ELLIE RAISES AWARENESS OF ‘HIDDEN’ YOUNG CARERS ON NATIONAL NEWS.

Ellie Hughes is an exceptional Richmond School student. Since Year 7 she has always looked out for opportunities to get involved in school activities, both in the classroom and beyond. She is a great actor, most recently playing the major scarecrow role in the school’s panto – ‘Wizard of Oz’. She has also written for the stage, having one of her pieces performed by a 24-strong cast at the Georgian Theatre Royal. She is a Sports Leader, helping to run numerous sporting activities, notably dressing up as Olaf the snowman for a recent primary school football festival! She has been involved in numerous fundraising events, as well as winning academic awards, for example a recent poetry competition with prizes presented by Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate. We could go on – Ellie really does throw herself into life at Richmond School.

You might think that after all this effort at school, Ellie likes to put her feet up at home and have some down time. The truth is very different, however, as Ellie is a young carer. Traditional roles are reversed when Ellie is at home as her mum, Gill, has mobility problems. Ellie has the responsibility of looking after mum and takes on the majority of the work involved with running a household – cooking, cleaning, making sure the home runs smoothly.

Recently Ellie was contacted by Carers Plus, Yorkshire who asked whether she would be prepared to speak on behalf of the Carers Trust and take part in a story that Channel 5 News was doing about young carers. Ellie, being the outgoing and communicative student that she is, said yes.

A little later, the producer of Channel 5 News, Christina Michaels, called Ellie to arrange a visit by the reporter for the story, Peter Lane and a camera operator. They called round after school the next day and spent over four hours filming Ellie and Gill going about their lives at home and talking to them about Ellie’s role as a young carer. The main focus of the story was to highlight the fact that, even though many young carers are recognised and supported by their schools, many are ‘hidden’ and not known about or given the support they deserve by their schools.

A previous schools’ census listed just under 39,000 pupils as young carers across the UK, but the Carers Trust estimates that the real number is more than 1 million – 1 in 10 pupils. 40% of those identified as young carers say they don’t get the support they need balancing their home and school lives.

The story went out on the main Channel 5 ‘News at 5’ earlier this week, with Ellie playing the starring role in the four minute piece. You can see the story by going to this link:

http://tinyurl.com/YoungCarersJan24

If you don’t have an X / Twitter account, the video is available here:

http://tinyurl.com/YoungCarer24

Well done to Ellie for being such a brilliant ambassador for the Carers Trust and doing a fantastic job of raising awareness about this significant problem.

If you are or know someone who is a young carer and we are not aware of it at Richmond School, then please make sure you tell us – talk to your tutor or Head of Year. We are very keen to identify and support our young carers and do our bit to minimise the issue of ‘hidden’ carers.

The Carers Trust website can be found here: https://carers.org/