Census 2021 – Identify Young Carers within your household on Sunday 21st March

How are Young Carers identified in the Census? 

The census needs to be filled out by an adult in the household. You are then given the opportunity to say, for each child in the family, whether the child is a carer and how many hours unpaid care they are providing. This means it will quite often need the person filling in the form, often a parent, to identify the child’s caring responsibilities. The question is the same as that used for adults.

Who is a Young Carer?

Young Carers are children or young people who provide care for one or more people who have disabilities, long-term physical illnesses, mental health difficulties or who misuse drugs or alcohol. They may be taking on physical, personal, financial and/or emotional care.

Who is a Young Adult Carer?

A Young Adult Carer is someone aged between 18 and 25 who is responsible for the care of another person with a long term serious health condition or disability, mental health problem, alcohol or drug addiction. We offer support for Young Adult Carers to help them manage their caring responsibilities. We can help with moving into higher education, finding funding and accessing adult carer services.

Examples of care 

- Practical tasks – cooking, shopping 

- Physical care – lifting or helping someone   use the stairs 

- Personal care – dressing, washing

- Emotional support – listening, calming

- Sibling care 

- Domestic support 

- Household management

- Medication management

- Practical and financial support

- Helping someone communicate 

- Collecting benefits and/or pescriptions

Young Carers today face a greater set of challenges than ever before, yet too often they remain unrecognised and this is exactly why efforts to research and understand the issues and social landscape that young carers and their families face are so very important. 

We need greater knowledge about the lives of young carers, so that we can be sure we are taking the most effective measures to improve them. Getting things right for young carers now is crucially important for their immediate development as young people and their longer term chances to thrive as an adult. 

This knowledge will give local authorities greater legal responsibilities to ensure that Young Carers’ needs are recognised and responded to, and could significantly improve the prospects for our Young Carers.