Why Care? It's What We Do

[jimbo 111]

Iona Shanks Unpaid young adult carer who cares for her mum

Why Care? It's What We Do

We have all at some point in our lives played a game of hide and seek, we loved to hide and loathed to seek. One thing that I have come to find when taking on the role of the seeker is that we begin searching in the most obvious of places for those that are hiding, the places that we ourselves would hide. Yet even though we have anticipated it, we are still surprised when we find somebody hiding in one of those obvious locations. It's just like the many young carers in the UK that are hidden in plain sight.

Many young carers do not associate themselves with the term "Young Carer" simply because they don't even associate themselves as being a carer full stop. Being a young carer myself I just thought that the care I gave to my loved one was purely an act of love and something that had to be done, it was nothing more than my domestic lifestyle. It is because of the lack of understanding of what a young carer truly is that many young carers up and down the UK are not receiving the help and support they need and truly deserve because they have not yet been identified ...

Article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/iona-shanks/why-care-its-what-we-do_b_6742092.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

 

[Saffie]

We have a Young Carers Group here, aligned to the Carers UK but it is for children who have to take on the caring role in some way.
My granddaughter whose younger brother has DS was a member. Sometimes it involves a child with an ailing parent.
I suppose it depends on what one means by the word young.

Yes, it must be so much worse when a young adult is the carer too as opposed to someone older though isolation can occur at any age and even when in a group.
Especially, as you say, when talking to someone who has no understanding of what you are feeling.
Life is never fair.