Young Carer Card

              
In 2008, following the New Carers’ Strategy, the Young Carers’ Partnership was formed. The Partnership is made up of organisations which support and work with young carers in Lincolnshire in order to ensure that the voices of Young Carers are heard.

One of the issues identified by this group was a lack of information sharing and recognition by health professionals especially in emergency situations. In order to address and focus on this issue, a number of Young Carers, Action for Young Carers, LCC Carers Lead and representatives from United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust and the East Midlands Ambulance Service was set up and the See Me Talk to Me project was born. 

The aim of the project is to raise awareness of young carers and their issues within NHS services and over the course of several meetings, the idea of a Young Carer Card was proposed.  This card would identify the Young Carer to Health and any other professionals working with their family and act as a communication tool.  Young carers, living with a service user may well have useful information about their cared-for person’s condition and their day-to-day experiences may prove valuable and save practitioners a lot of time when working with families.

A working sub-group was formed and a card has now been designed and funding kindly donated by the Bromhead Medical Charity enabled a printer and materials to produce the cards to be purchased.  The scheme was rolled out across the county to all young carers who wish to have a card, with the launch held at AYC’s annual residential at PGL Caythorpe Court on Wednesday September 1st 2010.

In addition to aiding communication between young carers and health professionals, it can also be used to access the Lincolnshire Carers’ Discount scheme which is run by Carers Connect, contact them on 01522 812830 or email them on info@carersconnect.net.


Young Carer Card Explanatory Letter
Young Carer Card Form
Form and photographs should be sent to u2ayc@carersfederation.co.uk with the young carer’s name in the subject line. Alternatively you can post them to our address.