Voices of Hidden Young Carers in Cork, Joe Finnerty and Cathal O ...

Voices of Hidden Young Carers in Corkfulfilling distinct family and social roles, including being the main providers of care inthe community. The social perspective on disability is primarily concerned with the rightsand needs of disabled people and their experiences of ‘disabling barriers’ includingdiscrimination and exclusion. Becker et al. (1998) identify what they term a ‘subliterature’of the social perspective on disability, which has challenged the mainstreamwork on young carers and has focused instead on the rights and needs of those whohave physical or mental impairments (Keith and Morris, 1995; Parker and Olsen,1995; Newman, 2002). Finally the family perspective has grown out of the debatebetween the rights of disabled people and the rights of children who care, emphasisingprevention in a ‘whole family’ context as opposed to protection (Becker et al., 1998).Due to the complexity and diversity surrounding the role of young carers, asatisfactory definition has proved difficult to arrive at. Several definitions of youngcarers can be identified within the literature on social work and from caringorganisations. A range of factors can be cited which set young carers apart from bothadult carers and other young children within families and households who do not takeon a caring role. Aldridge and Becker (1997) suggest the following definition:A child or young person (under 18) who is carrying out significant caringtasks and assuming a level of responsibility for another which would usuallybe undertaken by an adult.Research on Young Carers in IrelandThere is little by way of a young carer research literature in Ireland, with existingresearch overwhelmingly focusing on adult caregivers (see for example O’Donovan etal., 1997; Garavan et al., 2001). While Halpenny and Gilligan (2004) have undertakena wide-ranging literature review on young carers which surveyed the internationalliterature and policy context, they did not undertake any primary research withhidden young carers.Two short studies which made references to young carers were carried out in themid-1990s. The first was by Multiple Sclerosis Ireland (1996) on MS sufferers and thesecond was a pilot study by Carers Association (Ireland) (1997) which aimed to obtainan overall picture of the contexts within which young people were providing care. TheMS Ireland study was focused on care needs of sufferers of that condition and thesource of the care they received while the Carers Association research focused on thenature of the tasks and extent of caring undertaken by young people rather thanexploring the impacts on young carers and their attitudes and feelings in relation totheir caring responsibilities.Policy and Provision in IrelandIn the Irish context, recognition and responses to the existence and needs of youngcarers could be best described as uneven. No national policy strategy exists with anexplicit focus on young carers, and no reference to young carers is made in either theNational Children’s Strategy 2000–2010 or the Office for Social Inclusion (2007)publication A Social Portrait of Children in Ireland. Additionally, there is a noteworthyabsence of mention of the ‘young carer’ issue in the Comhairle document SupportingCarers (2002), or in the Joint Oireachtas Report on the Position of Full-Time Carers (2003).15