MYTIME Young Carers Charity Hosts Dorset’s Second Education Summit.
MYTIME Young Carers charity brought together schools and professionals from far and wide to join Dorset’s second Education Summit on Thursday 29th June, 2023 at Bournemouth University. The event aimed to inspire educators to make meaningful changes for these remarkable young people within their institutions, raise awareness of young carers and provide practical support which could be implemented in schools and organisations.
The day centred around a presentation given by young carers on the topic of ‘Can you hear us? and welcomed key-note speakers Krista Sharp, CEO of MYTIME Young Carers and Andy McGowan, Policy and Practice Manager of Young Carers and Young Adult Carers at Carers Trust.
Young Carer Champions from across Dorset were invited to tell their stories of success and empower other professionals in their position. They shared firsthand the importance of the work that is being carried out in their schools and the impact it is having on young carer’s lives.
Krista commented ‘The turnout was even better than last year with over 100 attendees from the education sector. It was great to see so many educational professionals stepping up to support young carers in their schools and hear the inspiring recorded stories of the young carers themselves. It really was a day to remember.’
This year’s Education Summit followed the recent release of the 2023 school census results which, for the first time, included young carers. Schools were asked to identify young carers they were aware of, although this was optional, and not made compulsory for schools to ask the pupils if they were young carers.
Nationally, only 21% of schools across England identified any young carers on the census. Primary schools in England identified just 0.3% of their students as young carers, whereas schools in BCP identified 1.4% of their pupils as young carers. Secondary schools showed an even higher difference with the whole of England’s secondary schools identifying an average of 0.6% of their students as young carers, whereas this was up to 2.5% in BCP. The census revealed that BCP schools have recognised the highest percentage of young carers (1.9%) compared to the national average of 0.5%.
Krista explains: ‘What these figures tell us is that the Level Up Programme is working. MYTIME Young Carers works with a huge 78% of BCP schools and we’ve been delivering the programme since 2020. In that time we’ve been working with the council and schools to deliver assemblies to students to help them self-identify as young carers and signpost them to support services in their schools. We also helped schools develop policies and set up young carer groups. We’ve made schools more aware through our Level Up Programme and the census clearly shows that this has worked, when BCP schools were asked if they had any pupils that were carers, they knew the answer. This really is ground breaking work!’’
MYTIME Young Carers’ Level Up Programme supports schools to improve their provision for young carers. By providing high-quality staff training, young carer policy support, student assemblies and extra-curricular activities for young carers, MYTIME raises awareness of these exceptional young people within their school communities and ensures that they have everything they need to be happy and successful in education. Ultimately, it’s all about levelling the playing field for young carers.
Dan Morris, Level Up Programme Manager at MYTIME Young Carers, commented on this year’s workshops that took place at the Education Summit: ‘Workshops this year were a huge hit and were built around the feedback we received from young carers at last year’s event. With a focus on improving the identification of young carers and signposting them to the correct support and reducing isolation and improving young carer communities in schools, we wanted to address these issues head on.’
The event was open to all educational professionals from across the UK, as well as anyone with an interest in supporting young carers, with the aim to help them improve and develop their practice with young carers in mind.
Krista said: ‘We saw from the census how much of a difference it makes if teachers know how to support young carers in school, and today was all about building on that and making sure we’re all aware of these incredible young carers, and very importantly, we know how best to support them.’