THE INNOVATION FUND FOR ENGLAND – AWARDED PROJECTS
1.Action for Children - Eastern Region
Following the plans identified via the Common Assessment Framework, dedicated project workers will work with each young carer and their family on its implementation. This will include negotiations with adult services and extended family members to ensure maximum support for young carers. Young carers will also have access to a telephone help line, a drop in service and dedicated therapeutic support groups to run in line with the school terms.
2.Barnardo's-CareFree Young Carers' Services – East Midlands
The project will mobilise external sources of support to empower parents to take their family out to engage in local community activities and decrease inappropriate care from the young carer. Where this is not appropriate, families will be offered access to a trained volunteer who will offer emotional and practical support in enabling the activity to occur. Alongside this, a dedicated social worker will explore avenues to make these activities sustainable following the withdrawal of the volunteer. This may take the form of liasing with adult services to promote access to individualised budgets , convening an informal family group conference to involve the wider family or identifying community based volunteers.
3.Barnet Carers Centre - London
A Family Supporter role will be developed to provide direct intensive levels of support for primary young carers and those who are adversely affected by a heavy caring role (e.g. caring for a palliative member of the family). With agreement from the family, support will be provided to liase with a number of agencies to arrange appropriate additional service provision (e.g. respite care, peer support networks for the whole family, regular support with shopping, support with school work etc.)
4.Family Action - London
The organisation will second a children's senior practitioner (social worker) into the young carers service to consolidate the links between statutory and voluntary children's services and develop strong links with adult services to ensure that the rights and needs of the young carer are taken into account by all. Young carers will receive direct support in the form of monthly support groups and signposting to appropriate counselling services. The project will also provide family group conferencing, involving extended families to identify care responsibilities within the family.
5.Crossroads Care Camden - London
The project will address the gap in current provision in providing support for young carers aged 14-18 to aid their transition from school/college to employment. The project will support young carers in making positive choices regarding their future and facilitate family support meetings where the young carers and wider family members can be signposted to relevant agencies (who will be encouraged to 'think family' in their service provision) to aid the development of sustainable daily living solutions for the whole family.
6.Harrow Carers Centre - London
The project will develop an inter-agency intervention and mentoring scheme to work with 30 young carers at risk of physical and emotional harm to provide early preventative support. The provision of a mentoring scheme will minimise the impact of the young carers role and the inclusion of adult services from the offset will ensure young carers needs are assessed at the point of providing support to cared for adult members.
7.St Christopher’s Hospice - London
Over the course of 3 one day events, individual direct work and whole family work, 25 young carers who are involved in the care of a relative who is dying will be able to share their experiences, reduce feelings of isolation and access information and support from a range of support agencies. Surrounding the events, social work departments will work with the whole family to address the challenges that might undermine wider family support for the young carer (e.g. breaking down taboos around the hospice environment).
8.Eastern Ravens Trust – North
The project will engage with adult social care and health services to identify young carers and their families. The project will allow the organisation to carry out whole family assessments and provide additional opportunities for young carers and extended family members to take part in whole family interventions and achieve support solutions together. The project will also provide direct support to young carers via the provision of respite breaks aimed at increasing the young carers resilience and development of a stress management ongoing club.
9.Barnardo’s Liverpool – North West
A dedicated worker will help families and external agencies to plan ahead to reduce difficulties for young carers of parents with mental health problems. Alongside the direct support available to young carers, the project will make use of Family Group Conferencing and 'Message in a Bottle' - a plan will be agreed and recorded so the young carer, the wider family know who is involved in providing support. This plan will be stored in a central place in the home so that the family members and emergency services know where to access this in times of crisis.
10.Barnardo’s Manchester – North West
The project will support 30 young carers and their wider families through the use of Family Group Conferencing. The project will aim to increase the amount of care provided to adults with care needs by Adult Social Care and extended family members by providing the young carer with a voice about their care role and wishes as a young person within the wider family.
11.Family Action Rochdale Young Carers – North West
The project will target 13 families with complex needs and make use of the Family Group Conferencing approach to develop a holistic support plan involving the wider family. The project will ensure that multi agency sign off is received to ensure that care packages are effective and sustainable.
12.Blackpool Carers Centre – North West
The project will develop a Family Support Service to provide 'out of hours' services for young carers and their families. This will allow young carers to be supported outside of school hours and at a time which young carers have self identified as isolating and emotionally harmful. By working within the family environment, this will enable monthly intensive work across the wider family group and access for the young carer to breaks and respite activities without disrupting their schooling.
13.Action for Children – South East
The project will be providing monthly Kidstime workshops (a family focused support model) for parents and young people caring for a parent affected by a mental health issue in Thanet and Canterbury. The organisation will develop strong links with Adult Mental Health services and other agencies to provide direct support to the parent and increase their awareness of the need to consider the whole family in the provision of support. The young carers will also be provided with additional individual/group therapeutic and respite support.
14.Winchester and District Young Carers Project – South East
The project will use a range of approaches (including Team around the Family and Positive Parenting programmes) to work with partner organisations to involve young carers and their families in creating support packages designed to meet the needs of the whole family. Using these approaches, the project hopes to bridge the existing gaps in knowledge and service provision by secondary schools and adults and children's services to meet the needs of the whole family.
15.South and Vale Carers Centre – South
The Coming Home from Hospital Project aims to ensure young carers do no take on harmful caring roles when their parent and/or siblings are sent home from hospital. This will be achieved through the development of joint working protocols between Young Carers Development Worker and the Discharge team. Young carers will need to be identified as part of the discharge planning to ensure that the needs of the young carer and wider family members are taken into account at the point of discharge.
16.Gloucestershire Young Carers – South West
The project will develop a family advocacy services for young carers of those affected by mental illness, substance misuse issues, care for more than one person, are at risk of social/school exclusion or show significant levels of emotional distress. The Family Advocate provide one to one support for the young carer aimed at building their understanding of the needs of the family but also advocate for the wider family in accessing parenting support, specialist health and/or social care support and introduce sources of information on young carers for the family to examine individually and as a group.
17.Action for Children Dudley Young Carers – West Midlands
Following the plans identified via the Common Assessment Framework, dedicated project workers will work with each young carer, their families and a range of other relevant agencies on its implementation via an eight week sessional programme. The sessions will include individual work with the young carer and then family members before bringing them together to listen to each others needs. It is envisaged that clear, sustainable networks and contact systems will be put in place for each of the families and the young carers will be able to access workshops and skills based learning focused on increasing their resilience towards their caring role and available support networks.
18.St Michaels Hospice – West Midlands
The project will develop links with statutory adult and child health and social care services to design and implement appropriate services throughout the period of illness and dying for the whole family. The project will develop a new parent support group (to include extended family members where identified as appropriate). This group will promote shared learning, understanding peer support and the provision of professional support the wider family of adults in receipt of a terminal prognosis. This will reduce the pressure on young carers and involve the whole family in the provision of care and support. In addition, the project will raise awareness of educational professionals on the impact of terminal illness on families and young carers in particular.
19.Barnardo’s Voices – Yorkshire and Humberside
The project will support 25 young carers and their wider families through the use of Family Group Conferencing. Family plans will be developed to facilitate and coordinate increased access to mainstream services for young carers and wider family members, ensure that young carers access breaks from caring and raise awareness of young carers roles and needs to professionals to ensure that other agencies 'think family' in the provision of services.
20.York Carers Centre – Yorkshire and Humberside
A Family Worker will offer intensive 1:1 support to help family members engage with services that improve their lives and general well being. Work will be undertaken to develop a protocol for specific agencies including adult social care, children's services and health care services to sign up to. The Family Intervention Project will also be engaged to take on cases where additional support needs are identified.
Notes:
- 20 projects have been awarded a grant, 2 of which are pilot grants to support young carers found within hospice environments (therefore caring for a family member in receipt of a life limiting condition diagnosis or in receipt of palliative care).
- At least one project per English region has been awarded a grant. There were differing levels of application rates from the regions and awards are proportional to the numbers of applications received.
- An estimated 1457 young carers and their families will benefit from the funded interventions across England.