Young Carer Assessments - Find a freedom of information request

1. How many young carer assessments has the local authority carried out in your area each year for the past three financial years, and how many young carers are currently registered in your local authority area?

 

2. How much local authority funding (with figures) has there been for Young Carer activities and/or short breaks in your area each year for the last three financial years? 



3. How many youth club sessions and/or activities, short breaks or trips for Young Carers are provided in your area? How many of these are fully or partially funded by the council? 



4. Is there any additional provision in your area for Young Carers over school holidays - and if so, what? How much of this is fully or partially funded by the council?   

I can confirm that the information requested is held by Lincolnshire County Council. I have detailed below the information that is being released to you.  
 
 1.  In Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) do not undertake separate assessments for young carers and instead the professional that knows them best will complete an Early Help Assessment with the consent of the family and young carer themselves.  The disparity in the number of those that have been identified and those that were assessed relates to the consent to that assessment, or lack thereof.

These assessments are holistic in nature and will identify what the caring role is and whether others need to become involved to support the family regarding any unmet needs.  The focus is to learn as much as possible about the lived experience of that young carer and what support they would welcome regarding their caring role.

- 2022 – 537 Young Carers identified 408 assessed

- 2023 - 712 Young Carers identified 437 assessed

- 2024 – 665 Young Carers identified 462 assessed

There are currently 5302 Young Carers registered in Lincolnshire.

2. Following completion of the Early Help Assessment, any identified Young Carers in Lincolnshire will have support to access the support they would most welcome.  Lincolnshire County Council put on specific Young Carer activities across the County so that Young Carers have access to other young people in their local area.  These are age-appropriate groups run throughout a month and in local centres, as well as some run in their secondary schools.  Within this provision specifically, they also have access to bigger events through the year, usually at Christmas and over the summer.  This also includes access to our Holiday and Activity Fund (HAF) provision.  For young carers under the age of 8 (our Mini Young Carers), we offer groups run in local centres which include a parent and are less frequent than for older Young Carers.  

At times, the support needed by the Young Carer will include more regular access to other provision within their community, such as access to local sports clubs, and the child’s network will support to remove barriers so that they can attend what will be most meaningful for them. 

Whilst our current recording can identify how much we have spent on supplies/materials for the specific Young Carer groups that are run by our staff, however, is not inclusive of cost for our staff time to run these groups, and nor is it of the costs to support the Young Carers to access these groups in mileage payments and/or taxi services.  The buildings utilised for the monthly groups run are generally LCC so their cost is not included either.  This also does not include the money spent to support Young Carers to access other provision in their community or HAF activities.  As this is the case, we cannot provide accurate figures to incorporate all that is spent on Young Carers because it comes under several different cost codes.

3. Lincolnshire is a large county which is split into 4 main locality areas, each area has its own Early Help and Social Care Team and Young Carer support via the Local Authority is delivered predominantly by the Early Help Teams in each locality.

The number of specific Young Carer groups delivered each month across the localities during term time are = 28 per month – fully funded
Holiday Activities =  10                 fully funded
Trips =                    8                   funded/partial funding/charitable support

4. Holiday Activities = Mini young carers activity in each locality for summer holiday = 4
                               Young Carers are supported to access HAF activities - funded
Young Carers are supported to access Positive Futures Activities during holidays – funded
Young Carers are also supported to access local universal provision during summer holiday/main holidays