Young Carers: We're Aiming too Low

There's been a lot on the news this week about young carers, with BBC figures suggesting that the number of children with caring responsibilities may be up to four times the number previously estimated (that's 1 in 12 children surveyed). This figure is actually a little deceptive in itself, because it only includes children who have responsibilities for "personal care" (dressing, washing, bathing). The survey also found that 29% of young people taking part were providing "emotional care" to a member of their household (e.g. reading or sitting with someone or going for walks with them).

As part of the coverage of this story, BBC Breakfast this morning included a feature on a 17 year old boy who cares for both his mother and his autistic brother, and has cared for his brother since he was 9 years old. The mother described how her son had wanted to take his A-Levels so he could go to university, but his caring responsibilities made this impossible. The feature was followed by an interview with a government minister who stressed the importance of providing "respite" to young carers, such as holidays and breaks.

Now don't get me wrong. I know that holidays and breaks are important for young carers, in fact the charity I work for provides a mentoring scheme specifically for just that purpose. But promising these young people an occasional outing or weekend break is not good enough. The job of charities to alleviate suffering. The job of government is to tackle problems so that there is less suffering for charities to alleviate. Aiming to provide respite is aiming too low. The government should be working to get these young people out of this situation, not to provide temporary relief.

This is one of the things which pisses me off most about this government. They don't even aim to transform people's lives. The Labour governments we've had for the past 13 years certainly let a lot of people down, but at least they set goals to try and tackle these problems. The coalition simply chooses to respond to social problems with "we don't have enough money for that" before reverting to the usual waffle about "tough choices."

It's probably inevitable that some young people will end up having caring responsibilities. Some of them have disabled or sick relatives, others may have parents with alcohol or substance addiction. In the past, we probably would have yanked them out of that situation and put the children in care, which did a lot of damage for both sides. Taking young carers out of the home is not always the best solution, but that doesn't mean we can simply accept a situation where 1 in 12 children effectively lose their childhood and put their future in jeopardy because their families aren't being given the support they need by the state. We are using child labour to do work that should be done by paid qualified adults and no amount of praise for those "brave" children or weekend breaks in the Lake District will make that acceptable.

The coalition needs to stop referring to "tough choices" as an excuse to neglect the most vulnerable people in society. The really tough thing to do is to commit to making people's lives better and if that means that taxes go up and the deficit doesn't go down, then tough shit. By exploiting the vulnerable to rescue the economy, they're taking the easy way out. We need to stop letting them get away with it.