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Young carers’ experiences of services and support: what is helpful and how can support be improved?

Young carers’ experiences of services and support: what is helpful and how can support be improved?
Young carers’ experiences of services and support: what is helpful and how can support be improved?
Globally, many children and young people provide support to family members who have poor physical or mental health, are disabled, or misuse drugs and alcohol. These young carers are at higher risk of poorer education, employment, health, and social participation outcomes compared to their peers without caring responsibilities. In the UK, awareness of the challenges faced by young carers, and a framework of their legal rights, are relatively well-developed. However, it is unclear how support can most effectively be provided. Taking a qualitative approach we explored experiences and views of young carers (aged 9–25), conducting focus groups or interviews with 133 young carers and 17 parent care recipients. We explored what aspects of services and support are seen as helpful, valued, and acceptable to young people, and what could be improved. A reflexive, thematic analysis was conducted. Valued support came from: young carers groups (including peer support), school-based and mental health support, and support for the care recipient. Helpful aspects of support included someone who listens and understands, and can be trusted not to break confidentiality; involving the young person in information, decision-making and planning (sometimes including regarding the care recipient); and finding and linking to other services. There was a difficult balance for practitioners between being perceived as proactive, persistent or intrusive when offering support to a young carer, but it was important to allow opportunities for young carers, and those they care for, to change their minds about when and whether to access support. Many interactions were perceived as unhelpful or threatening to the family, and there was often not enough of the type of support that was valued. Sharing of positive experiences can be beneficial for both people seeking support and those delivering it; key messages on what is helpful from the perspective of young carers can help support and shape practice approaches.
1932-6203
Stevens, Madeleine
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Brimblecombe, Nicola
79ec50b4-1b38-48dd-ae37-4e9a89fbdbe0
Gowen, Sara
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Skyer, Robin
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Moriarty, Jo
eb6d011e-76f3-4b63-8133-e805b3938d61
Stevens, Madeleine
9a9e2c9f-b7bb-4958-8b39-4b74553f326c
Brimblecombe, Nicola
79ec50b4-1b38-48dd-ae37-4e9a89fbdbe0
Gowen, Sara
04c7d77b-3b50-48f6-8846-557021cd9bfa
Skyer, Robin
42ae54f0-a3ef-4c3a-8a38-eb61aa63f7c5
Moriarty, Jo
eb6d011e-76f3-4b63-8133-e805b3938d61

Stevens, Madeleine, Brimblecombe, Nicola, Gowen, Sara, Skyer, Robin and Moriarty, Jo (2024) Young carers’ experiences of services and support: what is helpful and how can support be improved? PLoS ONE, 19 (3 March), [e0300551]. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0300551).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Globally, many children and young people provide support to family members who have poor physical or mental health, are disabled, or misuse drugs and alcohol. These young carers are at higher risk of poorer education, employment, health, and social participation outcomes compared to their peers without caring responsibilities. In the UK, awareness of the challenges faced by young carers, and a framework of their legal rights, are relatively well-developed. However, it is unclear how support can most effectively be provided. Taking a qualitative approach we explored experiences and views of young carers (aged 9–25), conducting focus groups or interviews with 133 young carers and 17 parent care recipients. We explored what aspects of services and support are seen as helpful, valued, and acceptable to young people, and what could be improved. A reflexive, thematic analysis was conducted. Valued support came from: young carers groups (including peer support), school-based and mental health support, and support for the care recipient. Helpful aspects of support included someone who listens and understands, and can be trusted not to break confidentiality; involving the young person in information, decision-making and planning (sometimes including regarding the care recipient); and finding and linking to other services. There was a difficult balance for practitioners between being perceived as proactive, persistent or intrusive when offering support to a young carer, but it was important to allow opportunities for young carers, and those they care for, to change their minds about when and whether to access support. Many interactions were perceived as unhelpful or threatening to the family, and there was often not enough of the type of support that was valued. Sharing of positive experiences can be beneficial for both people seeking support and those delivering it; key messages on what is helpful from the perspective of young carers can help support and shape practice approaches.

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Accepted/In Press date: 28 February 2024
Published date: 29 March 2024
Additional Information: Publisher Copyright: © 2024 Public Library of Science. All rights reserved. Copyright: © 2024 Stevens et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 488669
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/488669
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: b8e58a95-e543-49bc-a1ce-1ab8f31731cd
ORCID for Robin Skyer: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0018-050X

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Date deposited: 04 Apr 2024 16:35
Last modified: 04 May 2024 02:04

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Contributors

Author: Madeleine Stevens
Author: Nicola Brimblecombe
Author: Sara Gowen
Author: Robin Skyer ORCID iD
Author: Jo Moriarty

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