YCP- Covid-19 & Education.
Millie2787
Community Champion Posts: 5,202 Part of The Furniture
Hey everyone me & @Abigail Here 
Figures recently revealed there is around 800,003 young carers in the UK, with all carers in the UK saving the NHS £132 billion a year. Carers are now more than ever are valuable, to help make sure the NHS can make it through the pandemic. Local young carers schemes are trying to reach many carers over the phone, on zoom calls and through social media. Some carers centres have even gone out of their way to dress up as superhero's to provide a bit of joy to those young carers who are craving a break and ready to get back to education setting to see their friends. Until then they have to continue doing work at home.
In this post we will touch upon the here and now, changing education settings and how the process for those going to university in autumn 2021 will look.
Here & Now
Are you having an issue with your work at home and balancing your caring role? It is okay we are here to let you know it is okay. When having issues with home educating as a carer we think about how we manage on a weekend and we work accordingly to that. If that is where we do 20 minutes of work twice a day or even 1 hour of work whatever it is, it is understandable it will not be a great deal of work being completed. Being a carer means you learn to time manage and balance your life if you have not got that right in the past do not worry tomorrow is a new day. I would like to give you a helping hand on how to best work out a way to balance out your work while being at home.
Write down a list of things you need to do in a day or a week, for this example we will use a day. Within a day a carer would typically look after the person they carer for, do meals, do washing, cleaning and personal care. That is all you might do for someone else then right below what you need to do for yourself: personal hygiene, do some self-care, do your educational work. Then rank these in order of priority with self-care and personal hygiene being quite high on the list if you can. During the days you will be able to work through each one. Schedules and timetables are often useful to separate time for you, educational work and caring. Being able to separate your day will help you manage your work and everything you have to do without it getting to much. For those of you doing different subjects/units separate your week and focus on the work you have understood to help you understand the work better.
Changing Education Settings
For those moving into college or even University I want to tell you that you are not alone. We understand that you will be worrying about your application. I encourage you to speak to the universities and be open about feeling worried. Ask questions about your application, if that is grades or your worried about the starting off there, they will be happy to speak to you about it. See if the university will allow you to share a sample of your work with them, this won't hinder them they will only see how much work you have put in and see that you are worried and want to be the best student and want to be accepted by them. UCAS website (www.ucas.com) is a great place to look at if you’re worried about your university application. Student Room (www.thestudentroom.co.uk/) is also a great place to look if you would like to read and speak to students going/attending that university they are the only person who can tell you what it’s like there.
If you are looking at going into college, speak to them via email there will be someone who will be able to answer your questions. Speak to your schools too and be open with them if you are worried about moving forward, they will be able to support you the best way they can. These are challenging times, and no one has ever been through it before but as a group we can get through it.
Looking Forward At University
Now jumping forward a little bit I am going to talk about applying to uni as for a lot of students being unable to visit the university’s before applying to them can be quite an anxious time. I know it certainly is for me. Especially as now the UCAS applications are open and for me and many other carers in my position we won’t have the support of our Careers Team.
A really good place to start is to take a look at Career map (https://careermap.co.uk/virtual-open-days/ ). This gives a list of all the universities that are holding virtual open days or who even have virtual tours in their website. This will be able to give you a feel of what the campus and the university setting looks like and also virtual open days offers the chance to ask questions. Another great thing to take advantage off is a lot of universities will offer the chance to speak to students who are currently studying at the university. This gives you the chance to ask how they find the environment and even the support services.
It is also great to get in touch with either the admission team or the disability advice services if you have any questions that your unable to find the answer to . I recently did this for a universities I was looking to apply for I emailed the admission team some questions and they were able to point me in the right direction of the department that would be able to answer those questions and in my case it was the disability support team who offered to have a zoom meeting with me to give me the chance to answer any questions.
Starting to get ahead on your personal statement can also help ease the pressure in September. Do not hide that you are a carer either universities will want to get to know the real you. UCAS have some really great resources on the types of things that need to be included. Your college/sixth form careers team or tutors should also have some resources that they can pass onto you to help you. Speak to people who have been through this process, ask to see their statement. Here at The Mix we are lucky to have so many different people and volunteers, there will be someone around who has been through the process and will be able to help you with anything you need.
Remember that applying to uni can sometimes be a stressful time when you have added responsibility to think about. Remember that all of us here at the mix are here to help you in any way that we can ❤️
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, drop a comment and one of us will get back to you soon
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