Since it launched in 2015, Family Action’s Cancer Young Carers service has given specialist support for children and young people facing one of the toughest challenges; caring for a parent with terminal cancer.   

The service started in partnership with Macmillan, building on Family Action’s experience supporting young carers, to identify whether there were young people caring for someone with cancer and what support they would need. As we expected, there were lots of young people who needed our help, and referrals continue to grow. 

Now, we need your help to enable us to reach out to more young people who need us.   

How do we help? 

We support young carers and their families for approximately 8 months and offer specialised support based on their needs, including: 

 • One-to-one support to share their concerns and emotions, particularly around the impact of their emotional caregiving such as; worries about their loved one, cancer awareness, bullying, aspirations and resilience. 

  • Pre and post bereavement support focusing on honest conversations around death and bereavement, expectations, anger, grief, anxiety and preparing for death. Within these sessions we create memory boxes, art work and poetry to give to their loved one. 

•  Peer support bringing young carers together who are in similar caring roles.  

With your help, we will recruit volunteers who we can train and mentor in work with more cancer young carers and their families. 

We aim to support a further 40 families across County Durham, and our ultimate vision is to grow this support nationally so that cancer young carers will benefit from this specialised support in other areas with support from Family Action.   

Esme’s story  highlights the importance of this project, and how your funds can make a difference to young people and families impacted by cancer.