Cheshire Young Carers May Half-Term Project Review 2020

MAY HALF-TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

FIRST

EVER ONLINE HOLIDAY RESPITE PROGRAMME ...............................

WORKSHOPS, TUTORIALS, CHALLENGES, QUIZZES , BINGO AND MORE! ...............................

360

ACTIVITY PACKS SENT OUT TO YOUNG CARERS

It is likely that there are

37,000

young carers in Cheshire

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MAY HALF-TERM PROGRAMME

PROJECT REVIEW 2020

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SUPPORT DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWN

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WELLBEING SUPPORT

8

THE EVENTS

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FEEDBACK & STATISTICS

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FUNDERS & SUPPORTERS

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MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

From our Managing Director May 2020 was the first school holiday programme we needed to deliver under Covid-19 restrictions meaning face-to-face activities were impossible to organise. Since March, when the lock down was put into place, we have seen the adverse effect this situation has had on all young people around the country and it is particularly pronounced amongst the young carer community.

Cheshire Young Carers took the decision to deliver as much of our usual activity programme online as possible. Clearly this is not without its challenges, however the feedback has been really encouraging. One key challenge has been the amount of time young people have to spend online for schoolwork, sometimes on shared family devices. This can cause friction and is certainly meaning a reduction in engagement with our online activities in some cases.

The whole Cheshire Young Carers team has worked very hard to engage as many young people as possible in our activity programme, they have invented new ways to deliver content, embraced new technology but never lost the personal touch with young carers with phone calls and chats.

Once again, our volunteers have supported delivery of activities whenever possible and they continue to feed ideas into the team to enhance our online delivery. They continue to be a really vital part of our service to young carers in Cheshire.

Throughout this challenging time our donors have remained very supportive and we are very grateful that they continue to recognise the value of the work we undertake to support children who are young carers.

Thank you,

Graham Phillips Graham Phillips Managing Director Cheshire Young Carers

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“The feedback has been really encouraging�

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SUPPORTING YOUNG CARERS During Covid-19 Lockdown Cheshire Young Carers has a key objective to provide tailored respite and support through various group activities which are a direct result from consulting and empowering young carers, who expressed a real need for respite support during school holiday periods due to feeling “trapped and totally isolated”, primarily caused by their caring responsibilities and lack of contact with their friends and community.

The Covid-19 guidance has escalated this isolation within often already extremely challenging family environments.

Therefore, since all face to face contact and group gatherings have had to cease, Cheshire Young Carers have adapted to support young carers digitally to continue to meet their needs. Using a number of different software packages, staff have effectively produced digital and virtual activities for young carers such as quizzes and online bingo, in addition to regular online group activities that promotes inclusion and helps to reduce the stress of isolation.

Cheshire Young Carers’ regular fortnightly respite sessions support all ages of young carers and are continuing online at the same times/ dates that would have been scheduled for face to face gatherings to ensure consistency and maintenance of positive routine. Digital activity packs are sent out every two weeks, in addition to “live events” and various fun challenges such as origami or photography throughout the week to keep young carers engaged with the service.

It also provides an opportunity to check their mental health and give young carers a safe space to raise concerns and where required we can offer one to one intervention to support them.

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Cheshire Young Carers’ Education colleagues continue to support schools and have revised the assessment tool, delivering it digitally so young carers can complete an assessment (avoiding the need for face-to-face). This provides another contact method for us to reach young carers and will provide a significant number of completed assessment reports for us to present to schools upon their reopening to all children. Work is already underway to identify young carers on the database who have not yet completed an education assessment with the intention of contacting parents for consent to conduct the education assessment remotely.

SUPPORTING YOUNG CARERS During Covid-19 Lockdown By continuing to support young carers through this unprecedented time: • Young carers can stay involved, complete activities at home through digital interaction and gaining a sense of achievement.

• Through interactive engagement young carers are comforted knowing staff/volunteers are there for them and being supported as many agencies are now unable to offer/deliver support at this crucial time.

• Group sessions gives young carers the chance to see their friends and catchup on how everyone is and break up a routine within some tough environments during the lockdown.

• Staff, volunteers and other children can often be the only social outlet for some young carers.

• Families have positive routines for their child that occupy them with fun, safe activities and also offer support through wellbeing exercises and improve selfworth, combat social isolation and provide ‘feelgood’ moments during this challenging climate.

• Activities have also been supported by integrating various aspects of positive wellbeing that helps young carers to build resilience and understand emotions during lockdown period.

Overall a fantastic half term that has delivered vital support to this vulnerable, but special, group of children.

MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

• Young carers can complete set fun themed activities, play interactive quizzes and live games such as Bingo, something they can be proud of and remain an active part of a community with real identity.

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WELLBEING SUPPORT During Covid-19 Lockdown

During the half term holidays, Cheshire Young Carers have been supporting the wellbeing of children, young people and families in several ways.

Due to the adverse experiences of lockdown and Covid-19, there has been a common theme of barriers, issues and difficulties that families have been experiencing. These typical issues and difficulties are feelings of anxiety around the health of family members and friends; feelings of low mood due to losing routine; feelings of isolation and loneliness; feelings of stress around not being at school/ not taking GCSE’s and also the prospect of having to return to school. All of which have led to the development of new needs.

We have met these needs in several ways, we have helped to create a new routine for the young carers through the activities that we have been running. This consists of weekly activity packs and animated videos, both of which contain psychoeducation components covering themes such as coping mechanisms, identifying triggers and support networks. We have also supported them to identify their own strength and skills to help develop their selfesteem, self-worth and recognize their own abilities. We have also combined wellbeing and photography to support young carers in exploring their feelings, skills and strengths through the creative medium of photography.

To meet the issue of loneliness and isolation, we have created digital group sessions that contain relationship building aspects such as team games, quizzes, competitions, cooking lessons and self-care sessions.

These sessions have reduced the feelings of loneliness/ isolation and instead created feelings of community and belonging.

On a weekly basis we have sent out “My Week” digital self-assessment forms where the young carers use a scaling system ranging from 1 to 6 to rate how their week has been in 3 key areas which are; School/College/Work; Friendship and Me; Home and Family. If any of these assessments have a low score (or unusually higher score / variation) or comments attached to the assessment, they will be sent to a wellbeing inbox, reviewed by staff and contacted to offer additional support, sign post to agencies or offer other coping mechanisms/ resources.

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THE EVENTS

TIKTOK & YOUTUBE CHANNEL As part of our increasing digital activity programme we launched Cheshire Young Carers TikTok and YouTube channels at the start of the May Half Term holiday programme. After posting videos about the staff team, we launched a series of different activities and challenges, some of which were also linked to our online sessions.

Harry Wilson Football Challenge We were delighted that Welsh International Footballer, Harry Wilson kindly put together a football challenge which was shared with our young carers on TikTok. This has had a fantastic amounts of views, the young carers can practice their football skills and are even able to duet with Harry as they take part in the challenge.

Exercise with Ellie Bird Fitness Ellie led our young carers through a workout video on YouTube as well as setting a fitness challenge on TikTok to see who could hold the longest squat.

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MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

Makeup Tips with Courtney Maria MUA Our older young carers often ask if we can hold pamper sessions so we arrange some make up videos on YouTube to be included in our holiday programme. Thanks to make up artist Courtney, we offered the young carers a chance to ‘brush up’ on their eye make up techniques, offering two different looks. These were also publicised on our TikTok channel.

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THE EVENTS

KAHOOT QUIZ

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To coincide with our Dinosaur themed activity pack we sent out links to an online interactive quiz via text message, the quizzes are available for 48 hours for the young carers to complete. The questions are multiple choice, with higher points scored the quicker they answer. There is a quiz for the 6-10 years olds and 11+ years, with questions all linked to the activity packs.

In the 6-10 years quiz there was an average 58% of correct answers and in the 11+ years quiz there was a 64% of correct answers.

We share the winners podium for each age group on social media, and families have enjoyed spotting their young carers on the podium.

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THE EVENTS

BINGO SESSION Since lock down we have been successfully playing Bingo with young carers through Facebook. We set up a Cheshire Young Carers Bingo group for young carers or parents to join. Each week we have streamed live bingo to the group and they used the bingo cards we posted to them before lockdown.

As our activity theme over May half term was Dinosaurs, our weekly bingo caller Meg dressed up as one of the explorers from Jurassic Park.

The session has become a firm favourite with young carers and their families during lockdown. The young carers chatted to each other and the Cheshire Young Carers’ staff, getting more intense as people were getting closer to winning!

“My daughter is looking forward to a game of bingo”

Families play together

“Can’t wait for bingo, you are doing amazing”

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MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

The winner then sent us a photograph of their bingo card for us to check and we added them to the Cheshire Young Carers’ Bingo Leaderboard – with the top three at the end of lockdown receiving some really cool prizes!

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THE EVENTS

ANIMATION WORKSHOP

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Young carers showed off their creative skills yet again by taking part in animation workshops, learning new creative skills whilst having fun and building their confidence to try new things. The group progressed really well, developing their knowledge from basic animation concepts to preparing for the next animation workshops – making drawings move!

We split the animation workshop into two age groups, 6-10 years and 11+years. This allowed us to capture to the skill sets of the different ages and make it appropriately challenging.

At the beginning of both workshops we had a discussion of what animation was, and some examples of animations and characters. We then looked at how we can create characters from simple shapes in a fun transformation game. This was a good start as it eased everyone into drawing and getting creative without the pressure.

We then put these skills into action and designed our own characters that we would then experiment with drawing different facial expressions and body. language. With the 11+ group, we made this more challenging and focused

Our Survey Says...

Yes

No

Did you enjoy the animation workshop?

100%

0%

Did you learn something new?

100%

0%

100%

0%

Would you like another session with more

12 3

animation skills in the summer holidays?

What else would you like to learn?

“I learnt some new drawing techniques”

“I learnt how to draw faces on characters” “I wou

ld like to learn how t o do a fl ipboo k anima tion”

WELLBEING PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGE At the end of the photography workshop, a wellbeing photography challenge was set. The focus of this was how photography can be used to express different emotions. They have been challenged to photograph happiness and sadness.

Younger Group: To draw a stick person and cut it out, then photograph it in front if a background that represents each emotion.

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Older Group: Can use the stick person if it easier but use objects to photograph the emotions.

This challenge was also shared on social media channels including TikTok.

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THE EVENTS

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP On Thursday 28th May, we ran 3 photography workshops for each age group (6-10 year olds), (11-13 year olds) and (14-18 year olds). The session was directed towards the young carers being able to use their mobile phones/tablets as photographic devices, to the best of their ability.

The workshops were altered for the different ages by introducing different tasks that were better suited to their age and how much direction they needed. The theory taught was the same but was more in-depth when taught to the older age group.

We began by talking about what photography is, which was followed by a brief introduction to the history of photographic processes. Young carers participated in a quiz, whereby they had to decide whether the example shown was a camera or not. This was to show the variation of analogue and digital equipment and to highlight the digital advances which have brought us to being able to use our phones as cameras.

Our Survey Says...

Yes 100%

0%

Did you learn something new?

83%

17%

Would you like another session with more

ages of “Taking im ” flowers

“U

14

”

SLR

aD sing

“Nature Photography”

100%

28 “It was fun thank you”

“I learnt about ” exposure

No

Did you enjoy the photography workshop

animation skills in the summer holidays?

What else would you like to learn?

MAY

apture “How to c hings in moving t a photo”

0%

“How to take imals” photos of an

“Taking images at night”

ake nice “How to t my baby photos of sister”

“Editing images”

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PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP This was followed by techniques they can think about to take better images and examples of images to show the difference they can make. These included; lighting, vantage point, composition and focus, with direction of how they can alter the settings on their phone to do this. After this, we did another quiz about whether the images shown were taken by a digital camera or on camera phone, to inspire them about how they don’t always need an expensive camera to enjoy photography.

Tasks set in the workshop: Younger group – In the 6-10 age group, we played an alphabet photography game. They were tasked to use their phones to take photos of objects around their house and garden which resembled letters. Each young carer spelt out their name and showed everyone their images, we spoke about what they used and how the techniques help to compose different images.

Older group – In the 11-13 and YAC group, there were two tasks set as they complete things quicker than the younger children. The first one, was after they learnt about photographic techniques they can use on their phones. They were tasked to find an object in their house and photograph it in different lighting, using different backgrounds, with altered focus and different vantage points.

The second task was to stand in one spot in the room and take 5 different images, thinking about their vantage point and how they can create completely different images, dependent on what angles they use. After the tasks, everyone shared their images and we spoke about how thinking about photographic techniques makes exciting images.

MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

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THE EVENTS

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THE EVENTS

MINUTE TO WIN IT CHALLENGE TOURNAMENT For our minute to win it challenge tournament we split the young carers by age group and ran sessions for 1 hour playing a set of challenges against each other. Each young carer had 1 minute to complete each challenge, or had to keep doing the challenge for the length of a minute. Challenges included:

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•Balancing a biscuit on the forehead and then only using facial muscles to move the biscuit to their mouths.

•Putting a pair of socks on each hand and then opening a chocolate bar, packet or crisps or sweet.

• Keeping a balloon or ball afloat for 1 minute.

•Move an item around the floor by pushing it with only nose for 1 minute.

•Balancing a biscuit on the forehead for 1 minute without dropping it.

•Throwing the most balls of paper into a bin.

•Dressing up as a mummy using toilet paper or a bedsheet.

•Dressing up as someone famous.

Our Survey Says...

Yes

No

Did you enjoy the minute to win it challenge tournament ?

100%

0%

100%

0%

Would you like another tournament in the summer holidays?

What was your favourite challenge?

g the “Balancin my head” biscuit on “The quiz

16

g up as a “Dressin erson” famous p (x5)

“All of them!”

round”

“Dressing up as a mummy”

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MINUTE TO WIN IT CHALLENGE TOURNAMENT Half-way through the challenges each group had a quiz, these were different for each of the age groups. Young carers particularly enjoyed the dressing up activities and also any of the activities which involved food! All of the young carers (staff and volunteers) were very competitive and the winning young carers in each age group received a £5 Amazon E Voucher.

“Can we hold another tournament like this, when we’re able to meet face to face ”

“The young carers, staff and volunteers were very competitive”

“This was so fun, I loved it, thank you”

MAY HALF -TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2020

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THE EVENTS

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FEEDBACK “You’re Amazing”

“You all do an amazing job”

“Thank you for everything you do for our young carers”

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“Well Done”

THE STATISTICS

360

DIGITAL AC K S ACTIVIT Y P O SENT OUT T RERS YO U N G C A

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24+

ON VIEWS CISE E XC E R ENGE CHALL TIKTOK

FAMILIES PLAYED BINGO

VIEW ON TIKTOK FOOTBALL CHALLENGE

VIEWS ON ANIMATION TIKTOK

18+

VIEWS ON ‘MAKEUP GLAM’ YOUTUBE

176

ISE VIEWS ON ‘EXERC AND STRETCH’ YOUTUBE VIDEO

ON VIEWS Y GRAPH O T O H P TOK GE TIK N E L L CHA

206+

VIEWS ON ‘PINK SHIMMER’ MAKEUP TIKTOK

15+

181+

75+

VIEWS ON MINUTE TO WIN IT CHALLENGE TIKTOK

VIEWS ON ‘EASY GLAM’ MAKEUP TIKTOK

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157+

233+

232+

S CARER G N U YO THE PL AYED UIZ TQ KAHOO

VIEWS ON ‘PINK SHIMMER MAKEU P’ YOUTUBE TUTORIA L

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FIRST EVER ONLINE HOLIDAY RESPITE PROGRAMME

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A SPECIAL THANK YOU

TO OUR DONORS AND SUPPORTERS! Most of the programmes delivered by Cheshire Young Carers are only possible because of the generosity of our funders and supporters. Thank you for supporting us in being able to provide respite to the young carers of Cheshire.

DURING COVID-19 OUR KEY FUNDERS HAVE BEEN: Anne Duchess of Westminster’s Charity Cheshire Community Foundation Cheshire Freemasons Ellesmere Port Lions Innospec Cares Steve Morgan Foundation The Westminster Foundation The Williams Family Foundation

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WE ARE S O GRATEFU L FOR THE SUPP ORT THAT IS CONSISTE NTLY RECEIVED .

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MAY HALF-TERM PROGRAMME PROJECT REVIEW 2019

CHESHIRE YOUNG CARERS Registered Charity no. 1151399 Northern Lights Business Park, Rossfield Road, Ellesmere Port, CH65 3AW

Tel: 0151 356 3176 info@cheshireyoungcarers.com

www.cheshireyoungcarers.org @cheshireyoungcarers

@CYC_youngcarers

@cheshireyoungcarers

Cheshire Young Carers Cheshire Young Carers