Step 6

In summary, if your school is just beginning to develop its young carers’ provision, you may wish to focus initially on implementing the basics by:

• Ensuring there is a confidential setting where young carers or pupils who think they may be young carers will be able to access and talk to a member of staff.
• Making sure any targeted interventions, which are already being delivered in the school, are accessible to young carers (see Step 6, Tool 1: Checklist of support young carers may need).
• Support the implementation of a flexible approach across the school so that, where appropriate, young carers are able to use a telephone to call home during breaks and lunchtimes to reduce any worry they may have about a family member. This will involve finding somewhere confidential where young carers can talk on the phone.
• Consider setting up a peer support group for young carers (see Step 6, Tool 2: Running a peer support group for young carers).
• Ensure some detentions are run at lunchtime as young carers may not be able to attend after school.
• Consider implementing a school message box so that pupils can self-identify. Remember: Young carers tell us that pupils must be reassured that their privacy will be maintained. Message boxes need to be secure so that other pupils are unable to access any private material (see Step 6, Tool 3: Exemplar handout for pupils to complete and post into a message box).

To achieve best practice for young carers, your school should also:

• Implement a fully proactive approach to identifying young carers. This will involve:
  • – Engaging staff responsible for monitoring and tackling poor attendance to ensure that where changes in trends are identified, staff consider whether these may be due to a potential caring role and know to inform the Young Carers School Operational Lead of any concerns.
  • – Agreeing that pupil progress meetings will be used to identify changes in trends and consider whether these may be due to a potential caring role.
  • – Engaging the Safeguarding Officer to ensure existing (and newly acquired) lists of children on Child protection and Looked-after children plans are reviewed to identify pupils who are living with adults experiencing a mental health problem or an addiction.
  • – Asking the staff member responsible for school census data to check data on pupils with disabilities at the beginning of each school year, to identify sibling carers on roll.
  • – Agreeing with feeder schools/early years providers a process for how they will tell you if a pupil has already been identified as a young carer.
  • – Engaging staff responsible for registering new pupils so that where a pupil transfers to your school from another, staff check whether any young carer status has been recorded on the Common Transfer File (sent to the new school via the Department for Education). Make sure you include this information when transferring a pupil.
  • – Establishing information sharing protocols with your school nurse, young carers services and health and social care services to ensure that, with appropriate consent, they tell you when they identify young carers attending, or about to start your school.
• Agree what assessment mechanisms will be used to assess pupils’ needs when they are identified as a young carer. These assessments could be carried out by a relevant staff member within the school – perhaps using the assessment tools provided as part of Step 9: Identifying, assessing and supporting young carers and their families. The assessments could be carried out by other agencies if deemed more appropriate.
• Agree that individual pupil plans and/or provision maps will be used to record how the school plans to meet the needs of the pupil (exemplar pupil plans/provision maps are not provided within the Step-by-step Guide as schools will have existing and varying pupil plans/provision map templates in place).
• Agree processes for inter-agency working, including with the local young carers service (see Step 6, Tool 7: Checklist for effective partnership working between schools and young carers services). Develop formal joint working together agreements where appropriate (see Step 6, Tool 8: Exemplar working together agreement for use with young carers services).
• Make sure systems are in place, where appropriate, to support young carers to participate post-16 (see Step 6, Tool 9: Supporting young carers to participate post-16) and transition to adulthood at 18 (see Step 6, Tool 10: Supporting young carers to transition into adulthood). This will include working with colleges, training providers and universities to plan and implement support for young carers and their families through transitions, and agreeing how information will be shared between the operational leads, with the appropriate consent.
• Ensure the school and its communications are accessible to families of young carers (see Step 6, Tool 11: Checklist of support that families of young carers may need).
• Engage internal staff, such as the SENCO, Pastoral Lead, or Inclusion Manager and/or external agencies, including the local young carers service, to find out how to signpost and/or undertake whole family work that aims to support parents/siblings in order to prevent or reduce a caring role.