Wednesday 11th March 2026 marked Young Carers Action Day an annual event dedicated to raising awareness about young carers. These are children and young people who provide crucial, unpaid care and support to family members, often due to a relative's illness, disability, or other long-term condition.
The aim is to recognise the important role these young individuals play, highlight the challenges they face, and promote the importance of providing them with the support they need.
This Year’s theme is ‘Fair Futures for Young Carers’ - a call for action to ensure that young carers have the same opportunities to learn, grow and thrive as their peers. Young carers often face pressures that impact their education, employment, and opportunities to learn and thrive.
National research shows that caring responsibilities can create barriers to full participation in education and training, often resulting in difficulties with school attendance and punctuality. These educational disadvantages have a lasting effect, as young carers are less likely to obtain a university degree than their peers. This disparity extends into the job market, where young adult carers are also less likely to find employment.
GFiE & Young Carers
Recognising the barriers faced by young carers is essential to providing the support they need to achieve their full potential. To break down these barriers, we have integrated young carers into our GFiE Carers’ pathway.
The GFiE carers’ pathway runs in partnership with the Carers Trust - A UK-wide charity that supports people providing unpaid care to family members. Carers Trust helps us match carers who may not otherwise consider a Civil Service job to bring that talent and experience into Civil Service roles.
You can hear more about a young carer’s journey into the Civil Service in this short video and find out more about Young carers day on the Carers Trust website.
"At Carers Trust, we deeply value our partnership with the GFIE Scheme and their commitment to making employment more accessible, flexible and supportive for carers. Too many carers face barriers when trying to enter or remain in work, and initiatives like GFIE play a vital role in removing these barriers and opening up meaningful opportunities.
Together, we can help ensure carers are recognised, included and given the chance to thrive.”
Carers Trust
Cabinet Office GFiE Carers’ pathway
The GFiE Carers’ pathway is available across the civil service, year-round and nationwide.
It offers young carers opportunities for 12-24 month fixed-term appointments within the civil service, with the potential of some roles becoming permanent. The scheme also provides vital support to both the candidates and their line managers throughout the placement.
To discuss providing life changing opportunities for live vacancies, or vacancies you have coming up in the future, please get in contact with us at GFiE@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Carers & The Civil Service
The Civil Service aims to support civil servants who are also carers in a number of ways.
- The Civil Service Carer’s Passport is a useful tool that helps a carer and their manager to document and discuss the flexibilities needed to effectively combine caring responsibilities with work. The Employee Assistance Programmes offer tools designed to support employee health and wellbeing.
- The Civil Service Carers Network (CSCN) serves as an overarching network, bringing together representatives from 42 departmental carers networks. It supports these local networks, which in turn provide direct assistance to carers across Civil Service departments and other public bodies.
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