_a3poster.pdf

You can follow hashtag #YoungCarersAwarenessDay