Young Carers are children and young people under 18 who take on caring tasks and responsibilities within their family that most of us only do as adults.

This is because there is a family member, maybe a parent, brother or sister who needs a lot of care. Maybe they have a physical disability, a progressive disease, mental health or problems with alcohol or drugs.

Whilst it can be rewarding to care and help your family cope, young carers can feel lonely, different, sad and resentful.

Young carers may be doing many practical and emotional tasks such as helping a disabled parent get up in the morning, watching over a brother with autism, housework, shopping or listening and caring.
Even if a youngster is not doing a lot of practical things to help, just having a disability or illness in their family identifies them as a carer and we are available to help, so we would also like to hear from them.

This Young Carers Wizard has been developed to help these young people, by providing information and offering ways of support, hoping to make their lives easier and to give them some relief from their caring role.