All schools should be required to have a staff lead to do the same for young carers as SENCos do for those with special educational needs, a group of MPs has said.
The all-party parliamentary group for young carers and young adult carers warned many children with caring responsibilities were not being identified by schools or councils, leading to a “postcode lottery of support”.
The 2021 national census identified 127,176 young carers, which itself is “likely an underestimation” because parents filling it out may not correctly identify their children as carers.
In contrast, this year’s school census, which asked for information on young carers for the first time, identified just 38,983, with 79 per cent of schools recording that they had no young carers on roll whatsoever.
