Abstract
Young carers are the subject of public policies in the UK, which aim to address their needs as a group experiencing disadvantage relating to their caring role. These policies are implemented in a way that aims to improve their health and their educational and social opportunities, but left unaddressed is a wider context of inequalities. Nevertheless, inequalities are a feature of the terrain upon which social policies for young carers are developed and implemented. Evaluation of the ways that young carers and their families are impacted by public policies demands an understanding of those inequalities. Academic knowledge of how experiences diverge as a result of multiple intersecting inequalities is so far limited. This paper reports from a study that aimed to contribute greater understanding of the interaction between inequalities, young carers, family life and social policies in England. Ethnographic research methods created a record of care, family life and the impact of social policies. Unequal conditions of care are an important feature of the lives of young people and their families with on-going caring responsibilities. Young carers and their families positioned at the intersection of inequalities of ‘race’/ethnicity, class and disability had different and unequal experiences of support. The paper discusses these findings and explores the implications for social policies and social work practice.
Highlights
English governments have recognised children’s involvement in care work, with policies at a local and national level
The participants would draw on their understanding of their class, ‘race’/ethnicity, disability, citizenship status and religion to interpret the nature of their encounters with professionals that addressed them as families with issues relating to disability and as including a young carer
During the ethnographic fieldwork, spending time with families, I was presented with data from families about the way that they experienced their relationship to categories of social difference, such as ethnicity/‘race’ and class
Summary
English governments have recognised children’s involvement in care work, with policies at a local and national level. The young carer concept, based on research pursued in Minority World countries dominates the ways we think about and measure the phenomenon of children’s care work (Evans & Becker, 2019) It remains challenging and, to a degree, contested, to estimate the number of young carers (Kelly et al, 2017). The census counted 149,929 children as young carers in England and Wales, equating to 2.1% of young people aged five to 17 years old as young carers (ONS, 2013) Other studies, including those that ask children to report on their involvement in unpaid care, rather than relying an adult in the family to respond on their behalf, find higher prevalence, for example 4.5% of children (Vizard et al, 2019). My research delves into the ways that the relationships and the multiple perspectives held within families can shed light on the delivery of services to young carers
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