Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ME-WE (Psychosocial Support for Promoting Mental Health and Well-being among Adolescent Young Carers in Europe)

Teaser

Young carers are children and young people who care for a family member or a friend who has a chronic illness, disability, frailty, addiction or any other condition related to a need for care. They assume a level of responsibility that would usually be associated with an...

Summary

Young carers are children and young people who care for a family member or a friend who has a chronic illness, disability, frailty, addiction or any other condition related to a need for care. They assume a level of responsibility that would usually be associated with an adult.

Although there are no precise figures about how many young carers there are across Europe today, some national statistics and pilot projects suggest that about 7-8% of children in Europe have caregiving responsibilities. They are largely invisible to public authorities and service providers. The lack of awareness on the challenges faced by young carers entails a lack of support, with a negative impact at individual level and at societal level.

Indeed, coming to terms with caring responsibilities while navigating growing up and the challenges that life throws at them (e.g. entering the labor market, attending higher education) can be overwhelming. Pressures associated with caring can be considered as a risk factor for mental ill-health. This is particularly the case for adolescent young carers (15-17 years old), as they enter a critical transition phase in their personal and social development to adulthood. Taking on a caring role can also have a negative impact on young carers’ education, as it can entail under-achievement, absence and drop-outs (with the result of low employability and social exclusion in the long term).

In order to address these challenges, a European consortium of prominent universities, research institutes and civil society organisations has been carrying out an ambitious research and innovation project: the ME-WE Project. The overall goal is to prevent the negative impact that caring responsibilities can have on adolescent young carers’ mental health, by improving their resilience (the process of negotiating, managing and adapting to significant sources of stress or trauma) and by enhancing the social support available to them (from family, school, peers, services).

The project has three specific objectives: (1) to systematise knowledge on AYCs; (2) to co-design, deliver and evaluate psychosocial interventions in six countries; (3) to disseminate/provide knowledge translation actions at national, European and international levels.

Work performed

The first year of the project has been dedicated to the systematisation of knowledge on young carers. Three main activities have been carried out in parallel in 6 project countries (Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, UK):
1) An online survey of the profiles, needs and preferences for support of adolescent young carers in regards to their mental health and wellbeing has been designed and conducted.
2) Research into the development and implementation of legislation, policies and service frameworks addressing adolescent young carers has been undertaken
3) Evidence on strategies and programmes to support young carers has been gathered.

The main findings arising from the systematisation of knowledge have informed the rest of the activities, linked to the objective 2: co-design, implement and evaluate an intervention to increase the resilience of adolescent young carers.
All project countries have set up Blended Learning Networks (BLNs), i.e. heterogeneous communities of practice bringing together adolescent young carers and relevant stakeholders, engaging in a process of mutual learnings. The main goal was to ensure the co-design of the intervention, including the design and development of a new mobile app enhancing national interventions and enabling professional and peer support at a distance.

In order to proceed with the implementation of the intervention, the project partners have set up National and Transnational Implementation Teams.

In parallel with all these activities, an active dissemination of the project rationale and main results has been carried out, to ensure knowledge translation and exchange (objective 3).

Final results

• The cross-national comparison facilitated by the project – on profiles, needs and preferences of AYCs in regards to their mental health well-being; legislation, policies and service frameworks addressing AYCs; good practices and services to support young carers- is the first of its kind. Considering that the ME-WE Project brings together countries at different levels of awareness of and services for young carers, the transnational comparison can be particularly helpful in the future development of policies and practices, for those countries where the legal structures, policy and service frameworks for AYCs are only just emerging or are non-existent. The results can help other EU countries with a current low level of awareness to learn from and gain inspiration from the approaches adopted by the involved countries.

• The project adopts a co-design model. In particular, the Blended Learning Networks ensure that adolescent young carers are actively engaged and that their opinions and experiences actively inform all project activities.

• The project proposes an innovative framework of primary prevention interventions (to increase AYC’s mental health), that is, a ‘menu of options’ of successful and effective practices to be tailored on the basis of country development in the awareness of and services for AYCs.

The findings of the project activities will be shared with relevant stakeholders (general public, service providers and policy makers), with the result of an increased awareness about young carers in respective countries and at international level.

The intervention programme will positively impact on the AYCs that will participate: it will strengthen their resilience and improve their mental health. This can empower AYCs, with the effect – in the long term- of enhanced educational attainment, employability and social inclusion. In so doing, the project will contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy target of reducing the rate of early school leaving to below 10% and to the goal of better mental health (increasingly recognised as an important driver of economic growth and social development in Europe). We are expecting that the intervention programme developed within the Project will become one of the commonly used support mechanisms for young carers in all project countries and beyond.

The increased awareness – combined with research based evidence on strategies to support young carers – will drive the change in policies and practices across Europe. In this way, young carers can move from a situation of vulnerability – due to inappropriate care, excessive care, restricted education, reduced life chances, affected well-being, isolation – to a situation of growth where they learn, thrive, achieve, are protected and supported (including the right to a timely assessment of their support needs and preferences), enjoy life and flourish as human beings.

Website & more info

More info: https://me-we.eu/.