What do you remember doing at the age of five? Perhaps you were playing hopscotch or football outside with your friends or perhaps you were playing indoors with your new building blocks and Lego. Five years old. The world was so new and exciting back then, right?
Well, for Charlie Fiore this was not the case.
Charlie was only five when he became a young carer. He went from living a “normal life” to suddenly becoming a young carer as his mum one day woke up to find herself paralysed down one side.
“It was a very snap change,” Charlie explained once we had Zoom functioning properly. “After some investigations, it was determined she developed Multiple Sclerosis and that was just the beginning of it all.”
He used “just the beginning” because not only was Charlie a carer for his mum but he also played a caring role for his father too, who was suffering mental health difficulties at the time.
It is not that uncommon for young carers to start having responsibilities at such a young age though because, according to Carers Trust, a 2011 Census identified that one in eight young carers were aged under eight. Fortunately for Charlie, he had an older sister to help out.
“My sister took on a lot more of the physical responsibilities which I am ever so grateful for,” he told me seriously. “I was primarily emotional support for a very long time and I was monitoring my mum’s emotional wellbeing and psychological stability as well.”
As Charlie got older he had to take on a lot more physical and medical roles, such as administering his mum’s prescribed medication and intramuscular injections.
In addition, due to the type of Multiple Sclerosis that his mum was diagnosed with, it meant she could be fine for days, weeks, months and even years but the next she could be back in the hospital with massively worsened symptoms. Naturally this all impacted Charlie’s own mental health.
“I was lucky as I had a very supportive school when I was younger. But being separated from, more so my mum than my father, was very difficult,” he said.
“A lot of people would assume that it was traditional childhood separation anxiety but in reality my worry was, what’s happening? Is she okay? Will she end up back in the hospital?”
Fortunately, Charlie had a good support network at Primary School and his headmaster would let him call his parents during breaks so he could make sure everything was okay. However, secondary school came with greater challenges because he had to balance his school work and social life on top of his caring duties.
“It’s beyond difficult to explain to teenage peers that it’s not that I don’t want to attend this event or do this thing but that I can’t. I’ve got responsibilities that I simply cannot forsake.”
As for his assignments, while most of his teachers were accommodating of his life at home and would give him extensions (though usually only until the end of the day), he recalled how conversations with his teachers were like a “negotiation”. In the end, he would often sacrifice his sleep or breaks at school to catch up on work.
According to Carers UK, young carers experience the highest levels of loneliness and isolation and that’s on top of the 93% of all carers who reported feeling lonely and isolated as a result of their caring roles.
However, Charlie was luckier than most because he was able to join a young carer support group in his local community. Through this, he was able to make friends with fellow young carers who were “a lot more understanding” and “enduring”.
After reading this, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that Charlie is now a campaigner for young carers but this is something he never imagined he’d be doing. It was only after attending an annual Young Carers Festival that everything changed.
“It’s a two to three-day-long festival where young carers nationwide get together in the middle of Hampshire and have a weekend being teenagers,” he said. “It’s always had an activism spin to it. There are universities, members of Government departments, MPs that attend and they all congregate in a certain area and ask questions of and gather the views and experiences of young carers.”
At this event in particular though, the producers had come up with an idea to create a Young Carers Champion Programme. The idea was they would find a group of young carers who would be specifically trained to be entirely “self-sufficient” as advocates and act as a national voice for young carers.
Charlie had later been approached about being a part of the programme. Not thinking much of it, he decided to give it a go because he had already been involved in some local change-making for young carers.
“As the first couple of events and campaigns started to come off the ground, there was a real feeling of this is right. This is me,” he said. “So I ended up changing all of the courses I was studying at university. It meant I ended up having to redo a year but it was worth it in all honesty. I found my place.”
From thereon, Charlie went to university while continuing his campaigning work on the national stage, which he intends to continue for as long as he can.
As our talk came to an end, I asked Charlie what he would say to anyone out there who is a young carer.
“For young carers of all ages and experiences, you’re not alone,” Charlie said. “We’re a lot easier to find than we once were and once you’ve found that support group be honest with it. We can only help with what we know is going on.”
“What always swells my heart is that it’s not a choice they’ve made. They are doing what they do because it’s for someone they love and I emphasise with that totally.”
By Abby K Lake