The label, ‘Young Carer’ includes everything from intensive support of a severely handicapped parent to more simple tasks such as communicating for profoundly deaf relatives. But according to official figures, some 13,000 out of a total 175, 000 young carers in the UK are providing more than 50 hours of help a week, of which nearly 1,000 children are aged between five and seven years old. In the past, they have been labelled serial or hardcore truants. So what can be done about this small group of pupils who do not go to school, do not think about passing exams or getting job, who are often angry at the world and who have few hopes for their futures?
At first glance they are just lazy – always yawning in class, making excuses to miss days off school and never getting their homework done. Their friends think that they have got an attitude problem – there’s always some reason they can’t come out with everyone else and they always seem to be keeping secrets. Perhaps they are mixed up in the wrong crowd. Maybe they’re even getting into drink or drugs.
Sadly, it is often only their families who know the truth about these children: they miss school when the person they are caring for is too ill to be left alone.
They don’t think about passing exams because they spend their evenings caring for their sick relative and looking after their younger brothers and sisters.
They are angry because they are ordinary children who did not choose to give up their education to look after someone.