1. One in twelve young carers is caring for more than 15 hours per week.
  2. Around one in twenty miss school because of their caring responsibilities.
  3. Young carers are 1.5 times more likely than their peers to be from black, Asian or minority ethnic communities, and are twice as likely to not speak English as their first language.
  4. Young carers are 1.5 times more likely than their peers to have a special educational need or a disability. 
  5. The average annual income for families with a young carer is £5000 less than families who do not have a young carer. 
  6. There is no strong evidence that young carers are more likely than their peers to come into contact with support agencies, despite government recognition that this needs to happen. 
  7. Young carers have significantly lower educational attainment at GCSE level, the equivalent to nine grades lower overall than their peers e.g. the difference between nine B’s and nine C’s.
  8. Young carers are more likely than the national average to be not in education, employment or training (NEET) between the ages of 16 and 19.
  9. The average age of a young carer is 12 years old.
  10. The 2001 Census identified 175,000 young carers in the United Kingdom and yet a document undertaken by the university of Nottingham and the BBC claimed the figure was nearer 700,000

All statistics are from The Children’s Society, 2013

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