Where are we now? Twenty-five years of research, policy and practice on young carers
Where are we now? Twenty-five years of research, policy and practice on young carers
复制标题
DOI：
10.1177/0261018317724525
复制
发表时间：
2018-02-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Aldridge, Jo
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Aldridge, Jo
自25年前在这本杂志上发表关于年轻照顾者的批判性对话以来，已经有25年多了（见Morris和基思，1995年;阿尔德里奇和贝克尔，1996年）。从那时起，研究证据让我们更清楚地了解了英国年轻人照顾的程度及其对儿童和家庭的影响，其中包括两项新的全国性研究，重点关注英国年轻人照顾的普遍性和影响。2014年《照料法》和2014年《儿童和家庭法》的出台也为专业人员确定和支持年轻照料者及其家庭规定了新的职责。然而，这一日益增加的关注，不仅在政策和实践中，而且在公众意识方面，已经为卫生和社会护理专业人员带来了一些困境和挑战，他们的职责是识别和支持年轻的照顾者。这些挑战在很大程度上反映和推进了1990年代中期关于年轻照料者的最初对话中提出的问题。它们的核心是努力生成关于年轻照料者人数的数据，以支持政策指示和服务的提供，有些人认为-在当前严重的财政紧缩和削减青年服务的环境下-促进一个弱势儿童和青年群体的需求，而不是其他需要帮助的儿童群体的需求。本文考虑了其中的一些挑战和困境。
It is more than 25 years since the critical dialogue on young carers was played out in the pages of this journal (see Morris and Keith, 1995; Aldridge and Becker, 1996). Since that time, research evidence has given us a clearer picture of the extent of young caring in the UK and its consequences for children and families, including two new national studies that focus on the prevalence and impact of young caring in England. The introduction of the Care Act, 2014 and the Children and Families Act, 2014 also places new duties on professionals to identify and support young carers and their families. However, this increased focus, not only in policy and practice but also in terms of public awareness, has created a number of dilemmas and challenges for health and social care professionals, whose duty it is to identify and support young carers. These challenges, to a large extent, both mirror and advance issues raised in the original dialogue on young carers in the mid-1990s. They centre on the drive to generate data on the numbers of young carers to support policy directives and service delivery and, some have argued - in the current climate of serious fiscal retrenchment and cuts to youth services - on promoting the needs of one group of vulnerable children and young people over other groups of children in need. This article considers some of these challenges and dilemmas.