Young Carers Action Day 2024 - success!
YCAD – what a week!
Well done to our young carers, staff and many, many Surrey organisations and partners for a fabulous week of young carer events, professional engagement activities and media coverage.
The focus of Young Carers Action Day this year was ‘Fair Futures’ – so as well as letting young people know of the help available, trying to get health and social care professionals, schools and employers understand the pressures young carers face, and know what they can do to ensure these young people are not disadvantaged by their caring role.
Here’s just a few highlights.
A few days before YCAD, on Friday 8th, we had a YCAD creativity event with 24 students from three secondary schools at Farnham Maltings, in partnership with us, the Maltings and the University for the Creative Arts. The creative workshops aimed to inspire them into a new hobby or profession, and included learning how to use a camera, and experiment with settings, photographing each other and props. A brilliant day!
On Tuesday, two of our Surrey Young Carers team had an excellent 15 minute interview with Suzy Radio’s Tony Williams, helping listeners understand more about young carers and what we can offer. Listen here.
On Wednesday, we had a special Young Carer Action Day broadcast with Surrey Hills Radio! A number of our young carers chatted with the presenter about their lives, what SYC do for them and their future plans – all interspersed with their chosen tracks (a very eclectic mix!) Click ‘listen again’ here.
Also on Wednesday we took a group of young carers from Reigate Primary to the Town Hall to meet the mayor and have a look around. The young carers really engaged with the event, and had a lot of fun. Thank you Mayor Eddy Humphreys! 
Across the week we had stands in Surrey’s main hospitals, where our Hospital Carer Support Advisors work – St Peters, Royal Surrey, Epsom and East Surrey. We were able to reach out both to carers, young and old, visiting the hospital with the person they care for, but also staff carers.
Professional engagement
It’s important to let all those who may encounter young carers know understand these young people’s lives, as well as help them get support, so we held events aimed at professionals too.
Jointly with Surrey County Council, we had big drop-in awareness sessions, at both their Reigate and Woking offices. We presented on young carers issues and our support, alongside SCC staff, with plenty of fun activities (based on the ‘Fair’ them) to encourage SCC professionals to really think about young carers and what they could do to help improve their life chances.
We also held two online sessions for professionals, as well as school events. Our friends at Surrey Youth Cabinet shared this excellent video talking about all the issues and advising professionals what to do, as well as young carers to come to us.
A huge thank you to all those individuals, radio stations, groups, borough councils, hospitals, SCC and many more partners for their support with this successful and awareness-raising week.
