A memorandum of understanding

“No Wrong Doors for Young Carers.”

Working together to support young Carers and their families in Torbay

This MoU enables the signatories to meet some of their obligations within the Devon-wide Commitment to Carers, Torbay’s all-age Strategy for Carers and Torbay’s Strategy for Young Carers under 25.

Contents

1. Key principles
2. Our local context
3. Identifying young Carers and promoting well being
4. Assessment, information and support
5. Transition to adulthood
6. Information sharing
7. Safeguarding and partnership working

1. Key principles

We are committed to the principle that there should be “no wrong doors” for young Carers and their families; young Carers should be identified, assessed and their families supported, in ways that prevent excessive or inappropriate caring regardless of which service or agency has contact with them in the first instance.

As Children’s and Adult’s Social Services and the Integrated Care Board, we therefore commit through this memorandum of understanding to work together, adopting a whole system, whole family approach to ensure we are identifying and providing support for all young Carers, young adult Carers and their families.

We will achieve this through working across our local health and care system, in partnership with our wider health partners, local Carers’ organisations and education providers, promoting a proactive approach, where support is offered at the earliest opportunity. We will work together to fulfil our legal duties to young Carers and young adult Carers, and ensure that the following key principles2 underpin practice across our system:

• The primary responsibility for responding to the needs of young Carers and young adult Carers, and ensuring an appropriate assessment is completed, rests with the service responsible for assessing the person they support, rather than depending on the age of the Carer.
• Practitioners across Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and health settings working with individuals with care and support needs and their families have an equally important role in identifying potential young Carers at the earliest opportunity.
• The starting point should be to assess the needs of the adult or child who needs care and support and then see what remaining needs for support a young Carer in the family has.
• The presence of a young Carer in the family will always constitute an appearance of need and should trigger either an assessment, or the offer of an assessment, to the person needing care.
• Where there are children in the family providing care to an adult or undertaking wider caring responsibilities, a ‘whole-family’ approach is key when assessing the adult needing care. The adult’s assessment and eligibility for support should take into account their parenting responsibilities and the impact of the care and support needs on the family.
• Assessments should ascertain why a child is caring and what needs to change in order to prevent them from undertaking excessive or inappropriate caring responsibilities which could impact adversely on their welfare, education, or social development. The views of both adults and children within the family should be sought separately where appropriate, so as to ensure individual family members have the opportunity to speak openly about their situation and need for support.
• Consideration must be given to whether a young Carer is a ‘child in need’ under the Children Act 1989, and whether their welfare or development may suffer if support is not provided to them and/or their family.

The commitments in this MoU apply equally to young Carers up to the age of 18, and to young adult Carers aged up to 25 as we recognise that young Carers may require more focused support during the period they are making the transition to adulthood.

We will ensure that commitments in this MoU are reflected in all relevant local strategies, commissioning and operationally. We will put a clear plan in place to ensure that these commitments are reflected in practice. The MoU will be routinely reviewed to ensure it reflects any changes in systems, legislation and policy, or needs of young Carers.

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2. Our local context

According to the 2021 Census, Torbay has 485 Young Carers under 18 (275 female, 205 male) and 530 Young Adult Carers 18-24 (285 female and 245 male). However, it is widely accepted that this is an underrepresentation. Torbay Young Carers Services knows 492 secondary school age Carers, and 132 primary school age Carers.

Torbay Young Adult Carers Services is working with 232 Young Adult Carers (45 aged 16-18 and 187 aged 18-25).

Young Carers in Torbay are assessed and supported by Torbay Council’s Young Carers Service. Young Adult Carers are assessed and supported by Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust’s Young Adult Carers (YAC) Service. The YAC service accepts Young Carers from the age of 16 if they have left school and wish to transition to this service before age 18. The two services work very closely to ensure smooth transitions, whatever the Young Carers’ age.

There has been a MoU in place between Adult Social Care and Children’s Social Care since 2010 and an inter-agency combined Young Carers under 25 Strategy since 2012. Key priorities generally remain consistent and similar to the MoU:

1. Identification of Young Carers Under 25 at the First Opportunity
2. Information, Advice and Support Services available to Young Carers Under 25
3. Young Carers Under 25 Assessments Proportionate to Need, including Whole Family Approach
4. Involvement of Young Carers Under 25 in service delivery, evaluation and commissioning.

The Young Carers under 25 Strategy sits under Torbay’s all-age Carers Strategy. 

Work has also taken place across Devon to agree consistent principles for working with all Carers including Young Carers Devon-wide Commitment to Carers.

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3. Identifying young Carers and promoting well being

We will actively promote a whole-system approach for identifying young Carers across our population and promoting their wellbeing, including within education and the wider community.

We will ensure a regular programme of young Carer awareness-raising activity, with a particular focus on health, social care and education.

All health and social care services working with adults are required to consider whether there are any children in the family/household. If a child is identified, services will consider whether the child is providing care to the adult and is in need of support. We will ensure that practitioners working with adults have access to training to help them identify young Carers and know what support is available locally

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4. Assessment, information and support

We commit to the principle that the aim of assessments and support for young Carers is to ensure that no young Carer is taking on inappropriate or excessive levels of caring responsibilities, and to ensure that their education/employment, health, wellbeing or wider life opportunities are not negatively impacted by caring.

We will ensure that information, advice, support and services are available to all young Carers and their families in our local area; This includes, where appropriate, support through local young Carers’ services, young adult Carers projects, or universal services. Through a
combination of commissioning and social work practice, we will ensure that support for young Carers is not provided in isolation, but using a whole-family approach.

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5. Transition to adulthood

We recognise that young adult Carers may have different support needs to those of young Carers and adult Carers.

We will ensure that local activity to increase identification of young Carers also includes stakeholders relevant to young adult Carers, such as further and higher education providers, and training providers/employers.

We will ensure that Transitions Assessments are available for young Carers as they approach adulthood where it appears they may need support when they turn 18. Where a transitions assessment deems a young Carer eligible for services, it will be followed up with good information and advice about support in the community.

We will ensure that in addition to the statutory assessment, there is a range of support available which meets the specific needs of young adult Carers. We will also ensure that any staff providing support to young adult Carers have the knowledge and training to properly
understand the needs of this group of Carers.

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6. Information sharing

We believe that effective and timely information sharing between local partners including health and education is critical to enable effective identification and support for young Carers and their families.

We will actively pursue opportunities to improve the recording of young Carers and young adult Carers within systems across different settings (e.g. primary care, mental health trusts, education, social care and voluntary sector providers) and the information-sharing between system partners.

Children’s and adult social care services will identify ways to improve data-sharing in relation to young adult Carers transitioning into adult services to reduce the need for young Carers to tell their stories multiple times.

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7. Safeguarding and partnership working

We will ensure that all practitioners are aware of local safeguarding policy and practice and accept a joint responsibility to work in partnership to identify and respond to any young Carers who are suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.

Our Local Safeguarding Children Partnership and Safeguarding Adults Board will be made aware of issues surrounding young Carers and of this Memorandum of Understanding.

8. Putting these intentions into action and accountability

The actions arising from this MoU sit within Torbay’s Interagency Young Carers under 25 Strategy Action Plan.

They will be monitored quarterly at this Under 25’s Strategy Steering Group and reported annually to the overarching Torbay Carers’ Strategy Steering Group. Promotion will be via Signposts Carers’ Magazine and local organisations’ communications.

Alongside the MoUs for Devon and Plymouth, actions will be monitored quarterly at the Devon-wide Children & Young People Joint Forward Plan Delivery Board and reported to the Devon-wide Carers Leads meeting.

These arrangements should provide reasonable assurance to Devon’s Integrated Care Board, Torbay Council, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, to Young Carers, their families and the wider community. They can also be used as evidence for CQC and Ofsted.

Actions will also be reflected in the Integrated Care Strategy and in each organisation’s commissioning of relevant services.

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