Dorset young carers' charity launches wellbeing videos
MYTIME is making them available to help improve children's mental health
A Dorset charity supporting young carers and their families has launched a new set of videos to help improve children's mental health.
MYTIME has made them with national charity stormbreak, with 27 of them in total.
They're all under the themes of self-care, relationships, hope and optimism, self-worth and resilience, encouraging movement to help boost thoughts and feelings.
The stormbreak video series was led by MYTIME young carers aged 16 and above, up into their mid-twenties.
The Dorset charity supports carers as young as five years old, who may be carrying out anything from cooking to doing laundry to physically helping a parent get up and dressed every morning.
The responsibility of caring for another person often means these young people miss out on hobbies, seeing friends and other social activities their peers may take for granted.
MYTIME CEO Krista Sharp said:
"We particularly wanted to reach out to younger young carers as they can often find it challenging to articulate complicated emotions and feelings. We know that young carers provide invaluable support to their families, but lots of people don’t realise how much they really do, because it happens behind closed doors. Lots of young carers can feel isolated, invisible and lonely because they don’t have much time to see friends or because they don’t feel they can talk about their responsibilities.
"At MYTIME, we know that no one understands what young carers need better than young carers themselves, so we work hard to place them at the centre of everything we do and to amplify their voices. We also recognise that young carers are incredibly capable young people and that, with the right support, they can achieve amazing things."
Martin Yelling, stormbreak’s Founder, says the videos are aimed at helping reduce loneliness:
"In this project we really wanted to understand the issues and challenges that young carers face and work with them to produce some stormbreak activities they’d feel proud of but also that would really help other young carers, especially when they might be struggling.
"This project is both timely and required. The young carers were totally amazing people and our team at stormbreak were dazzled by their commitment and humbled by their attitudes. We are thrilled to see the positive reactions after the premier yesterday and we hope this project represents the start of many collaborative programmes in the future."