The First
Monday
From today, School's out until 3 September. For most families, that's six weeks off. If you're looking after someone, it can be six weeks of something else entirely: the same caring, none of the structure, and a lot more hours in the day to fill.
It's a big change to absorb
For a lot of families in Cornwall, today is the start of beaches, late mornings and a bit of time that isn't spoken for. If you're caring for someone, it can be the opposite.
The school run, the routine, the few hours a day you could count on. All of it has just stopped for six weeks. The caring hasn't.
If you're a parent carer, the support you barely noticed in term time has gone. If you're a young carer, you've lost the part of the day that was yours. And if you're looking after a partner, a parent or a neighbour, everything is busier, while a lot of services run on holiday cover.
You're not imagining it
Action for Children and Carers Trust asked young carers how the summer actually feels. The answers were fairly blunt.
82%
felt lonely during the summer holidays
86%
felt more stressed or worried than they did in term time
1 in 4
spent more than ten hours caring on a typical summer day
Most people surveyed agreed that this is what happens when the structure holding the week together disappears for six weeks.
What's here, all summer
Our Adviceline doesn't close for the holidays, and neither does anything else we do. You don't need a referral and you don't need to wait until it's bad enough.
For young carers and young adult carers
Kernow Young Carers runs activities and one-to-one support right through the school holidays, in partnership with Barnardo's. There's a Young Carers Card too, so schools, GP surgeries and pharmacies know who you are.
Help with money
Six weeks at home costs more. Food, fuel, days out, cover you hadn't budgeted for. The Carers Resilience Enablement Grant is there for costs you didn't see coming, and we can put you forward for a Carers Trust Microgrant.
A proper break, with our STAR project
STAR stands for Supporting Time Away and Respite, and it's made for short-notice respite, which is usually when you need it most. That might be a sitting service or home care for a few hours, or a short stay of up to a week for the person you look after. You can refer yourself.
Time with people who get it
Courses, activities and groups run with Promas CIC. Somewhere to learn a bit more about your role, and somewhere to sit with other carers who don't need any of it explaining.
Small things that help
Not a checklist. Just what carers told us helped last summer.
Lower the bar for six weeks
Six weeks is a long time to run flat out. A quieter summer is still a good summer, and nobody is marking it.
Ask before you’re stuck
Most people tell us afterwards that they wish they'd rung sooner. There's no threshold you have to cross first.
Ten minutes still count
A walk to the end of the road on your own isn't nothing. It's the thing that makes the next few hours possible.
Tell your GP surgery you're a carer
It goes on your record, and it changes what they're able to offer you — including flexibility around your own appointments.
You don't have to wait until it's unbearable
Ring the Carers Adviceline and talk to a person. We'll listen first, then work out what would help this week, not in September.
01736 756655
Our service is free. If you'd rather not phone, you can email us at: hello@carersadviceline.org.uk
If you are a Young Carer, email: kernowyoungcarers@barnardos.org.uk
