Renfrewshire Carer Centre are holding their annual Young Carers Festival in order to give the young carers a much needed break from their caring duties.
The festival will be held from Tuesday, August 2 to Thursday, August 4 at the Scout Adventures Fordell Firs in Fife.
Young carers are those under the age of 18, or 18 but still attending school, who look after someone at home who is unable to cope due to illness, disability, mental health issues or those with addictions.
The festival gives around 400 of these young carers a chance to meet new people, speak to others who are going through the same as they are and get a chance to pamper themselves as well as try new activities.
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Pauline Kelly, a young carers development worker at Renfrewshire Carer Centre, said: “This year we are going with East Renfrewshire Carer Centre. It is a nice, big break for young carers and it is also a forum where it is an important date for a lot of people’s calendars.
“The Young Carers Festival has been supported by other young carers as well - so they are the bread and butter of the festival. They have planned and organised the festival and they interview other young carers to get their views on social workers and schools supporting other young carers.”
“There are a lot of outdoor activities at the festival such as tree climbing and we also have a campfire. The Carers Trust have brought in lots of exciting things like inflatables. They can do jousting and there will be a bouncy castle too. We will have a petting zoo built up where the young carers can hold things like spiders and snakes.”
The festival is popular with young carers who are registered with the centre and is in high demand and the Carers Centre has the challenging task of who would be able to attend the festival as they want to make sure that the young carers can cope with a few nights away from home.
It is estimated that there are 29,000 young carers under the age of 18 in Scotland, according to Carers Trust and the value of unpaid care provided by carers in Scotland is £10,347,400,000 a year.
The Renfrewshire Carers Centre has a summer festival along with the festival which also holds other fun events such as respite breaks to HopScotch.
Young carers just need to phone up to the centre to enquire and book a spot to any of the available activities.
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