Young Carers

As young carers are minors referred to care for family members . The term has its origins in Great Britain .

definition

With “caring children and adolescents” we mean people who have not yet reached the age of 18 and who regularly look after, help and care for one or more relatives. These children have a specific responsibility that is not socially intended for them and that sets them apart from other children.

Situation in the individual countries

Great Britain

In England - the country of origin of young carers research - it was found in several large-scale studies that a considerable number of children take care of their chronically ill or disabled family members (parents, siblings, grandparents) to a considerable extent . The youngest of the young carers are not older than three years, the older ones had been caring for the sick family member for years, looking after the siblings, taking over the household and thus maintaining the family system responsibly.

The prevalence in England is given as 1.5%. This means that 1.5% of all children under the age of 18 living in England are caregivers. This corresponds to a number of 175,000 children.

Germany

numbers

In Germany, Sabine Metzing examined the role of children as caregivers for the first time. There is (currently) no exact number of caring children in Germany. However, if the prevalence is transferred from England (1.5%), an estimated 225,000 children in Germany would be caring children.

Contact points

In Germany, the number of counseling services for children of predominantly mentally ill parents is growing. Because of their different concepts, they can hardly be compared with one another. None of these projects focus on the role of children as caregivers, and there are no reviews of the projects yet. There are currently no specific support offers for caring children in Germany. The lack of such offers affects the overall development of the children concerned.

Austria

In Austria, the situation of caring children was examined more closely in 2012 on the basis of a parliamentary resolution. The Institute for Nursing Science at the University of Vienna collected prevalence data on caring children for the first time using a large random sample at schools. In the sample of 10 to 14 year old children, 4.5% could be identified as caring children. Extrapolated to the age group of 5 to 18-year-olds and to the whole of Germany, this results in a share of caring children and adolescents in the total group of 3.5%, that is 42,700 people affected. These numbers significantly exceed previous estimates of 22,500 based on the UK Census (2001) and suggest that international numbers are undervalued.

Phenomenon: "Keeping the family together"

A chronic illness within the family changes everyday family life and affects all family members. Mainly the severity of the illness and the need for care have an impact on the transformation of everyday life. The number of family members (one-two-parent families, only children, siblings, grandparents) and the financial resources available are also important. If many limiting factors come together, the disease dominates the life of the family and thus becomes a threat. Children fear for their parents and fear being torn apart as a family. Children try hard to keep up with everyday life. They actively take responsibility and pursue two strategies to keep their families together.

Strategy "'Fill the gap' and 'be ready'"

Children fill in the gaps that have been opened up by the absence of the sick parent and are constantly ready to react in good time to changes, threats or symptoms of the disease. You help or are solely responsible. They do what adult caregivers do and are active in all areas of care and housekeeping.

Help for the family as a community is primarily household chores that the sick person can no longer carry out, e.g. B. cooking, washing, cleaning, tidying up, shopping, disposing of garbage, keeping the garden tidy, etc.

Help for the sick person

body-related: excretions , mobilization and transfer , dressing and undressing, personal hygiene , food intake
emotional: being there, taking care of, comforting, providing variety, showing understanding, showing consideration
medical / therapeutic: drug regimen, wound care, physiotherapy
watch out / protect: ensure safety, stick with it, be vigilant
Translations: for language disorders , for foreign languages
in an emergency: activities from all the categories mentioned above are carried out.

Help for healthy family members

Taking on parental care: taking care of little siblings, preparing food, making sandwiches, taking them to kindergarten or school and picking them up, helping with homework, bringing them to bed, waking up, getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc.
Help for healthy parents: giving consolation, being there, relief by taking on activities, etc.

Help for yourself can be: go to bed and get up yourself, buy clothes yourself, prepare something to eat yourself, etc.

"Don't talk about it" strategy

Hardly any child talks about the domestic situation. The children justify this silence with “shame” and “caution”. They say that other children “don't know what it's about anyway” because they don't know a life with illness.

Shame : Children want normalcy. They do not want to be "different" and are afraid of being "stamped" and excluded by their peers.
Caution : Nothing is more dangerous for children than that their families could be torn apart. The silence is thus also based on the fear that outside bodies (e.g. youth or public order office) might assess the family situation as “untenable” and separate the family members “for their own good”.

The “don't talk about it” strategy means, among other things, that affected families live in secrecy and that their situations and needs were previously unknown.

Effects

Being a “caring child” has both positive and negative effects on the affected children.

positive impact

increased self-esteem
early maturity
Creation of identity
have the feeling of being “well prepared for life”.

negative impacts

quasi living in secret
have no one to talk to
social isolation
Renouncing your own childhood
Exhaustion , excessive demands ( self-care deficit )
Possibly poor school grades, high absenteeism, early school dropout

literature

Sabine Metzing: Children and adolescents as caring relatives. Experience and shape family care . Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 2007, ISBN 978-3-456-84549-4 .

Sabine Metzing: Keeping the family together . In: The nurse's sister . June 2007.

Sabine Metzing: Already a nursing professional at the age of 13. When children look after their parents . In: Forum Sozialstation No. 139 . S. 35-39 .

Sabine Metzing, Wilfried Schnepp, Bettina Hübner, Andreas Büscher: “Filling the gaps” and “being ready” - children and young people as caring relatives . In: Care & Society 11 (4) . 2006, p. 351–373 ( dg-pflegewwissenschaft.de [PDF; accessed September 1, 2008]).

Web links

Children and adolescents as caring relatives. Insight into the situation of current and former caring children in Austria. (PDF; 2.2 MB)

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Sabine Metzing: Children and adolescents as caring relatives. Experience and shape family care . Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 2007, ISBN 978-3-456-84549-4 .

[Metzing2007-1] Sabine Metzing: Children and adolescents as caring relatives. Experience and shape family care . Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 2007, ISBN 978-3-456-84549-4 .