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The most recent research on the prevalence of young caring in secondary school–age children (Joseph et al., 2019) suggests that one in five 11–16 year olds have a caring role. There are inherent challenges with identifying children and young people (CYP) who have caring responsibilities; they find themselves in the role because of love for a family member, as well as the lack of provision to meet the needs of the person they are caring for (Keith & Morris, 1995), not because they have consciously chosen to become a carer, and so do not identify with the concept (Smyth, Blaxland, & Cass, 2011). School can be both precarious and a place of sanctuary for young carers (Becker & Becker, 2008). Experiences of education, as with many aspects of caring, exist on a continuum with no young carers’ educational experience being the same (Dearden & Becker, 2003). Schools have a pivotal role in identifying, understanding and supporting young carers to prevent their education from being adversely affected.

This chapter intends to provoke thought around assumptions about young people providing care, what influences how young carers are perceived and how stigma and judgement associated with caring are discussed. We conclude by emphasising the significance of the role as an educator in creating discussion about the breadth and diversity of care experiences. This role includes both educating young people about young caring and being mindful that your students may currently be or previously been a young carer.

This paper aims to explore challenges and opportunities associated with young carers' employment in Australia.

Using a multi-stakeholder approach, this study captures the reflections of stakeholders (n = 8) and young carers (n = 10) about opportunities for, and experiences of, paid employment for young carers.

Despite many organisations internationally increasingly pushing diversity agendas and suggesting a commitment to equal opportunity experiences, this study found that young carers' work opportunities are often disrupted by their caring role. For young carers to be successful in their careers, organisations need to provide further workplace flexibility, and other support is required to attract and retain young carers into organisations and harness their transferrable skills for meaningful careers.

The paper highlights important implications for human resource management practitioners given the need to maximise the participation of young carers as workers, with benefits for young carers themselves, employers and society.

The research adds to the human resource management and work–family conflict literature in examining young carers through drawing on Conservation of Resources theory to highlight resources invested in caring leads to loss of educational and work experience resources. This leads to loss cycles and spirals, which can potentially continue across a lifetime, further contributing to disadvantage and lack of workplace and societal inclusion for this group of young people.

The recognition of children and young people as active agents, not merely passive subjects, has become a cornerstone of much research undertaken in the social sciences over the last three decades. Reflecting on research with young carers, this paper describes the research techniques employed to actively engage these children and young people in order to gain insight into their experiences of providing care. It concludes with a discussion of the benefits and disadvantages of the research methods, and the issues of ethics and consent.

Young carers should not be expected to carry out inappropriate levels of caring which have an adverse impact on their development and life chances. It should not be assumed that children should, even at age 16 and 17, take on similar levels of caring responsibilities to adults. (Promoting & safeguarding the welfare of young carers. UK government guidance. Department of Health)

The development of a national strategy for carers underlines the importance of making the connections between all the different policies which impinge on carers. This needs to be mirrored at a local level, where there are some moves to embed support to carers within mainstream health and social services. However, achieving positive change for carers' needs not only more coherence about carers' relationship with the whole system of care, but also better ways of monitoring services.

Older people are often perceived to be a drain on health care resources. This ignores their caring contribution to the health care sector. The purpose of this paper is to address this imbalance and highlight the role of older people as carers.

The study uses a unique data set supplied by a charity. It covers 1,985 caregivers, their characteristics, type and amount of care provided and the characteristics and needs of those cared-for. Binary and ordered logistic regression is used to examine determinates of the supply of care. Fairlie-Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions are used to disentangle the extent to which differences in the supply of care by age are due to observable endowment effects or coefficient effects. Nationally representative British Household Panel Survey data provide contextualization.

Older caregivers are more intensive carers, caring for longer hours, providing more co-residential and personal care. They are therefore more likely to be in greater need of assistance. The decompositions show that their more intensive caring contribution is partly explained by the largely exogenous characteristics and needs of the people they care for.

The data are regional and constrained by the supplier's design.

Older carers make a significant contribution to health care provision. Their allocation of time to caregiving is not a free choice, it is constrained by the needs of those cared-for.

If the burden of care and caring contribution are measured by hours supplied and provision of intimate personal care, then a case is made that older carers experience the greatest burden and contribute the most to the community.

The Oxford Friends and Family Empowerment (OFAFE) service is a carer support service that originated in a collaboration between the Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service and the national mental health charity Rethink. OFAFE provides support and education for adults supporting an individual with a personality disorder. This paper describes the background and operation of the OFAFE service, along with the early stages of the development of a similar service for young carers, the Young Friends and Family Empowerment (YFAFE) service.