Young carers aged 17-25
Our service for young carers aged 17-25 understands how challenging it can be when you are juggling caring responsibilities with school, college, university or a job. We are here to support you.
Support we provide includes:
Monthly activities
We have a programme of monthly activities chosen by young carers where you can meet others and socialise away from your responsibilities. Some of our planned activities include trips to the cinema, theme parks, museums, and even an outdoor inflatable obstacle course.
Advice and support
We are specialist in helping young carers with the different challenges they face. For example, we can:
- Help you identify and apply for any benefits you might be entitled to, such as carers allowance;
- Help you to apply for a small grant, for example if you need a laptop for school or college, or if you need a grant for an emergency;
- Provide a confirmation letter that you are a carer to support you with housing or for school;
- Link you in to other organisations and services that can help, such as counselling and mental health services.
Work experience
Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, but we can offer you work experience in the office, where we can guide and support you, and on trips and activities with our carers aged 5-16. Unfortunately we do not currently have the capacity to help you to find work experience beyond Carers Lewisham.
Drop in and relax
In term time we hold drop-in social sessions, where you can relax, take a break, or even do your homework. There are board games, football and snooker tables, gaming, and a chance to meet up with friends. Our friendly young carers team will be there to talk through any issues or challenges you want support with.
Mentoring for 15-25 year olds
When someone is between 15-25 they have a lot of life changes happening which they are having to juggle with their caring role. Some of these things could be:
- Going to college/sixth form
- Looking for university
- Moving out
- Getting a job
- Finding themselves
- Relationships
We hope that by offering this project to our young carers/young adult carers we will be able to pair them up with a volunteer mentor who will help them set goals, be a trusted confidant adult and help raise their aspirations.
Register for support
You can register with us yourself, or we are also happy to receive a referral from a professional – this could be a teacher, social worker, GP or someone else who supports you and/or the person you care for in a professional role. You just need to fill out our referral form and return it by email to info@carerslewisham.org.uk.
Once we have received your referral form, we will be in touch with you within 3 working days to explain more about what we do and talk about how we can best support you. If we have received your form from a professional, we will let the person who has made the referral form know that we have registered you.