Young carers healthy eating

Young Carers Healthy Eating

The national Health for Kids awards includes five categories. This year the Healthy Eating Category was won by Wiltshire Young Carers, an organisation which provides support to young carers in the community. To find out more…

The national Health for Kids awards

This is a programme that aims to reward good practice for projects and initiatives throughout the UK that have made a real difference to child health. Its basic premise is that there are thousands of examples of innovative and effective work that people are involved with in order to keep children healthy, but usually it's the bad news items that grab the headlines.

It recognises the breadth of the issue and so encourages entries from five categories:

· Healthy eating

· Physical activity

· personal and social health

· emotional health and well-being

· safety and citizenship

Entries are invited from official, voluntary and community organisations and the finalists are judged by a panel of judges.

The healthy eating category - Youth Action Wiltshire

Wiltshire Young Carers was established in 1998 and is run by Youth Action Wiltshire. They work with over 400 children and young people providing support to young carers in the community. Nationally around 1.5% of children and young people in the UK are carers, providing primary care for a sick or disabled relative at home. Many young carers receive no external support other than contact with the Young Carers project.

There are two groups of carers in the programme:

· 5 to 12 years

· 13 to 25 years

The aim of the sessions is to promote healthy living and activity in a way that makes learning fun and enjoyable. The objectives are for all young carers to be able to prepare healthier meals for themselves and their families to enjoy together. One of the sessions involves a game that teaches the young carers about calorific values and how to easily prepare enjoyable healthy food without the need for hundreds of calories. For many young carers who prepare and cook meals at home it is a valuable lesson that can make the whole family healthier.

"We provide ingredients and get the young carers to prepare and cook a meal, we then all sit together to eat which promotes a family setting and will encourage this behaviour when they are at home."

Discussions and involvement of the young carers and their families ensure that all the activities are chosen together. With the emphasis on making it fun, the young people learn easily and develop confidence and understanding of a healthier lifestyle.

One in three young carers regularly misses school, because of their caring role, and as a result often have educational difficulties. For some, attending sessions at the Young Carers Healthy Eating project may be the only educational input they receive about healthy eating, wellbeing and activity.