See If I Care - Launch of innovative, interactive CD Rom

Animation, music, colour, noise and humour are all part of an innovative, interactive CD Rom, See If I Care, launched today by The Princess Royal Trust for Carers.

See If I Care is an interactive package which can be used by young carers to identify their specific needs for help and support. It has been created to engage young people with a mix of interactive activities to obtain hard facts, as well as thoughts and feelings, about their caring role and its effect on their lives.

The resulting young carers assessment will allow social workers to determine the support needs of individual young carers and identify services to reduce the impact that being a carer has on their lives.

See If I Care allows young people to draw pictures of themselves onscreen, to draw a map of where they live and to enjoy quirky jokes and cartoons which pop up as they progress through the programme. But the underlying needs assessed in the process are compelling.

Since 2002, every young carer has had the right to a carers assessment. Yet a survey by The Princess Royal Trust for Carers in 2006 found that, of the 3000 young carers currently supported in Scotland, only 15 had been given an assessment by their local authority.

Louise Morgan, Scottish Young Carers Development Manager with The Princess Royal Trust for Carers, says: 'When young people are asked to say what they think and feel about aspects of their lives, they may not be able to express these feelings to a good friend, never mind an adult with whom they have only intermittent contact.

'For young carers, this inability to express themselves in a way which is understood by adults is a barrier to helping them to access crucial services and support.'

Les Cowan, of Orkney based Information Plus Ltd, took up the challenge to overcome this language barrier and developed the interactive CD Rom with young carers from Orkney - and then extended the test to other areas of Scotland.

Les says: 'Many social work departments have neither the resources nor the expertise to engage with young carers in such a way that they can obtain the relevant information to make a proper assessment of young carers' needs for support.

'See If I Care will identify young carers and the tasks that they perform. It is also a way of identifying the effect of that caring role on every aspect of their lives – health, school, parents, friends and relationships.

Mairhi Trickett, manager of The Princess Royal Trust Orkney carers' centre, says: 'The whole idea originated in Orkney because we were asked to carry out young carers assessments ourselves. So we asked Les Cowan to come up with a user friendly package and the Scottish Government provided funding of £15,000 which enabled us to develop the idea.

'Young people are familiar with interactive media, particularly if they are colourful, animated, engaging and entertaining and See If I Care fits all these criteria.'

See If I Care will now be distributed to every local authority in Scotland and to all 54 young carers projects across Scotland.

For further information, please contact Patricia Hess on 07946 424 127