Lunchtime Speaker – Woking High School Carers

This week we invited a group of Young Carers from Woking High School to our lunch. They were accompanied
by staff from the school. Most of the young carers look after or help to look after a parent who is disabled. The
Club presented the school with a cheque for £250 to help with the Young Carers programme. This came from
the proceeds of our Christmas collections which school pupils and staff had helped with. Penny Kramer
presented Zoe, one of the young carers, with the Colin Kramer Award. This is awarded annually to a young
person who has shown resilience. Sarah Bannister, who leads on Home-School links at Woking High School
and is in charge of the programme, spoke about young carers at the school and what the school does to help
them. There are 120 young carers at the school and 1,400 across Surrey. Every month the school has a special
lunch for them to which they are invited. The school also provides snacks for them. They recently took a group
of 90 of them to the pantomime at the New Victoria Theatre, which they greatly enjoyed. Some young carers
attend a meeting in Goldsworth Park for young carers across Woking. The school can help with school uniforms,
school trips and other things that children might need on an ad-hoc basis. For example it paid for coatings on
glasses for one young carer. The parents of young carers are often unable to work full time and often have
constrained budgets. The school raises money for this programme separately from charities and other donors.
In total the Young Carers programme costs around £2,500-£3,000 per year. Carol Cheesman thanked Sarah for
her speech