Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress his Department has made in improving access to adequate support for young carers to tackle loneliness and social isolation.

The government is committed to supporting young carers so that they are properly protected from excessive or inappropriate caring responsibilities and supported to achieve their full potential. Consistent identification remains challenging, with many being ‘hidden’ and therefore unrecognised and/or unsupported.

Changes through the Children and Families Act 2014 simplified the legislation relating to young adult carers’ assessments, making rights and duties clearer to both young people and practitioners. This included promoting whole family approaches which triggers both children’s or young people's and adults’ support services into action – assessing why a child is caring, what needs to change and what would help the family to prevent children or young people from taking on this responsibility in the first place.

Most of the government’s work to support carers is led by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) delivered through the Carers Action Plan. The 'Shaping our Future: Improving Assessment and Support for Young Carers Transition to Adulthood' report was published in June and is available from here:

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/young-carer_transition_report.pdf.

One of the recommendations states that there is more to learn about young carers’ experiences of loneliness and how it is related to their well-being. There should be a specific focus on young adult carers being better connected in order to tackle the loneliness they experience. DHSC will be sharing the findings of the report with the appropriate government departments for them to consider the recommendations within their policies.

We have recently published the Children in Need Review conclusion, and this sets out our approach to helping schools and children’s social care improve the educational outcomes of children in need, including those young carers assessed as being in need.