Section:GDN 1N PaGe:30 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 14:41 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019
30
SocietyYo u n g c a r e r s
‘ Being involved stopped
me killing myself’
Rachel PughT
rapped between the
demands of school
and caring for her
stepfather and mother
with mental health
issues, Salford teenager
Kerry was several times pushed to
the point of suicide.
From the age of 11, Kerry’s
weekdays were dominated by
a fl urry of early morning cooking,
cleaning and organisation of
medication , before leaving for school- only to return to more of the same,
plus regular battles to fi ll in benefi t
and mortgage forms that she didn’t
understand. For two years no one
knew what she was going through,
despite her aggressive outbursts
at school, until she slumped into
depression and came to the attention
of the local child and adolescent
mental health services.
What stopped her taking her own
life, she says, was her involvement
in a drama project based at the
Lowry arts centre in Salford in
which her desperate experiences
as a carer – and those of three
other teenagers – were crafted into
a searing piece of theatre called
Who Cares, which is now playing
at the Edinburgh festival.
Who Cares aims to raise awareness
of the plight of the UK’s estimated
700,000 youngsters under 17
providing unpaid care for family.
“Being involved in Who Cares
was a way of opening the bottle and
releasing my emotions – but also
knowing I was helping other young
carers,” says Kerry. “I’m proud of it
and the impact it’s had.”
Since the play premiered at
the Lowry in 2016, it has been on
tour twice – in schools and youth
clubs in 2017, and this year in
theatres – and has led to 28 hidden
young carers being identifi ed and
linked into support services. It has
reach ed over 3,000 children and
was performed at the House of
Lords where young carers directlylobbied politicians for change.
The play has also spawned
a petition demanding that councils
are given a statutory responsibility
to assess the needs of young carers,
and that schools be required by
Ofsted to include young carers
under their defi nition of vulnerable
young people. It also calls for the
introduction of a young carers’
identifi cation card.
Paige, now 26, whose experienceof being a teenage carer is refl ected
in the Who Cares project , says:
“We want parliament to recognise
that young people can be carers and
there’s no age limit. We know that
in Salford there is good support,
but down the street in a diff erent
postcode there are no services at all.”
Since 2003, Paige has looked
after both her father, who is in
a wheelchair and traumatised
following a traffi c accident, and
her profoundly deaf brother. From
the age of 16 she did it alone, when
her mother left home unable to
cope. Who Cares was her lifeline,
particularly when caring duties
forced her to quit her law degree.
“It’s very isolating being a young
carer, because your priorities are
not the same as other people your
age. At secondary school I tried to
hide my situation because I wanted
to be like everyone else , but in the
end I could n’t,” says Paige who now
works as an engagement coordinator
at the Lowry.
When it set up a creative project
eight years ago in partnership withSalford Young Carer s Service , the
Lowry’s initial motiv ation was to
provide an honest platform for
young carers. Out of this emerged
the idea of commissioning Lung
theatre company to make a piece
of theatre to identify hidden carers
and signpost them to support.
The Lowry’s director of learning
and engagement, Lynsey O’Sullivan,
says: “This is theatre for social
change. The arts are special in
allowing children to be seen, to
be heard and to make change.”
Kerry and Paige , along with
Antonia Rae, th en aged 12, and
Ciaron, then 18, were interviewed
by Lung’s director and writer
Matt Woodhead and his team
every few weeks over two years,
yielding 200 hours of material
from which to create the three
central characters, Nicole, Conn or
and Jade. The youngsters also
helped select the professional actors
to play them.
Seeing themselves portrayed
by actors was both painful and
exhilarating, says Paige. “It’s shiny,
it’s exciting and it’s true, but it’s
a diffi cult story to play and I would
not have been able to get up on
a stage and tell it.”
It does not make easy watching
either , from the moment a school
bell rings and the audience is plunged
from a Salford school bus dogged
by Pok émon and fi ghts, to Nicole’s
bleak description of her mother’s
attempted suicide.
Woodhead admits: “This is
a diffi cult piece of theatre to watch,
because you are hearing the powerful
voices of the young people. This is
a story about the nation.”
The play has had rave reviews in
Edinburgh. The Stage gave it four
stars , calling it “superb ... emotive,
documentary theatre”. The Guardian
also awarded the play four stars
and described it as “brutal but
beautifully done, this emotionally
raw and theatrically slick verbatim
play lays blame on austerity for the
agony and overwhelming loneliness
young carers are exposed to”.
The fi rst time Who Cares toured
the UK it went with a backup team
to support youngsters aff ected by
the performance. Terrifying stories
emerged, such as the 13-year-old
girl in Carlisle toileting and bathing
her mother for six years unknown
to her school, and the fi ve-year-old
in Salford administering medication
to his sister at night, when his
father worked.
The Edinburgh fringe marks
the end of the run for Who Cares.
Audience members will be provided
with wristbands giving details of
how to access support. Lung is also
working to create a partnership with
Edinburgh Young Carers.
Kerry’s message is clear. “I want
the government to give services
to young carers in every area ,”
she says. “ There are kids who take
their own lives because no one
is listening to them,” she says.
“Being involved in Who Care s
stopped me killing myself.”Who Cares is at Summerhall, the
Edinburgh festival until Sunday.
Tickets at festival19.summerhall.
co.uk/event/who-cares/or call
0131 560 1580. Young carers needing
support should contact the Carers’
Trust : carers.org or 0300 772 9600▼ Kerry and Paige both cared for
family members from a young age
PHOTOGRAPH: CHRISTOPHER THOMOND/
THE GUARDIANA play at the Edinburgh
festival is identify ing
desperate children
hidden in caring rolesWho Cares at the 2019 Edinburgh festival PHOTOGRAPH: MURDO MACLEOD/THE GUARDIANRELEASED BY "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws