Rhianna had been helping her dad with day to day life for years, without even thinking she may be a ‘young carer’. The realisation not only helped her tap into support, but the 19-year-old now spends her time supporting and inspiring other children and young people who help look after loved ones and raising awareness on their behalf. Here’s her story:
Being a young carer, it's not normal. You don't meet a lot of people who are young carers.
No day’s ever normal when you're young carer. For me, it’s making sure my dad's OK, making sure he's had his medication, make sure he's eaten because that's the most important thing, making sure that he's showered, washed and changed himself. I'm just being there for him really, making sure that he's doing well.
I never realised I was a young carer until my sister support worker mentioned it when I was about like 14 or 15. And obviously I'd been a young carer for years and years before that, and I just never knew.
So we got in touch with Leicestershire County Council and they sent a youth worker out to me and it just kind of excelled from there.
Really just had so much more support, whether it being like one-to-one chats, helping me pick my college course out, helping me with GCSEs and just giving me a space to kind of step aside from my caring role and IT.
That's made 100% big difference in my life.
I've created presentations and delivered them in front of schools like staff members to educate them on what to look out for if they might think they might have a young carer within their school.
I've delivered a presentation in front of about 100 people at Leicester City at the Pride and Practise event and I wrote a poem which got put on the Health for Teens website for CAMS. I've also recently wrote a book for primary school years books called Helping Hands. It's not fully finished yet, but I feel like the book represents what I wish I had when I was growing up.
Not many young children know what a young carer is.
Not many adults know what a young carer is.
I feel like it's really important to instil that from a young age.
Young carers don't always want to speak about how they're feeling because they're not used to, they're not used to having the attention on them. They're used to the attention being on other people.
So I think the best thing that a person can do is just genuinely be there for that person if they need, I don't know, shoulder to cry or just hand hold game to play anything, just look out for them.
Winning the Lord Lieutenants Young Person of the year award was incredible. I didn't quite believe it when my name got said but now people are now finding out more about young carers.
I would really hope to in the future create my own sports programme for young carers because I grew up with sports around me and I feel like having that network of like going to play football like once a week, twice a week, just to get out of the house and have a bit of me time away from my caring responsibilities.
I feel like it's so important for young people's mental health.
You never know what someone's going through, so just be cautious and don't jump to conclusions if someone's running late or if not handed in their homework because you never know what's actually going on at home.
- The Young Carers Team offers support and advice to young carers across Leicestershire