Our Driving Change in Higher Education (HE) project is working with universities across England to review and improve the support they offer to young adult carers. The project offers support, free of charge, for each university to develop and embed support that will make a difference for young adult carers. Keep reading for details about how to get involved.
Young adult carers are young people, aged 16 to 24, who provide unpaid care to a family member on a regular basis. L&W estimates that young adult carers provide over £3.5 billion of unpaid care per year. Despite this, on average they achieve 9 lower GCSE grades than their peers, they are five times more likely to drop out of college, and they are 38% less likely to achieve a degree qualification. However, these outcomes are not inevitable.
These young people deserve to go as far as their talent and hard work will take them, yet our work and wider research shows that they often don’t feel supported to go to university. Findings from UCAS in 2024 show that almost two thirds (63%) of young adult carers say they did not receive support tailored to their circumstances to apply for HE, and 69% were unaware of the support available for students with caring responsibilities at their university.
We want to break down barriers to HE and ensure that young adult carers have the same opportunities to go to university, and achieve their potential, as other young people.
Delivered in partnership with Carers Federation, and supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, The Driving Change in HE project aims to:
Starting in April 2024, the project will work with 25 universities over three years. The actions of an initial cohort of Driving Change universities are already having an impact ensuring that the support they offer really meets these young people’s needs. This includes:
The project offers one-to-one support tailored for each university for between 12 and 18 months, including:
In addition, the project offers:
To join Driving Change, universities are required to identify and secure commitment from a member of the senior management team to participate in and fulfil the requirements of the project, including taking part in a light touch evaluation to explore the difference that the project makes for young adult carers and universities.