Please provide the following information for the years ranging from 2020 to 2025, on young carers who were under the age of 25 (unless otherwise specified):
1) How the council defines a young carer.
A young carer is someone aged 18 or under who helps look after a relative with a disability, illness, mental health condition, or drug or alcohol problem.
2) The number of young carers who were referred to your services.
2021 – 1716
2022 – 2057
2023 – 2292
2024 – 2388
2025 – We currently have 2542 Young carers registered within our services, of which 48 are in our highest level “getting more help.”
3) The annual budgets in the financial years between 2020 and 2025 that were allocated to supporting young carers.
| Year | Budget (£) |
| 2020/21 | 225,000 |
| 2021/22 | 225,000 |
| 2022/23 | 237,375 |
| 2023/24 | 237,375 |
| 2024/25 | 237,375 |
4) The criteria young carers must meet to receive support from the council
Westbank’s Devon Young Carers service is commissioned by Devon County Council to provide specialist support for Young Carers who are providing high levels of care, or care that is not age-appropriate.
The provider will carry out specialist young carers needs assessment for those young carers whose caring role has a high enough impact for them to be referred by multi-agency partners for specialist and targeted Young Carer support. Criteria for the caring role having a high enough impact will include:
Excessive or inappropriate care – defined as anything which is likely to have a high impact on the child’s health, wellbeing or education, or which can be considered unsuitable in light of the child’s circumstances. This may include personal care such as bathing and toileting; carrying out strenuous physical tasks; administering medication; maintaining the family budget; emotional support to the adult.
Sole Carer – single parent and sole child/only carer and/or where the young carer is the primary carer for their cared-for person.
Terminally ill – where the cared-for person is terminally ill.
Safeguarding concerns – where there are safeguarding concerns raised around the caring role of the young carer, and these concerns are not already being addressed as part of a statutory social work or targeted early help plan.
Young carers age 6 or below with a highly impactful caring role – unless these young carers are open to statutory social work or targeted early help teams with a plan in place that already takes into account their caring role as part of the targeted support from Devon County Council.
Young carer self-identifies as high impact – where the young carer themselves states that they feel their caring role has a high impact on them and that they feel they will benefit from targeted or specialist support.
Statutory Social Work or Targeted Early Help referral – where it is identified as part of a statutory social work or targeted early help assessment or plan that a young carer would benefit from targeted or specialist young carers support, and that the provider would be best placed to provide this.
Other – other criteria for requiring a targeted or specialist service may emerge over the life of the contract. Where this occurs these criteria will be discussed and defined together with community partners, young carers and statutory social work or targeted early help teams as appropriate, and agreed in writing with the commissioner.
Please see the following carer recognition tool:
1) Do you look after someone?
Remember a carer is not paid or a formal volunteer. If your answer is no to question 1, you are not a carer.
If you answered yes to question 1, please answer the following three questions.
2) Are you looking after yourself?
3) Do you have support from family or friends in your caring role?
4) Do you have all the help and support you need?
5) Grants available to young carers, their purpose, and their monetary amount.
Carers Trust grant – for carers to access financial support, put towards a break or item of choice, up to £400 for Young Carers aged 16 plus.
6) The proportion of young carers referred to the council who had a needs assessment.
2123 Young Carers in the period 2020 – 2025.
Westbank do not have a breakdown of the figures for each year during the requested period as the information is not stored as annual figures. Therefore this information is not held by Devon County Council.
7) The percentage of young carers over 18 who received a transition assessment before they turned 18.
Between 2020-2025 1770 assessments were undertaken (83%)
Westbank do not have a breakdown of the figures for each year during the requested period as the information is not stored as annual figures. Therefore this information is not held by Devon County Council.
8) A list and details of any respite schemes for young carers, whether they are fully funded, and who is responsible for fulfilling them.
Devon Young Carers provides, on average, 6 day trips and activities per year.
As a charity, Devon Young Carers works with partners and organisations across the county to enhance the offers available to young carers. This could include our trips and activities, residential stays, and additional trips, which we either work in partnership with or refer our young carers to access.
We work with over 40 partners to deliver a variety of trips, activities and residentials.
This is funded through a variety of sources – partly from the contract and partly through our other funding sources like charitable grants, fundraising, and gifts.
9) The number of young Carers receiving each type of respite support (A and B – defined as A. Support that allows carers to take a break from caring, while the person they care for is looked after by someone else; B. Trips, activities, workshops, therapeutic support or social opportunities that young carers receive from the council.)
In all instances the activities are undertaken without the cared for being present, and so fall under category A) irrelevant of who the provider is – typically Devon Young Carers funded by Devon County Council.
1245 attendees, roughly equating to 942 days. Westbank do not have a breakdown of the figures for each year during the requested period, therefore this information is not held by Devon County Council.
36% of our registered Young Carers have access to trips and activities provided by Devon Young Carers – young carers who are at ‘Getting Help’ and ‘Getting More Help.’
10) For those receiving respite support, please provide the number of days of respite each young carer may receive on average per Type A and B (A and B – defined as A. Support that allows carers to take a break from caring, while the person they care for is looked after by someone else; B. Trips, activities, workshops, therapeutic support or social opportunities that young carers receive from the council.)
For Young Carers at our ‘Getting Help’ and’ Getting More Help’ level of support, they can access 6 trips or activities per year (some trips have age restrictions).
Some events involve overnight stays, the average duration being 2 nights.