YOUNG CARERS around the country will be targeted in a move to create a national support network for young people who look after sick or disabled parents or relatives at home.
While there is a strong support network in place for young carers in the UK and Northern Ireland, Linda McKernan of Cork City Partnership (CCP) said there was no such support for young Irish carers.
A community worker with CCP who is also doing a Masters on young carers, Ms McKernan organised a recent meeting of young carers at University College Cork (UCC) to decide how to move forward in setting up a support network.
A recent study by the Department of Applied Social Science at UCC revealed that children as young as six are caring for sick relatives in their homes.
Ms McKernan said: “From my interviews with young carers, the lack of support has emerged as one of the biggest issues. A lot of them feel they are very much alone, they don’t know of anybody in the same position and want to meet each other, which is where the idea of the support group came from.”
She pointed out that it was difficult to find young carers, as many do not identify themselves as carers, they just think caring for a parent or sibling is part of normal life. There is also a fear of social services getting involved and the relative being taken into care.
Ms McKernan said the plan is to target young carers through schools and youth clubs and to eventually expand the network nationwide.
While she works closely with the Carer’s Association of Ireland, Ms McKernan highlighted the need for resources to allow other community workers, such as herself, to provide support to young carers.
The UCC study, which was commissioned by the Combat Poverty Agency, found that being a young carer could lead to impoverishment of young people’s lives, not only in terms of financial hardship and lack of basic resources such as food and heating, but also in terms of education and employment opportunities, their social lives and their own health.
New research commissioned from NUI Galway by the Minister of State for Children and Youth Affairs, Barry Andrews, aims to ascertain just how many young people are caring for parents or relatives in this country and the impact that this is having on their lives.
For further information on the young carer’s support network, contact Linda McKernan at lmckernan@partnershipcork.ie
