Action for Young Carers (AYC), the young carers support service delivered by Carers Federation, is working to enable healthcare professionals to better support Young Carers within medical practices.
Specialist training for medical staff will increase young carers awareness and support following a £5000 community grant. This grant has facilitated this innovative partnership work and provided the backdrop for a new young carers GP and education pack, due to be launched during Carers Week in June.
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Carers Federation offers support for young carers via AYC in Nottingham City. AYC is a confidential service supporting young carers between the ages of 5-18. The service creates an open and accessible approach for young carers to access the help they need, building confidence, skills, and opportunities through a range of free-to-access activities, a dedicated support worker and ongoing advice and support. The Assura Community Fund, which kindly provided the £5000 community grant, support health and wellbeing improvement projects in the community, based around their primary care centres.
Delivery of this specialist training was affected by Covid-19, which resulted in a newly adapted, digitally accessible version with input from all partners involved. This new training product sits alongside a newly developed GP information booklet for young carers and an updated education pack to support GPs in being able to identify, sign post and support them. AYC is now able to deliver this training both in person and digitally, as well as the information packs which give clear referral pathways of how young carers access support services.
With 30 young carer referrals to the Carers Federation in less than a year, the awareness training and access to updated resources is already proving successful.Rosaleen Lynch, service manager for Carers Federation said:
“This grant will help our healthcare professionals which will lead to better physical and mental health and education needs for our young carers. We plan to continue to work with multiple agencies on projects like this to help benefit the communities around us.”
Carers Week 2022 marks the perfect time to launch this new initiative, with the theme of making “caring visible, valued and supported” at the heart of Carers Federation and AYC’s work. Carers Federation will continue this work with the launch of the GP and education packs for young carers in June and training throughout the summer, working collaboratively to look at new ways of working with Medical Practices. This includes an Autumn launch by Carers Federation of the Quality Standard in Carer Support for Medical Practices, an accreditation developed to recognise and further best practice in supporting patients with caring responsibilities.
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