The Voices of Young Carers in Policy and Practice

Daniel Phelps
Additional contact information
Daniel Phelps: Research and Knowledge Exchange Centre, University of Winchester, UK, and www.youngcarers.info, UK

Social Inclusion, 2017, vol. 5, issue 3, 113-121

Abstract: This article presents examples from England of the participation of children with caring responsibilities (young carers) in policy and practice at both local and national levels. The ‘voices' of young carers themselves have become more prominent at many levels and in diverse contexts such as through local young carers’ fora and through dialogue with decision makers, including social care commissioners and Members of Parliament. This participation has for a number of years in England, been strongly advocated for and facilitated by voluntary sector services in particular. Drawing on a number of practice examples, the article will highlight a range of young carers' participatory activity and the extent to which this is woven into policy development and practice. It will consider the processes and protocols of recruitment and safeguarding and the outcomes of young carers' participation, including the influence of their ‘voices’ in bringing about real change and the impacts on themselves as individuals. Consideration will be given as to whether the voices of young carers has been truly representative of children and young people with caring responsibilities and where particular attention may need to be focused when listening to their voices. The potential risks of young carers' participation at a practical level will be explored as well as the barriers to participation for young carers and approaches for enhancing their participation.

Keywords: caring; child’s voice; involvement; participation; policy; practice; young carers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/965 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v5:y:2017:i:3:p:113-121

DOI: 10.17645/si.v5i3.965

Access Statistics for this article

Social Inclusion is currently edited by Mariana Pires

More articles in Social Inclusion from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().