At Bay House School we are aware that some of our students are Young Carers – children under 18 who are caring for a family member who is ill, frail, disabled or has mental health or addiction problems.
Young Carers are a vulnerable and disadvantaged group, who frequently experience difficulties in their education as a result of their caring role.
Dave Penfold is the operational lead for our Young Carers here at Bay House and he looks after our Young Carers on a daily basis.
We offer a Friday lunchtime ‘drop-in’ session for all Young Carers and work with individual pupils to provide further help and support as and when required (homework and classwork support, emotional support, etc.). We organise various social events for our regular attenders to our drop-in sessions over the year, including a Christmas ‘Film Night’, trips out to various restaurants in the local area and Ten Pin Bowling evenings. We also offer a ‘cooking club’ after school, once a fortnight, to teach our students new and affordable dishes, so that they can take this knowledge home to the families that they care for.
We find out who our Young Carers are here at Bay House in various ways: information is passed to us from Primary Schools, from the KIDS organisation that we work closely with, an assembly that is delivered to our Year 7 pupils highlighting exactly what a Young Carer is and also from a dedicated lesson to all students in Year 8 through our Citizenship program, to go over what a Young Carer is and how their lives may be affected.
If you would like any further information regarding the support that is on offer for our Young Carers here at Bay House then please do not hesitate to give Dave Penfold a call, or you can email him on dpenfold@bayhouse.gfmat.org.
Thank you,
Mr Chris Willis
Executive – Community & Personal Development
