My wonderful daughter :o)

Okies it's late but who cares as promised entry about my darling daughter who is such a star and i am so very very proud of :o) Siblings of children with disabilities/special needs are classed as Young Carers...Now it doesn't matter wether it is a child looking after a parent or a child helping a parent to look after a sibling they get a really crap deal in life...Crap ain't the word i wanna use but i don't want told off from AOL <ggg>

On monday K was one of several speakers at a conference organised by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers...The conference was in edinburgh and it was for so called professionals...The Young Carers Development worker (presume for scotland) imaginatively called Scottish Young Carers Conference LOL...Anyway K was down as Deputy Convener for Social Justice in the scottish youth parliament :o) The convener of the social justice committee was there with her too...Anyways without being too big headed but my daughter was the STAR of the day according to the organiser :o)

She really cheesed off some of the academics who were there <ggg> One of them was a speaker and he has been given 35 research grants totalling 1.2 million in the last 12 years into young carers issues...One of his current studies is looking into the vulnerabilities and resilience of children caring for parents with hiv/aids in the UK but also Tanzania!!!!...Now pardon me if i look uncaring here but surely our money here would be better spent looking ito young carers issues in the UK ONLY...AND all that money gone into research with a mere PITTANCE gone into helping set up and develop young carers projects across the UK...To provide them with the counselling, education help, help in the home, help for them NOT to lose their childhoods as sadly many have and do :o(  K said when he was talking that the funding would be better being put into frontline services rather than research and apparently his face was a pretty picture <ggg>  He also had said why did the figures only include 5-17 year olds and not under 5's...They can see that as being his next bright idea for research when a lot of the young carers worker DO have under 5's on their books and have said so...This may be a bit daft of me but putting that money into FRONTLINE services would in itself be far better research than some surveys handed out asking how do you feel, what do you do etc etc etc

K said on the day when she got up to speak her knees were shaking...She just started speaking and at the end she got a huge round of applause...She said in her talk that only 3 years ago when she joined the SYP she was very shy and she couldn't have done this at all and she'd have been hiding in the toilets :o) I do think the SYP has been a wonderful thing for K and has given her strength, confidence and resilience that she didn't have before...K made a point that young carers are tagged onto adult legislation where they don't fit when they are in unique circumstances...The UN convention on the right of the Child states that a child has the right to protection from abuse and no-one is allowed to exploit a child...When you have very young children being a primary carer for someone then that surely is exploitation and abuse...NOT by the person they are caring for but by a country that looks the other way rather than give recognition to a MASSIVE problem in that country...In article 32 in that UN convention it says: that you shouldnt be involved in jobs which threaten your health or education and that the government must set rules about work for children and young people...Like G said at the weekend he's been told they shouldn't be working more than 10 hours a week in a part time job...Also if you are at school and have a part time job then both you, your school and your employer have to sign some form with all kinds of rules and regs on it...If you are a Young Carer then that doesn't seem to count...Also Carers Allowance you can't get if you are under 16...That is ridiculous if you are the main carer regardless of your age.

She put a bit about being bullied cos of who you care for, then a bit about there needing to be support for people who want to stop caring

A bit about how being a young carer has affected her personally and spoke about me, her father and the boys.

She put a wee bit of background "It's said that 'a person is grown up not when they can take care of themselvs, but when they can take care of others' " blah blah we lose our childhood and grow up too quickly

The end of her speech was kinda personal too but really good in my opinion and sums it all up beautifully

put people in the situation of a young carer - "Imagine having to look after you parent, or your siblings, constantly worrying whether they're alright, having to do things an adult should be doing, having to grow up far too quickly and missing out on just being carefree and young. Running in the grass, going out with friends to movies, having a dog... all these things you cant do because you have to care for someone. it can ruin your health, it can ruin your education, and it can ruin your future. We save the government a LOT of money, but get very little thanks or appreciation for it. It's high time that we did have thanks, and we did have appreciation, support and proper recognition. It's high time that we weren't forgotten about and we wre given the support we need. And it's high time young carers were able to have their childhood"

She told me according to some of the speakers there that young carers project workers are NOT professionals and should refer young carers to professionals...What a load of UTTER TOSH (being polite again LOL)...As K says that is a complete INSULT to project workers.

Apparently afterwards a lot of the evaluation forms said that K was very good :o)

K and the other person from SYP went into a workshop about priorities for a national young carers strategy, and there were scottish exec representatives (just civil servants, no ministers) there who said that the current policy in response to care 21 was to mainstream services as best as they could and maybe revisit the idea of a strategy...K and her friend  between them, probably mostly K, ended up convincing them they need to go back to the ministers and tell them they need to do a u-turn and they dont need to tell them its what the professionals are saying, although they do need to, but they NEED to tell them its what the YOUNG PEOPLE and the actual young CARERS want

At the lunch break the scottish exec folk came up to talk to K and 2 others and they got K's email addy after talking to her friend while K spoke to the princess royal trust for carers person about something. After that her friend told her she'd just got K onto the scottish exec's young carers taskforce LOL...Time will tell wether that is true or not.

K also had a rant about respite and how bad it is...Most of the *professionals* there seemed to think you can click your fingers and get respite just like that ROFL..Sometimes i do wonder where they get some of these people...K never once called them experts because in her opinion they were NOTHING of the sort...Maybe experts at shuffling bits of paper around and looking at figures but know nowt about the reality...K also mentioned in her speech the campaign the SYP is doing about young carers which is in the main her *baby* :o) One of the poepl there is going to email her about it as his young carers feel very alone and isolated :o(  Being a carer regardless of your age is very isolating...NO-ONE knows how it feels unless they are in the same/similar situation...No offence meant to anyone who reads this who is a paid care worker but that is very different...At the end of the day you go home away from your job...I don't have many friends as no-one really understands...Most of the friends i have now are also carers themselves...K never had many friends at school and was bullied by others as no-one understood it...K mentioned in her speech of how lonely it is and how isolating...It's bad enuff for me as an adult but for a child it is horrendous.

Some of the above i have copied direct from the IM i had on MSN with K...I know it is a bit jumbled up but i am damned PROUD of her and i only wish i could have been there to see her...Then again am not a professional and it was for professionals...To stand up and say what she did in front of people like that makes me cry...I love ALL of my children dearly and although i wouldn't change the boys for the world at times i do wish K had had a much easier childhood and didn't have to grow up so quickly...I've told her that on numerous occasions and she always says the same back "She doesn't mind" ...At the end of the day the boys have made both of us much stronger people and more patient and more understanding...We do have our moments when we could just scream blue murder and wish we were elsewhere but i know that am not the person i was before 13 years ago when G was diagnosed...I happen to think and i hope that i am a much better person than i ever would have been without the boys in my life...K has a strength of character i could never have had at her age and that is something that will stand her in good stead throughout her life...Did i say i am PROUD of her already <ggg> i am and much much more...Better go get some sleep before i cry anymore :o)

Toodle pip tc xx