Concerns have been raised about the lack of support for young carers in Western Australia.
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According to the WA Commissioner for Children and Young People’s Speaking Out Survey 2025, 7,140 of the 17,000 young people surveyed provide care for a family member or friend. Speaking with Youth Jam’s Isaac Mulcrone, Laura Thomas, Manager of the Young Carer Team at Carers WA, highlighted a “chronic under-representation” of these young people.
“I would say that there is a chronic under-representation of young carers,” she told Newsflash listeners.
A lack of awareness regarding the role of young carers means many do not realise their responsibilities fit this definition.
“When people are talking about young carers, that person who is caring and is a young carer won’t automatically go ‘that’s me, that’s what I do’, because it’s what they’ve always done,” Thomas added.
Thomas argued educators are not properly equipped to inform students about the reality of young caring, which contributes to the issue.
“If you jump on the Department of Education’s website and you type in ‘young carer’, it doesn’t yield any results, therefore it demonstrates that… there isn’t enough being done to educate the people who are around young people who care to understand what that means and also how to respond to them when they do share their experiences,” she said.
For many young carers, friendships have suffered as they grow up, often due to a lack of understanding from their peers regarding their personal circumstances.
“As they grow older their peers, they find they connect to them less and less because the problems and issues that they have in their own lives, due to the responsibilities they carry, they don’t really relate to those of their peers,” Thomas said.
