What financial support is available to young carers?

Being a young carer is now more common than once thought with recent research by the Carers Trust indicating that there are over 700,000 young carers looking after family members in the UK. 

If you are one of those young carers then you may be wondering what support is available for you if you have to care for a loved one rather than attend a school or other education setting. There are some financial benefits as well as community groups that can offer you help and support, in your role, as a young carer. This can be a big responsibility and difficult, especially if you have had to give up full time education. It can also be tough emotionally and draining on your mental health. You may also feel cut off from friends and isolated. You should seek support from your local council. It is likely to be the social services department who can carry out a carer’s assessment for you. You are entitled to have one under the 2014 Care Act, when more support was identified as being required by young carers. This assessment will enable them to identify any needs that you may have, or any care requirements that might be able to be met by external sources. The patient may even be eligible for some supported services which the council can fund. They may even be able to support you with a carer’s break, or identify some care support services, that could carry out activities such as weekly shopping, or other support, such as cleaning services once a week, for example. They will also be able to advise on any young carer support groups that are available in your area, where you can connect with other young carers. As a young carer you are also eligible to certain benefits which we detail below. You may also be entitled to others, if you are in receipt of job seekers allowance or housing benefit (now universal credit). 

Let people know what your responsibilities are

First of all, if you are a young carer, please make sure you share this with someone that you trust. There may be times when it feels like a big emotional burden and being able to share with other people your responsibilities and the demands on you, they will want to listen. Don’t feel like you have to carry the burden all by yourself. If you are looking after a family member who has dementia, this can be very challenging, particularly if you are young and still in education, but even if you are not, the pressure to be responsible for someone else, when you are young, can be tiring and difficult to deal with.

What benefits might I be entitled to?

As a young carer, when you turn 16, if you care for someone for 35 hours a week or more, then you can claim for a carers allowance, which at the time of writing was £66.15 per week. However you will not be able to claim this benefit if you are in full time education, or you earn over £118 a week, after tax and national insurance (correct at May 19). The person you are caring for needs to be claiming a living support disability allowance and it is likely that if you are caring for someone with dementia, that they will be claiming for this payment already. We cover what benefits a person with dementia can claim, in another article, here. As you receive this payment, you will also be eligible for national insurance top ups and whilst you won’t see any additional money come to you, this means that there is no gap recorded your earnings. In order to be eligible for a state pension, you need to have at least 30 years’ national insurance payments, so this ensures that you don’t miss out. 

You may also be entitled to a top up payment on this called the carer’s premium. This is paid if you are also claiming other benefits such as job seekers or universal credit. If you think you are entitled to this extra top up payment, contact the people that currently provide you with these payments. Their details will be on any letters or communication you have received from them. Explain your situation and see if you may be eligible. 

Full details on carers benefits are available on the gov.uk website, a link to carers allowance is here: https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance

If you want to carry on education, once you finish school at 16, then you may be eligible for a bursary to help support your travelling costs or to funds things like equipment. This payment is paid directly by the institution (school, college etc) that considers your needs. This bursary is available for 16-19 year olds.