DigitalMe’s Work with Young Carers
For the previous three years, DigitalMe has been involved in YCiF (Young Carers in Focus), an exciting support initiative for young carers. YCiF is a four-year partnership project led by The Children’s Society and funded by the Big Lottery. Highlights of the project so far include the Hidden photography exhibition, the Young Carers in Schools programme and the annual Young Carers Festival.
YCiF has made some huge achievements in its first three years, none of which could have been possible without our YCIF Champions — nearly 200 young carers who have received training, support and opportunities to be spokespeople for young carers across the country. Changes to the Children and Families Act and Care Act have been influenced by their voices, and their stories and portraits have been shared to raise awareness through the Hidden photography exhibition.
The most recent achievement is the nationwide roll out of the Young Carers in Schools programme, a scheme developed in partnership with the Carers Trust which aims to build, share and recognise support for young carers in schools. Schools can download our resources and work through 5 standards, which were chosen by YCIF Champions, to develop better recognition of and support for young carers in their school. They can then apply for the awards, which consist of three levels, to recognise their good practice. Fifteen schools have just received the first awards, and the appetite for the scheme has been so huge that we anticipate hundreds more will be recognised soon.
This summer, our focus will be on implementing the new changes to the law locally. The theme for the annual Young Carers Festival — chosen by young carers themselves — will be ‘Making It Happen’ in order to celebrate this new focus. As a part of YCiF, DigitalMe is also developing a set of video resources on influencing change with the help of young carers who have lots of experience in this area, including VOYCE PG in Sheffield andEastern Ravens in Stockton. The video below gives a sense of what the Young Carers Festival is all about.
Throughout all aspects of the project, DigitalMe have worked with the Champions to ensure their voices are heard online, via blogs on Makewaves, the creation of videos and resources and through social media. The Champions have the opportunity to gain a huge range of skills through the project, and because we feel the recognition of these skills is so important we’ve also developed a scheme of open badges for YCIF. Champions can earn these by documenting their new skills on the Makewaves platform. Once they’ve achieved a set of skills badges they can qualify for the YCIF Award, an open badge which includes a personal reference from the project team.
Alison Booth, Programme Manager at DigitalMe commented that: ‘Working with our YCIF Champions has been hugely rewarding. Their creativity and passion to make things better provides so much inspiration for the project team, and I feel constantly humbled when I realise how many challenges many of them face in their daily lives. Their work is making a huge impact, and we hope the skills and experiences they have gained through Young Carers in Focus will have a big impact on their future. Whether they’re gaining the Advocate badge for speaking to their local MP about the needs of young carers, or the Producer badge for making a video to share their views, we hope our Champions will use these experiences and this recognition to go on to even greater things’.
