Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to give young carers under the age of 16 (a) financial support and (b) other assistance to continue with mainstream education.

Schools play an important part in identifying pupils who are young carers and in offering them appropriate support. That is why the Department for Education has worked with Carers Trust and The Children’s Society for many years to share tools, good practice and increase awareness in schools of young carers’ issues. Ofsted inspectors will also pay particular attention to the outcomes achieved by young carers in schools.

We have changed the law so that, since April 2015, all young carers are entitled to an assessment of their needs for support, regardless of who they care for, what type of care they provide or how much time they spend caring.

It is worth noting that a significant proportion, around 60%, of young carers are thought to be eligible for free school meals, and those who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years will be attracting pupil premium funding to the schools that they attend.

We are also grant-funding Suffolk Family Carers over £111,000 in 2015-16 to run a local project to raise awareness of young carers amongst teachers, non-teaching staff and school nurses, including a focus on young carers’ mental health, supporting Suffolk County Council’s strategy on young carers.