Vulnerable and hidden Young Carers projects awarded over £350K in Round One

Round Two of the £1million Young Carers Grants Programme funded by Comic Relief opened on 7th August. The programme, which is managed by The Princess Royal Trust for Carers, welcomes applications from all voluntary sector organisations working with, or wishing to develop services for, the most vulnerable and hidden young carers throughout the country.
Over £350k has recently been awarded by The Princess Royal Trust for Carers to nine projects across the UK in the first round of the Young Carers Grants programme.

Six projects from London, Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, North Argyll and Belfast received grants from the Large Grants programme ranging from £40,000 to £63,000 over three years. Amongst the projects are a personal development scheme for Black and Minority ethnic groups; creative expression workshops for young carers dealing with mental illness; building self esteem through activity based learning experiences such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme; development of ‘safe groups’ for young carers dealing with substance abuse and a website and social activities for isolated young carers in the remote islands of North Argyll. In addition, three projects from Kent, London and Wales received small grants of £1,600 to £2,000 to fund projects, which will focus on individual young carers needs through mentoring, counselling and other therapeutic work.

Alex Fox, Head of Young Carers Development at The Princess Royal Trust for Carers said:
“There were a number of very strong applications in Round One and we are very pleased to be funding the successful projects. These high quality projects will not only benefit young carers in their areas but will also generate learning which will feed into a tool kit of resources which will be produced by The Trust for the benefit of young carers across the country.

He continued, “We did not, however, fund large scale work in Wales or the North of England and we would welcome applications from these areas in Round Two which has now opened. We also hope to see projects focusing on older young carers, refugee communities, young carers at risk of offending and those whose parents misuse alcohol/drugs.

Mr Fox also said that there were a number of applications which needed more substance to demonstrate why their target group was particularly vulnerable or hard to reach and how other services would be helped to learn from them. These applicants might want to redevelop their applications for Round Two. He would also welcome more Small Grant applications, the application form for these having been made much shorter.

Gilly Green, Head of UK Grants, Comic Relief said “At Comic Relief, we are encouraged by the quality of the applications in Round One and hope that everyone working with, or wishing to support young carers, will visit The Princess Royal Trust for Carers web site for information about the Grants Programme and contact the grants team for any advice and help they may require to make an application “

The Grants Programme aims to provide high quality direct support to the most vulnerable by prioritising projects which seek to identify and support those young carers who are hard to reach or are from under represented communities such as ethnic minority or refugee communities.

The scheme is open to ALL voluntary sector organisations (registered charities) throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who are working with, or wish to develop services, for those young carers most in need of support. There are two Grant Programmes – the Large Grants programme giving sums up to £25,000 pa over three years for innovative projects that not only support young carers but also will generate learning about new ways to reach them. The small grants programme will make up to 50 awards of to £2,000 for the support of individual young carers. Projects are likely to include mentoring, counselling and other therapeutic work.