After a long and difficult 18 months of COVID restrictions, lockdowns and a lack of opportunities for meeting others, we felt a big Young Adult Carer summer event was just the tonic that was needed.

At the end of August, 21 young adult carers from across the whole county joined us at the Cotswold Country Park & Beach in Cirencester for a fun packed day of swimming, chatting, chilling and enjoying a barbeque and home-made cakes.  The highlight of the day however was paddleboarding, this was the first time that most of the young people had done this and it was great to see them overcoming their fears, trying this out and attempting to stand up! There was lots of falling in but that was part of the experience.

YAC worker Sarah Pinkney describes how

‘ it was great to be able to get together as a big group and have some fun and relax after such a long period of restrictions on group events.  We saw many familiar faces and also many young adult carers we hadn’t seen for a long while so it was a good opportunity to reconnect’. 

Feedback from the young adult carers was overwhelmingly positive.

"Paddle boarding was ace and it was just great to be out of the house and have a really fun day"

"Everything was great, trying something new and actually left my house to go and see some new friends and I enjoyed it thank you,  young carers."

Thanks to our volunteer Ros for her help on the day and for the yummy donation of cakes!

We are very grateful to our local corporate partner Moore Allen & Innocent for kindly supporting the day with a donation and Lloyds TSB Foundation for part funding the event.