Press release #1 

LAUNCH OF “TOGETHER” PROJECT

Supporting young carers through a whole family approach

Young carers are children and young people aged under 18 who are providing significant or substantial care, assistance or support to family members who are ill, frail, disabled or have mental health or addiction problems. Young carers undertake a wide range of caring roles and responsibilities, including emotional support, personal care, housework and household budgeting.

While it has been demonstrated that caring can result in positive outcomes, there is a strong body of evidence showing the adverse impact of caring on health outcomes, social activity, educational engagement and employment opportunities for young carers.

Awareness and identification of young carers is still low and many remain hidden and unsupported.  Some families do not recognise their children as ‘carers’, some children do not identify themselves with the caring role, and there can be a degree of reluctance, even anxiety, among families in disclosing caring responsibilities.

It is therefore important to address this issue at EU level, supporting young carers and their families to communicate openly with one another to ensure that young people are supported in their caring roles.

What will TOGETHER do?

The Erasmus+ funded TOGETHER project, over the course of its 24-month duration, aims to raise awareness on young carers and to support them and their families. The main goal is to develop, test and disseminate three intellectual outputs:

• Awareness raising material to inform children and adults about how important it is to cooperate and be supportive with each other when there are caring responsibilities in the family.
• A training workshop curriculum for young carers and their families, facilitating open dialogue around the caring relationship, the impact this may be having on the young carer and how the whole family can support one another.
• An e-learning programme for professionals on promoting a whole family approach when supporting young carers.

Our ultimate goal is to have a positive impact on families in order to support young carers; reducing the negative impacts caring responsibilities can bring and improving young people’s well-being, social inclusion and community engagement.

This will be done by helping young carers, their families and professionals to adopt a whole family approach, where family members (including the cared-for person) are

encouraged to communicate openly about the caring relationship.

The partnership

TOGETHER project is implemented by a transnational partnership of 5 organisations from 5 European countries:

• DIAKONISCHES WERK BERLIN STADTMITTE (DWBS) from Germany, is a Non-profit institution with expertise in the field of young carers support (Project coordinator);
• EDRA from Greece, is a Non-Profit Organisation-Social Cooperative operating in the field of mental health;
• CARERS TRUST SCOTLAND from UK, is an organisation working to improve support, services and recognition for unpaid carers, with key projects to support all young carers and young adult carers in Scotland.
• ANZIANI E NON SOLO from Italy, is an NGO working to support young people with caring responsibilities;
• EUROCARERS from Belgium, is the European Network of Carers Organisations and informal carers.