The OUR VOICES project presents research-informed ‘Minimum Support Standards for Young Carers and Child Participation’, developed through a literature review and cross-country analysis in five European contexts and at EU level. The framework addresses gaps in recognition, organisational support and meaningful participation, offering practical guidance for sustainable policy, service design and professional practice.

This presentation shares the findings from our longitudinal qualitative study with young carers and the adults they care for examining what makes assessments and support plans work for young carers and families. It identifies three main themes in what works well: ‘breaking down barriers’; ‘context aware and context responsive’; and ‘whole family aware and proactive’.

Professionals from organizations supporting YCs were trained to use a toolkit to evaluate the situation of YCs encountered in their practice. Seventeen participated in focus groups to assess factors that facilitate the implementation of the specified tools design for the evaluation of the situations of YCs, as well as the barriers to their use in practice.

This presentation examines the impact of family narratives on the capabilities of young caregivers in the Czech Republic. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with two generations—young secondary caregivers and primary caregiver parents—it reveals differing perspectives on caregiving and their implications for young caregivers’ opportunities, age-appropriate development, and recognition within familial care contexts.

Kidstime workshops (KW) are conceptualized as low-threshold intervention for children of parents with mental illness. The implementation and evaluation of KW show that they have preventive and therapeutic potential for the whole family. Furthermore KW can be more effective at improving capabilities, with better resource benefit ratio compared with nationwide data of general child support interventions.

Drawing on biographical-narrative interviews with eleven adults from four families where both parents had severe, often comorbid mental illness, this talk examines how sibling-negotiated caregiving shapes childhoods, educational trajectories, and relationships. Findings highlight gendered parentification, normalised care, shifting responsibilities, constrained opportunities, and education pursued as self-protection and empowerment rather than solely economic mobility.

A: aufklaren has spent six years raising awareness of the needs of children and young carers whose parents have mental illness in Hamburg. The initiative educates professionals, shares expertise, strengthens networks, provides consultation, and advocates for policy change. Through interdisciplinary cooperation and stakeholder engagement, it has improved prevention, support services, and care structures for affected families and communities.

Young carers who grow up with a parent experiencing mental health problems or an addiction (COPMI), or an intellectual disability, often face significant emotional and social challenges. This workshop by the Dutch Trimbos Institute explores their experiences, helps professionals recognise their needs, and presents evidence-based interventions to improve identification, support, and wellbeing

This presentation explores a youth-led creative writing and arts programme co-produced with young carers and informed by 16 years of lived caring experience. It examines how co-produced storytelling supports wellbeing, strengthens family and community understanding, and amplifies young carers’ voices through creative outputs used in schools, healthcare education, professional training and national policy discussions, demonstrating its potential to influence wider systems change.

More Than 7 Families is an innovative classroom activity that raises awareness of young carers through play and creativity. Inspired by a caregiving-themed card game, students explore caregiving realities and create their own game. Preliminary results suggest increased empathy, awareness, and meaningful discussions about family diversity, responsibility, and mutual support.

This PhD presentation looks at how visual art groups can benefit young adult carers’ wellbeing. It takes a global perspective, using Nigeria and the UK as examples of cultures with different approaches to caregiving, wellbeing and visual art. We describe the creative and participatory research methods that were used, and discuss findings so far.

Hidden helpers are the 2.3+ million children and youth in the U.S. caring for a wounded, ill, or injured veteran or servicemember, yet they remain largely unrecognized. This session introduces the co-designed Hidden Helpers Journey Map and Activity Book, exploring their development and how these strengths-based tools can be adapted to support young carers globally.

This presentation reflects on a personal journey from young carer to academic researcher. It explores how caring responsibilities in childhood can shape education, identity, confidence, and life trajectories well beyond early life. Drawing on lived experience, it considers the long-term legacy of young caring and the need for more flexible, inclusive, and supportive systems.

Former young carers are often expected to share their lived experience, but repeated self-disclosure can make them vulnerable and confine their contribution to personal testimony. Academic research enables former young carers to critically examine existing research and policy, develop new concepts and perspectives, and produce knowledge beyond individual lived experience.

A family carer from the age of nine, the presenter draws on decades of lived experience to explore how caregiving became a source of strength alongside struggle. Now a community-based social worker and care advocate, she traces how post-traumatic growth turned early caregiving into a lifelong purpose, transforming what could have broken her into the work that drives her today.

In this presentation, I will share some particular experiences as someone who was a young carer until recently, but also joined an NGO for young carers (ZoJong!) and moved into the academic world as a PhD student on this topic. These mixing roles led to some surprising contradictions, revealing how we look at people with ‘lived experience’ and ‘experts’.

For many young adults, university life involves more than studying: it also includes caring for a family member. Despite the challenges of balancing these roles, student carers remain poorly understood. This contribution investigates differences in burden, well-being, and health literacy between student carers and non-carers and examines whether shared caregiving responsibilities are linked to better well-being.

As populations age, young people are increasingly likely to provide care to older adults. Despite this, a significant gap remains in existing research on care provided by young caregivers in education to older adults. This paper is part of a broader project, InterCare (2024-2028, funded by Volkswagen Foundation), which focuses on student carers aged 18 to 30 formally engaged in education, such as university students or apprentices, and aims to answer these two research questions: -What are the characteristics of the intergenerational care-arrangements between student carers and their older care recipients? -What are the benefits and challenges associated with intergenerational care arrangements for student carers and their older care recipients? In this presentation, the preliminary findings will shed light on both research and practice gap in relation to this ‘hidden and invisible’ cohort in higher education, including a deeper understanding of their everyday experiences, the effective approaches to create a more inclusive educational culture and environment, and an improved, ‘care-full’ educational and social care system for student carers and those they care for.

This presentation explores student caregivers in Germany, focusing on the extent and social distribution of caregiving, its effects on study experiences and well-being, and institutional responses. Drawing on mixed-methods data, it shows how care responsibilities disproportionately affect first-generation and minority students, contributing to educational disadvantage and life-course inequality.

The presentation presents findings from a qualitative study from InterCare Project on young adult carers in Poland who combine higher education with caring for older family members. It highlights both challenges and personal growth, offering recommendations for universities to better recognise and support student carers.

Ethnographic findings highlight the often-hidden role of young carers in migrant families living with precarious residential status in Switzerland. Children frequently take on substantial caregiving responsibilities within families, particularly when parents experience psychosocial distress. Despite being key contributors to family well-being and resilience, these young carers often remain invisible due to families’ marginalised and socially hidden living situations.

An intersectional study of family carers: Examining the interaction between ethnicity and young adulthood to enhance inclusion and develop appropriate support

Black and Global Majority young carers remain underrepresented in research, policy and practice. Drawing on ‘Invisible at the Intersection’, this presentation explores how race, culture and structural inequalities shape the recognition and experiences of young carers, and considers what a more race-conscious approach to young carer policy and practice could look like.

Two Generations, One Shared Experience Serap and Annalena met in the Young Supporters Talk Group in Duisburg and discovered a powerful connection: both are Young Carers, but at very different stages of life. Serap, 43, cared for her mother from childhood into her twenties – a “hidden job” that shaped her life in many ways. Annalena, 26, is caring for her mother today. Together with Mariel, who leads the group, they will share their personal stories and talk openly about the challenges, strengths and lasting impact of growing up caring for someone you love.

Support for Young Carers has long defaulted to respite. Little Dreamers’ Empowered Care Model, co-designed with Young Carers, sequences support instead: whole-of-family assessment, one-to-one skill building, group programming and finally respite once trust and readiness are established. This session shares the model’s design, early pilot learnings, and the systemic funding challenge it exposes.

Sefton Carers Centre works with and for young carers and young adult carers in our borough in the north-west of England. We face many challenges in our efforts to support and empower carers, and we work creatively within our resources to find solutions. This presentation explores the approaches of our organisation to put into practice equitable services for carers.

Navigating a complex commissioning landscape, the Hampshire Young Carers Alliance (HYCA) shares its 20-year journey of evolving from a peer-support network into a robust, funded consortium. Co-delivered by Alliance leaders and young carers, this session explores how to balance county-wide strategic scale with hyper-local identity, ensuring person-centred support remains at the heart of service delivery.

An estimated 2.3 million U.S. youth provide unpaid care to a wounded, ill, or injured veteran or servicemember, yet remain largely unrecognized. This session presents the Elizabeth Dole Foundation’s Hidden Helpers Coalition, a cross-sector model for identifying and supporting youth caregivers — spanning peer support, education, clinical transformation, and impact evaluation — offering a framework other organizations and disciplines can adapt.

The presentation outlines the Basel Red Cross’s multi-phase project for young carers. Initial findings showed that raising awareness among professionals is more important than creating new services. A pilot project confirmed the effectiveness of awareness-raising, support activities, and networking. Since 2025, the project focuses on information, collaboration, coordination, and peer support.

Germany has limited awareness of young carers and few dedicated support services. This presentation shares lessons from Windschatten, Germany’s first young carer center, established in 2021. It highlights three key success factors: using non-stigmatizing language, adopting a family-centred approach, and ensuring low-threshold access to support, offering practical recommendations for developing similar services elsewhere.

Recognizing young carers and improving their well-being requires investing in workforce training to provide inclusive, coordinated and tailored support. La pause Brindille combines in-person and online initiatives, including emotional support, creative workshops, and peer networks, to address their evolving needs. The program’s impact is measured by its ability to strengthen young carers’ confidence, well-being, empowerment and sense of legitimacy.

In Gondar, Ethiopia, many siblings quietly care for children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, yet their contributions often go unrecognized. Drawing on over a decade of Community-Based Rehabilitation experience with 245 families, this presentation shares practical lessons on supporting young carers through family-centered care, early intervention, and stronger links between health, education, and community services

Many young carers are siblings of children with special needs. Siblings are the one relationship in life we spend most of our lifespan with. What happens when both siblings slip into teenage years and adulthood? How do relationships and challenges change over time and biography, – and what should parents, partners, friends, professionals, politicians and siblings themselves know and be aware of? What do sibling carers need in order to not only survive, but thrive?

Young people affected by parental alcohol misuse are often under-identified and unsupported within schools. This presentation shares findings from a participatory study exploring the secondary education experiences of five young people affected by a parent’s drinking and introduces the co-produced Feeling Seen briefing, which offers five practical recommendations to strengthen school support and reduce stigma.

This presentation aims to explore emerging evidence from Punished for Caring, a national report by MYTIME Young Carers, highlighting the disproportionate rates of suspension and exclusion experienced by young carers across England. Despite providing essential care at home, young carers remain largely invisible within education systems, with their responsibilities often misinterpreted as behavioural issues. Drawing on national data from Department for Education (2022–2023), the presentation outlines key findings demonstrating that young carers in secondary school are over twice as likely to be suspended compared to their non-caring peers, with rates of 34.23 per 100 pupils versus 18.8. In special schools, this disparity widens further, with young carers nearly three times more likely to experience suspension. Across all school types, young carers are consistently more likely to face both fixed term suspensions and permanent exclusion, in some cases at more than double the rate of their peers. The presentation will examine how unmet needs, fatigue, emotional stress, and inconsistent attendance contribute to behavioural responses that are frequently misunderstood and penalised. It will argue that current behaviour policies often fail to account for the lived realities of young carers, leading to systemic inequity and increased risk of disengagement from education. Alongside quantitative data, the session will draw on practice based insights and lived experiences to highlight how exclusionary approaches can compound disadvantage, impacting attainment, wellbeing, and long term outcomes. Particular attention will be given to the point at which young carers are identified, often during Key Stage 3, when patterns of behaviour and attainment begin to shift. The presentation will conclude with practical recommendations for education professionals, focusing on early identification, relational approaches, and inclusive strategies that recognise caring responsibilities. It will emphasise the need to move from punitive responses towards supportive, trauma informed practice to ensure young carers are not unfairly penalised for their circumstances. Presentation Plan and Timing (45 minutes total) Introduction and context (8 minutes) Overview of young carers, prevalence, and why this issue matters now Framing the link between caring responsibilities and educational inequality Key findings from national data (15 minutes) Suspension and exclusion rates across school types Comparison with non-caring peers Key statistics and emerging patterns Brief reflection on what the data tells us and what it does not Understanding the “why” (10 minutes) Linking caring responsibilities to behaviour, attendance, and unmet needs The role of fatigue, stress, and hidden responsibility Insights from practice and lived experience Implications for schools and systems (7 minutes) Impact on attainment, wellbeing, and long term outcomes Risk of disengagement and escalation Recommendations and closing (5 minutes) Practical strategies for identification, support, and inclusive practice Key takeaways and final reflections

This presentation shares emerging findings from participatory research exploring the experiences of young carers and their families who are home educating. Delivered by Gloucestershire Young Carers and the University of Gloucestershire, the study examines wellbeing, support and safeguarding, highlighting implications for policy, practice and improving identification of this often hidden group.

Carers Australia’s research examines the impact of caring on young Australian carers’ education and employment. It also looks at what supports are provided to young carers and the evidence on what is effective at changing their education and employment trajectories.

Care has been a part of the African-American youth experience in the United States since enslavement. Of the 5.4 million young carers in the US today, Black children predominately have a caring role. Attendees will better understand the experience of Black young carers, drawing on both historical scholarship and present-day qualitative research evidence conducted by the author.

This presentation shares findings from Norway’s latest representative population-based survey of young adult carers aged 16–25. Drawing on responses from more than 9,000 young people, it explores the prevalence and characteristics of young caring roles and their impact on health, education, social participation and future opportunities, compared with peers in the general population.

What does growing up with a sibling who needs long-term care really mean? Drawing on RILSA’s nationwide qualitative study in Czechia, this presentation explores the variety of siblings’ caring roles and the way these shape their everyday lives. Looking at their (unmet) needs, it shows why communication and adequate support matter. It offers novel insights alongside concrete recommendations for family and social policy.

In Finland, young carers remain invisible due to fragmented and adult-centred services, contested terminology, and cultural factors. The presentation shows how structural and normative conditions lead to cumulative misrecognition and shape youth caregiving, producing concealed responsibility and challenging emotion work with long-lasting wellbeing consequences. This work calls for greater public awareness, policy development, child-focused cross-sector action, and tailored support.

Young carers often remain silent not because they reject help, but because disclosure can threaten family stability, control and trust. Drawing on practice-based experience and an audio-play example, the presentation explores disclosure as a risk assessment and shows how transparent, relationship-based, low-threshold responses can make support feel safe enough to accept.

In February 2025, Little Dreamers launched what is believed to be the world’s first clinical mental health service designed specifically for Young Carers aged 4 to 25. This session is a candid account of building it: the co-design process, what has worked, what has been harder than expected, and the measurement gap the field still needs to solve.

YoungCarers@OL aims to develop sustainable support structures for young (adult) carers in Oldenburg, Germany. Launched in 2026, the project seeks to strengthen awareness, intersectoral networking, information sharing, and needs-based support. The presentation outlines its conceptual framework, provides first insights from the network analysis, and discusses early experiences and transferable approaches for regional care systems.

The presentation shows how the digital project „Young Carer Coach“ uses social media, participatory approaches, and peer activities to help Young Carers to develop an awareness of their role and connect them with peers. Regarding their social environment, the project functions as an awareness campaign for experts and institutions and joins them together.

Family caregivers’ training needs in French palliative care remain poorly documented, particularly those of young adult carers. This exploratory qualitative study used interviews and focus groups with 18 caregivers recruited through national associations. Reflexive thematic analysis identified barriers, facilitators, priority content, and preferred formats. The presentation will examine how young adult carers’ accounts (4/18) are situated across these themes.

This presentation explores the connection between young carers and children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Looking at the report findings of Balancing Acts: the reality for young carers with SEND, it highlights the data, the challenges in identifying these children and the importance of providing appropriate support to ensure their needs are recognised and addressed effectively.

In this presentation, I will discuss our literature review and interview-based research into loneliness amongst informal carers. Young informal carers experience loneliness on various levels: in relation to the care recipient, in relation to their peers, and in relation to their family. These experiences are influenced by a range of experiences of stigmatisation. What does this mean in terms of support options?

Identifying YCs under 11 remains a complex challenge. One key issue lies in children’s ability to verbalize their relatives’ health problems, as comprehension of illness develops gradually throughout childhood. The aim of this presentation is to examine how children describe their relatives’ health problems, in order to refine identification strategies and improve early identification of YCs.