Children in Suffolk spend up to 90 hours a week caring for family
Suffolk's young carers are being recognised as part of a national awareness week.
Last updated 17th Jun 2021
Around 3,500 children, teenagers and young adults in Suffolk are registered as carers with the charity organisation Suffolk Family Carers.
Over 400 of them are just five years old.
The charity, raises awareness for the needs of young carers who have been hit especially hard by the pandemic.
One of their young carers is Jade, 20, who has been caring for her younger brother with a learning disability since she was 16.
She has just finished her college course, and she says she found it difficult to study at home: “Not being able to have the private time I need to be able to study, and to be able to focus, that was a big challenge.”
Kirsten Alderson, CEO of Suffolk Family Carers, has seen many young carers struggle during lockdowns, some of them as young as five.
Even at the best of times, carers can suffer from loneliness, isolation, and the lack of a break.
“But what we saw in lockdown was a huge increase in the hours that people are caring”, Kirsten says.
In a recent survey by the organisation, 62% of participants said they were caring for more than 50 hours per week, while around 10% of the youngest carers said they were caring for more than 90 hours a week.
Kirsten says: "You just can’t imagine that there are young people out there doing that. That is something lockdown has done. It has reduced the possibility of getting away from the caring role just by going to school or other normal activities.
“People have found that they are basically just caring morning, noon and night.
"That’s quite shocking and that is something we want to do something about.”
Suffolk Family Carers aims to support children and young people by offering them a break from their caring role. Every time lockdown restrictions lifted, Kirsten and her colleagues tried to organise activities for the carers, such as socially distanced camping trips.
Caring for friends and family members can affect the mental health of children and teenagers. Kirsten describes worries and concerns about loved ones she has seen in young people, feelings of insecurity about the future of the family, and – thankfully in very few cases - experiences of trauma.
On the other hand, she says caring at a young age also has positive effects: “We notice that young carers are very mature, they are very empathetic and caring, they can understand things from other people’s perspective.”
Jade agrees that caring for her younger brother has shaped who she is.
She says: “I have become more of a caring person and more patient with him. Sometimes it’s very difficult, because not only am I a carer, I’m a sister.
"And I say this a lot, you have to try and find a line between being a sister and being a carer.”
She also found it tricky growing up to make other people understand her situation, especially at the beginning of college. Jade says: “When we got the diagnosis, there were some people that didn’t get it, no matter how hard you try to explain.”
She points out it is often not malevolent: “They won’t make snarky comments or silly remarks, but they won’t understand that for example having people over is a number one difficulty for me.”
Jade says she is very fortunate with her current group of friends, and she is taking part in many of the activities Suffolk Family Carers offer.
She thinks the organisation does a good job, but she wished the public was more understanding towards carers: “Don’t stare and don’t judge people just by seeing their behaviour because you never know what is going on behind the scenes.”
She also has a message for other carers who are struggling with their situation: “You are never alone. No one has the same situation, but there is always someone who will understand what you are going through.”
Nathan, 16, has been registered as a carer since he was a young teenager.
“I care for myself”, he says, “it’s a bit complicated”.
When his sister was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, his parents often had their hands full with looking after her. Nathan tells us he looked after himself, cooked and cleaned the house.
For him, it wasn’t the care itself that caused problems, but growing up with only his sister as an example. He tells us: “It was monkey see, monkey do. She was okay at school, but she sometimes didn’t want to go. So when I went to high school, I was similar.”
Nathan also says working with Suffolk Family Carers helped him understand what was going on with his sister.
His experience is very different from Jade’s, but he also calls for more awareness: “I think more people need to recognise that they are a young carer. It might just be, like, looking after a friend, or if you have to do the shopping at least once a week, people could be a young carer, and they didn’t even know. And they are missing out on all the support.”
Kirsten, the Suffolk Family Carers CEO, has a more specific wish: more funding for carers services.
She says about a recent call she had with CEOs from other organisations: “We see the numbers of people in need of support going up and up, but money goes down. We want to support as many people as we can. That is my message to the government.”