Hundreds of children taking care of their ill or disabled parents remain hidden due to family loyalty, stigma, bullying and not knowing where to go for support.

Young people – some just eight years old – responsible for the care of other family members are a common, but unknown, phenomenon in Malta.

These young carers help relatives with tasks such as dressing, washing, giving them medicines and keeping home for them.

However, because of their anonymity they miss out on vital support and services that can help them.

According to the Royal College of Psychiatry in the UK, 65 per cent of females and 54 per cent of males admitted to a mental hospital in Europe have young children and one in 10 of these admissions are cared for by a young carer.

Figure obtained from Malta’s Health Ministry show the number of patients discharged (similar to admissions) from Mount Carmel in 2012 stood at 975 males and 384 females. It is estimated about 80 children were taking care of parents suffering from mental health problems that year.

Most young carers feel unable to talk about their caring responsibilities because they don’t trust their teachers or fear that social workers will intervene at home

The number of patients admitted and discharged at Mount Carmel does not vary much over the years.

“Although there are as yet no national statistics, these figures are more or less the same all over Europe – and Malta is no exception,” said Connie Magro, a veteran psychiatric nurse who runs the help aid programme Ilwien at the St Jeanne Antide Foundation.

Young carers, she said, are children and youths doing the job of an adult without recognition, to the detriment of their own schooling or career.

According to clinical psychologist Anna Cassar, as well as these children who take care of relatives with mental health issues, there are other children whose parents are terminally ill or physically disabled – of which there are no statistics.

“Mental illness, ill physical health, parental conflict or divorce, social hardships such as loss of job and others, are among the triggering factors where children have taken on the role of a parent,” said Ms Cassar.

Many of these incredibly vulnerable young carers are slipping through the net, undetected by the support services.

Ms Magro told The Sunday Times of Malta: “Most young carers feel unable to talk about their caring responsibilities because they don’t trust their teachers or fear that social workers will intervene at home or worry about being bullied.”

She regularly works with young carers and over the past five years has seen scores of them.

“But these are the ones we get to know about – most of them do it without reaching out for help,” she said. The youngest she has ever worked with was eight.

“The child used to take care of her mother and her sibling and only had some support from her grandmother during the weekend,” she said.

Elsewhere in Europe many child carers remain hidden from the view of authorities.

In the UK, it is estimated there could be about 700,000 young carers, which the British press nicknamed “the hidden army” and “the ghost carers”.

The needs of such children in Malta was highlighted in Marika Borg’s dissertation for her BA Youth and Community studies. She interviewed four child carers and their hardships come out clearly.

“Young carers worry about the parent they care for when they are at school, and there’s also the stress of juggling schoolwork and caring responsibilities,” she said.

The St Jeanne Antide Foundation believes child carers are on the increase mostly due to a rise in separations.

“Most of the child carers are found in single parent households, where the main parent succumbs to a mental illness,” Ms Magro said.

Over the years, the foundation has seen various child carers. One 16-year-old took the role of parent for her younger siblings, helped them with their homework, cooked and kept house, while at the same time took care of her mentally ill mother. She used her mother’s children’s allowance to buy clothes for the whole family from charity shops.

“These children are very resilient – I have followed some of them in their walks of life and some are successful when they grow up. But essentially theirs is a lost childhood,” she said.

From first-hand experience, she said that coping with pressures of caring for parents often leads them to fall behind in school.

“They are misunderstood by teachers when they are tired or miss homework. Moreover, they often feel isolated because they do not have time to socialise and are often more mature than their classmates,” she said.

Ideally, said Ms Magro, teachers should get a specific training guide to help them to better identify and support young carers.

These children do not want praise but practical help.

At this stage, it is crucial young carers are identified so they can get the support they need – such as household management, cooking and budgeting and even psychological help in the form of relief therapy.

Meanwhile, SOS Malta will be launching a research study in the coming weeks to try to identify these “forgotten youths”.

Claudia Taylor East of SOS told The Sunday Times of Malta that this study, carried out through kellimni.com, schoolchildren and youths who care for sick or disabled relatives will be identified.

“We want to look into who they are and what their needs are,” she said. They will be working hand in hand with the St Jeanne Antide Foundation and Aġenzija Żgħazagħ.