Does the covert nature of caring prohibit the development of effective services for young carers?

Young Carers in Australia:Understanding the Advantages and Disadvantages of Their Care Giving

“…United Kingdom research notes an apparent conflict of interest between the needs of care givers and of care recipients; this is, however, a service provider construct because they tend to regard either the care giver or the care recipient as their principal client (Banks et al 2002). Some services are now tending to take a more family-centred approach and to seek innovative ways to develop a mutually beneficial form of service provision.…”

“…These findings corroborate earlier United Kingdom research by Aldridge and Becker (1993), which found that despite the often negative impacts on education, employment, and social and friendship participation, young carers demonstrated strong commitment to their parents and derived positive benefits from their caring roles. It is argued that by maintaining 'at home' care for disabled or seriously ill adults and children, young carers contribute to the integrity and resilience of families and to their own sense of worth (Banks et al 2002).…”

“…At the same time, family members and other relatives reap significant benefits from young people's contributions to informal care. Such benefits include maintaining 'at home' care for disabled or seriously ill adults and children; reducing the costs of either out-of-home residential care or purchase of formal domiciliary care services; and most importantly, contributing to the integrity and resilience of families (Banks et al 2002;Moore 2005aMoore , 2005bMoore , 2005c.…”

‘The sooner you can change their life course the better’: the time-framing of risks in relationship to being a young carer

“…Its scope can be narrowed by only counting as young carers those who carry significant caring responsibilities over-andabove those normal for their age group (Walker, 1996). This delineation, in turn, raises the question of what is to count as 'significant', and how the boundary with 'non-significant' is to be set, an issue which may partly explain the wide range of published prevalence estimates (Banks et al, 2002). The UK population of young carers was estimated as 20-50,000 by the Department of Health (DoH, 1999), 165,000 in the 2011 census (The Children's Society, 2013) and 750,000 in a survey of secondary schoolchildren (BBC, 2010).…”

‘The web is not enough, it's a base’ – an explorative study of what needs a web-based support system for young carers must meet

“…The web has been touted as a way to overcome isolation [6], and to connect with others in a context where there is less pressure to identify oneself [16].…”