Unpaid care is help and support to an adult family member or friend who could not manage without this help (sometimes called being a carer).
Approximately 350,000 young people aged 16–25 in England and Wales provide unpaid care, mainly to adults. This has increased over the last ten years, as has the amount of time young people are spending providing unpaid care.
Recent legal changes in England include the provision of paid support and services for care-recipients to meet the needs of unpaid carers. These needs include wellbeing, personal development, physical and mental health, education and employment – areas where a young adult’s caring duties can have a negative impact, with associated individual and societal costs. Read more about the policy context.
We are looking at unpaid carers between the ages of 16 and 25 in England, caring for adults to find out what difference adult social care services for the person they care for makes to their lives.
We used both analysis of existing national data and new data collected through questionnaires to young adult carers and the people they support in England. Read more about our methods.
Stakeholder and young adult carer advisory groups advise the project and findings will be shared throughout the project, through for example, stakeholder workshops, short reports, presentations and practical guides
