Youth Family Caregivers and the Geography of Childhood

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the childhood geographies of youth caregivers under the age of 18 years old. Every day in the United States, more than 1.4 million youth caregivers support family members who have a chronic illness, disability, or other health issue that requires help, supervision or support. Youth caregivers often assume responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning. They may also support basic activities of daily living such as assisting in mobility, dressing, feeding, and administering medication. Like adult caregivers, youth caregivers encounter a diversity of social, cultural, and geographic or spatial impacts which vary according to the type and intensity of care they provide to a loved one. However, unlike adult caregivers, youth in the United States tend not to be recognized for the care that they provide. Furthermore, there are few public programs that provide support for their distinct needs. As pressure upon family caregivers intensifies in the U.S. with the aging of the population and projected shortages of paid care workers, young people are likely to play a larger role in providing support, comfort, and assistance to family members. Results from this research will be widely disseminated to researchers, social service providers and educational professionals, with implications for youth caregiver health and wellbeing. Additionally, the investigator and a graduate student will work directly with youth caregivers to support the creation of a participatory digital caregiving project, creating opportunities for STEM education related to digital design and production, technology use, and science communication. This project will contribute to understanding how youth caregiving impacts childhood geographies. The project will focus on three key objectives: 1) to understand the relationship between youth caregiver recognition and identity; 2) to explore how youth caregiving impacts childhood perceptions of time, space, scale, and place; and, 3) to identify ways to better incorporate youth caregiving into future research and policies of family caregiving in the United States. Youth caregivers will participate in oral histories and a "care mapping" exercise to analyze the relationship between caregiving identity and childhood geographies. Analysis of project documents, and participatory digital projects with youth caregivers will provide additional information about recognition and caregiver identity. The research will take place with young people who receive support from the Caregiving Youth Project, a nonprofit organization that works with school districts to provide services to youth caregivers in Palm Beach County, Florida. Though the work is limited to one geographic area in the United States, the findings are relevant to understanding the experiences of family caregiving by this largely hidden population. The theories and methodologies developed in this research will provide new insights and approaches to research on childhood geographies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.