Young Carers

A young carer is someone under 18 who helps look after someone in their family who is ill, disabled or misuses drugs or alcohol.

Surrey Young Carers is here to support you if you are aged 5-18, living in Surrey and are providing practical or emotional care for a member of your family with a long-term illness, physical disability or learning difficulty, mental ill health or substance or alcohol dependency.

You may be providing practical help such as making meals, or physical help like helping your mum get dressed. You may be looking after other children or perhaps your brother or sister is the person in your family needing extra care.

Young carers very often provide emotional support as well and can feel very lonely.

There are an estimated 14,000 young carers in Surrey and our dedicated Surrey Young Carers team is here to help. We provide a range of support depending on the situation, from activities to give time out from the caring role and the chance to meet children in a similar position, to more intensive groups and tailored one-to-one help, for young carers in a more difficult situation.

If you’d like to get in touch with us to find out more about the service and how it can help you, please call us on 01483 568 269, or email syc@actionforcarers.org.uk

Being a young carer can sometimes be stressful and tiring, so it’s important to look after yourself as well as the person you care for.

Surrey Young Carers can help you take a break and have time just for yourself as a young person and meet new friends. Our staff are here to point you in the right direction to access some ‘me’ time, to renew your batteries.

Surrey Young Carers have specialist information and support available to anyone in Surrey who is caring for someone who is currently serving, a reservist or veteran, or an armed forces family member.

Surrey has a large Armed forces connected community, naturally including many people with a caring role.

They know being a carer related to the forces – whether you are still serving, a family member, a young carer, ex-services, a veteran or a reservist – brings some unique challenges, as well as the usual issues caring brings.

They can offer confidential, bespoke, information, advice and guidance to carers in the Armed Forces community. We have several hundred Armed Forces-connected carers in Surrey already registered with us.

They can help with all sorts of things and have specific support for the challenges you might be facing.

How can they help….

· They’ll put you in touch with the relevant support with ACS, whether that’s for practical, legal, financial or wellbeing concerns

· They can give you specific information around caring and support within the Armed Forces community in Surrey · Access their support groups, which meet monthly both online and face to face · They offer a broad range of free wellbeing, information and training events

· They can help advise you on what money help, including benefits, you may be entitled to

· They can also signpost and refer to other relevant organisations that can help

Please contact Action for Carers Surrey to find out more – by phone on 0303 040 1234 or email CarerSupport@actionforcarers.org.uk

A chance for you to have lunch, relax, play games, chat, and have FUN!

When: Every Wednesday lunchtime 12.00 -12.55

Where: The Well-Being Hub

What our Young Carers say about Young Carers Club:

'Young carers is fun because you get to have a fun time there.'

'Young carers can get quite noisy because we have lunch together and laugh.'

'I enjoy Young carers because it's fun- we get to be minions.'

'It's fun. There are lots of things to play with.'

Young-Carer-Policy1-1.pdf

If you require help from Hampshire County Council, or if you would like to get in touch to refer a young carer or someone they care for:

Contact Children's Services Phone 0300 555 1384 Email childrens.services@hants.gov.uk