Introducing the international Young Carers Inspiration Database: Share Your Work, Strengthen Recognition Globally

Recognition of young carers varies enormously across the world. Some countries have years of awareness-raising work behind them, while others are only beginning to find their footing — and many organisations working in this space lack the capacity or funding to develop materials from scratch.

A new project, developed by the Dutch Strategic Young Carers Alliance in collaboration with Eurocarers, is hoping to bridge that gap.

The Young Carers Inspiration Database is an exploratory initiative that aims to bring together awareness-raising and support materials from organisations across Europe and beyond into one accessible, shared international resource. The goal is to support collaboration, inspire new approaches, and strengthen the recognition of young carers everywhere.

We are already hearing from organisations across Europe and beyond — including from Canada, Finland, Portugal, Slovakia, the UK, and more — and we warmly invite further contributions!

Organisations and professionals working in the field of informal care or directly with young carers are invited to take part in a short survey. The survey has two purposes:

• Material sharing: describe and upload materials your organisation has developed and considers good practice — resources you’d be happy to share or that could inspire new approaches elsewhere (copyright restrictions respected — even materials shared for inspiration only are valuable).
• Needs assessment: describe the barriers you face in supporting and recognising young carers in your context, and what kinds of resources would be most useful.

You are welcome to complete one or both sections — every response helps advise Eurocarers on the development of this shared resource.

Contributors at this early stage will be formally acknowledged in the advisory report guiding the database’s potential future development, and will be among the first to access the resource should Eurocarers decide to take the initiative forward.

Ready to contribute?  Take the survey now, or visit our project page for more information.

Please also feel free to share this invitation within your own network — the more professionals we hear from, the stronger this resource can be.

Questions? Reach us at alliantie@jmzpro.nl.