Educators from across the country came together at Bournemouth University last week for the second annual MYTIME Young Carers Education Summit.

Centring around the question ‘Can you hear us?’, the event aimed to inspire attendees and offer ways to implement meaningful changes for young carers within their own institutions.

The keynote speakers – Krista Sharp, CEO of MYTIME Young Carers, and Andy McGowan, Policy and Practice Manager of Young Carers and Young Adult Carers at Carers Trust – were joined by Young Carer Champions from across Dorset, who shared their own experiences helping and supporting these exceptional young people.

Krista said: “The turnout was even better than last year with over 100 attendees from the education sector.

“It was great to see so many educational professionals stepping up to support young carers in their schools and hear the inspiring recorded stories of the young carers themselves.

“It really was a day to remember.”

MYTIME Young Carers currently works with 78 per cent of all schools in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area, collaborating with them on policies and support groups.

It also delivers assemblies to help students self-identify as young carers and show them how to access support services in their schools.

Raising awareness of these options was a big focus of the workshops, new to this year’s summit.

Dan Morris, Level Up Programme Manager at MYTIME, said: “The workshops were a huge hit and built around the feedback we received from young carers at last year’s event.

“With a focus on improving the identification of young carers, signposting them to the correct support, reducing isolation, and improving young carer communities in schools, we wanted to address these issues head on.”

The summit also followed the release of the 2023 school census results, which newly include statistics on young carers.

This year, institutions were given the option to identify any young carers of whom they were aware on their registers – but across the whole of England, only 21 per cent of schools did so.

However, it was schools in the BCP area which recognised the highest proportion of young carers at 1.9 per cent, compared to the national average of 0.5 per cent.

Krista added: “We’ve made schools more aware through our Level Up Programme and the census clearly shows that this has worked.

“When BCP schools were asked if they had any pupils that were carers, they knew the answer.

“We saw from the census how much of a difference it makes if teachers know how to support young carers in school, and today was all about building on that and making sure we’re all aware of these incredible young carers.”

• mytimeyoungcarers.org

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