Report of the Director of Education

This report provides an overview of progress on work with Young Carers and proposes next steps in the refresh and implementation of the Young Carers Strategy.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Education which provided an overview of progress on work with Young Carers and proposed next steps in the refresh and implementation of the Young Carers Strategy.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• A summary of the key findings from the Young Carers Group research;
• Progress made so far, including the recruitment of a Young Carers Co-ordinator, who was present at the meeting;
• Next steps; and
• The Young Carers Strategic Action Plan.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• That Members welcomed the Young Carers Strategic Action Plan;
• The challenges relating to transition stages in education, particularly the transition to further and higher education;
• How young carers were being identified by schools; and
• Mental Health First Aiders in schools and sixth forms and how they could be used to support young carers.

The Head of School Quality Assurance and Strategic SEND acknowledged that the transition to sixth form was challenging for young carers.  She reported that, following the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), schools had received conflicting messages about what information they could share with colleges and other education providers when pupils transitioned to the next stage of their education.  The Director of Education informed Members that her service was working with the Council’s Legal and Audit Services regarding this and reported that this work could include the creation of a standardised form which schools could use to pass on information at the transition stage while remaining compliant with the GDPR.  The Young Carers Co-ordinator reported that a key part of her role would be to support young carers through the transition stages, including planning for university from the age of 14 and making sure that young people didn’t have to keep repeating their stories at every stage.

The Head of School Quality Assurance and Strategic SEND commented that, although the Young Carers Strategy had been launched in 2017, its implementation and the identification of young carers had not been consistent across the city.  She informed Members that there was a need to improve knowledge and understanding about and advocacy for young carers in schools and, therefore, the strategy was being refreshed to address this.  She outlined how, when dealing with issues such absence and lateness, schools were now encouraged to explore the possibility that the pupil could be a young carer.  She reported that part of the Young Carers Co-ordinator’s role would be to ensure that schools were aware of and consistently responding to these identification triggers.  She informed Members that she would look into the Mental Health First Aiders model and how this could support young carers and report back to the Committee on this via the Chair.

Decisions

1.            To note that the Head of School Quality Assurance and Strategic SEND will look into the Mental Health First Aiders model and how this could support young carers and report back to the Committee on this via the Chair.

2.            To request that an update on the work to promote consistent, legally-compliant information-sharing at transition stages be included in a future report on the Promoting Inclusion and Preventing Exclusion Strategy.