A considerable proportion of young people across Europe carry out a critical role in caring for their ill and/or disabled family members^[1]. Being a Young Carer (YC) is recognised as a risk factor for social exclusion, higher absenteeism and drop-out rates from education, low employability, social stigma and bullying^[2]. Teachers and school staff are usually not aware of the frequency of YCs and are not always able to identify YCs in their class. Therefore, the main goal of this EU Erasmus+ programme co-funded project was to empower teachers and other school staff in upper secondary education (ISCED-3 level) to recognise adolescent YCs (16-19 years old) in classes and maximise their learning opportunities. The Eurocarers consortium consisted of researcher and carer organization members in the partner countries of Sweden (coordinator), Slovenia, Italy and Portugal together with Eurocarers secretariat.

The specific objectives were to develop:

• an assessment tool to identify YCs;
• educational strategies, didactical approaches and organisational adjustments to support YCs in their scholastic career;
• a handbook on how to work at best with YCs;
• a massive open online course (MOOC) about YCs, their needs and preferences.

The achieved project outcomes, consisting of the above tools and strategies, can help to raise awareness of YCs’ needs, empower school staff to recognise and keep YCs involved in school and lead to a new attitude of YCs, which in turn can influence other stakeholders and organisations. Further, the concrete project outputs can help lead to new opportunities for peer recognition and awareness of YCs among school pupils themselves, to help make YCs more comfortable at school, satisfied with education, avoid drop outs, increase their educational and social environment and attempt to combat YCs’ social exclusion, loneliness, social stigma and any unmet educational and support needs. All materials are available in English, Swedish, Italian, and Portuguese^[3].

^[1] Leu, A., Frech, M., Wepf, H., Sempik, J., Joseph, S., Helbling, L., & Jung, C. (2019). Counting young carers in Switzerland–a study of prevalence. Children & Society, 33(1), 53-67.^[2] Becker, S., & Leu, A. (2014). Young Carers. In. Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. Heather Montgomery (Hrsg): Oxford University Press.^[3] All materials and results are available at the EDY-CARE project web page: https://eurocarers.org/current-projects/edycare/