Becoming a carer for someone is often a gradual process, like the illness affecting the person being cared for. The work of caring gradually impacts your daily life, restricting your ability to get time for yourself more and more. Because of this most people identify themselves as ‘wife/ husband/ daughter/ son/ friend’ rather than as a carer. You Are Both – not recognising you are carrying out a separate caring role can be a real barrier to accessing the vital support available to you.

Early identification as a carer enables you to access appropriate support and can significantly improve your health and wellbeing, prevent your breakdown as well as having a positive benefit for the person you care for.

For young people the early identification is vital in giving them access to opportunities to have the same life chances as other young people who do not have caring responsibilities.

Family Carers

A family carer is anybody who unpaid looks after someone with a long term illness, mental health issue or disability who cannot cope without their help day to day. They may not be family. They can be anyone that has a close bond of love or friendship with the person they care for.
Family carers can be any age. At Suffolk Family Carers Young Carers are Children aged 5 to 15 whilst Young Adult Carers are teenagers and young adults aged 16 -24. Adults Carers are anybody looking after children (Parent Carers) or older generations.

Young Carers

Young carers- a young person, who is caring for or emotionally affected by a family member who has a physical or mental illness, disability or misuses drugs or alcohol.
Sibling carers- a young person who is affected by a brother or sister’s disability, illness or additional need.
We have an online space for Young Carers (5-13) and Young Adult Carers (14-25) which includes blogs, tips and information.

Parent Carers

Parent carers provide support to their children, including grown up children who could not manage without their help. You may be caring for a child or young person under the age of 18, or under the age of 25 if they have additional needs such as special educational, physical or mental health needs or a disability.
If you are caring for an adult child please click here for details of additional Suffolk Family Carers services available.

For further information on the support Family Carers offer please use the following link
https://suffolkfamilycarers.org/