Kayleigh Hamilton on Raising Awareness of Additional Support for Young Carers

Kayleigh Hamilton gave us a talk on “Raising Awareness of Additional Support for Young Carers” which made us aware of the current needs and challenges faced by Young Carers in Ayrshire. Young Carers are those under the age of 18 and still at school who support a relative/friend with physical or mental illness, disability or addiction.

Kayleigh helps to raise awareness of Young Carers in schools and communicates with head teachers and all those in our Education sector. There are also Centres which she helps to link with Young Carers and works with external funders to create the best possible support.

All Young Carers benefit from some quality time away from their caring role eg residential trips/days out This is all funded through the generosity of the local community. (There are around 29,000 Young Carers in Scotland)

An interesting Question/Answer session was taken by Kayleigh which confirmed the great challenges that still face our Young Carers today. A Vote of Thanks was given by Kenneth Dickie.