We’re working to ensure young adult carers get the employment and skills support they need by trying to improve policy and practice.
Young adult carers are young people aged 16-24 who provide unpaid care to someone, usually a member of their family, on a regular basis. They may care for a parent, sibling, grandparent or other relative who has a disability, long-term illness, mental health problem or other condition which results in a need for care, support or supervision.
They provide £3.5 billion of unpaid care per year. They are three times as likely to be NEET (not in education, employment or training) as other young people, achieve on average 9 lower GCSE grades and 45% report a mental health problem.
We believe that young adult carers have the right to participate in learning, have access to good quality services and opportunities to benefit from stable and high-quality employment. We’re campaigning for three policy changes, which will give young adult carers fair access to learning and work:
There are more than 270,000 young adult carers aged 16-24 in England and Wales. That’s the equivalent of around 1 in 23 young people.
Over one in ten young adult carers provide 50 or more hours of unpaid care a week.
We believe that young adult carers have the right to participate in learning, have access to the services that they need and to benefit from the opportunities that having a stable and rewarding job brings. Likewise, society, learning providers and policymakers have a duty to support them and ensure that they have fair access to learning and work.
Watch the video below to find out why colleges chose to get involved in Driving Change in Further Education, which was delivered between September 2019 and August 2022.
