Carers Week is brought to life by individuals, groups and organisations coming together to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges unpaid carers face and recognise the contribution they make to families and communities throughout the UK.

Carers Week celebrates carers of all ages, and as part of this GYC wants to make sure that the contribution of young and young adult carers is acknowledged.

The theme this year is ‘making caring visible and valued’ and GYC has lots planned to make sure we do this!

Our big Carers Week Call-out to school has meant we will have a busy week doing special assemblies in primary and secondary schools across Gloucester, Cirencester and the Forest of Dean.  Our ‘carer aware’ assemblies raise the profile of young carers and help all students to understand who young carers are and the kinds of things they do.  By raising awareness amongst young people and staff they also help us and schools identify hidden young carers that are not known to our service and may be caring at home without any additional support. 

Schools play a critical role in the lives of young carers and can help to reduce the impact of caring especially on education outcomes and wellbeing.  During Carers Week we will be launching our newly developed e-Learning tool to enable key staff in schools across the county to increase their knowledge and confidence in understanding, identifying and supporting young carers.

Our groups and events during Carers Week will focus on activities around ‘feeling valued’ as carers and improving wellbeing. We will also be sharing some young carers’ stories and voices across social media.