In 2020, Carers Trust Scotland had to adapt its youth engagement work with young carers and young adult carers. In June they set up a Young Adult Carer (YAC) Advisory Group, a group of young adult carers from across Scotland, to help steer their youth engagement work and run a peer-led consultation. In the absence of the Scottish Young Carers Festival and the chance for young carers to share their views with key decision makers, the YAC Advisory Group created alternative consultation activities. They created an online survey which was live for eight weeks, as well as running Instagram quick fire polls and sharing an interactive session plan with young carer services. This consultation focused on key themes such as mental health, education and the impact of COVID-19. The Group have been meeting online via Zoom.

The Group met in January to review the findings of this consultation and felt that a key theme throughout was young carers not reaching out for the support available. Through Kiran’s Trust funding, the Group have worked with animators to create a social media infographic targeting young carers.

Pizza Night

As a thank you, Carers Trust Scotland will use Kiran’s Trust funding to provide an online pizza night in March. For our last online meeting, pizzas will be delivered to everyone’s house and organise fun games. This session would also provide an opportunity to reflect on the Group’s work. 

Awareness Raising Activity 

Our funding was used to support the YAC Advisory Group’s consultation and help support the Group in raising awareness of their findings in a creative way, for example the use of a graphic illustrator to create youth-friendly, impactful illustrations of the findings. The YAC Advisory Group were in control of how they would like to use the funding to raise awareness.