We are pleased to launch our film, Young Caregiving in Transnational Families, co-produced with transnational family members and Rank and File Theatre performers during participatory feedback workshops in England.
The film highlights the pressures that young people may face when providing care in transnational families. It shows a family who arrived in the UK two years ago. Sara, aged 13, has multiple caring responsibilities – helping to look after her younger brother and get him to school on time, translating documents and interpreting for her parents, helping with household chores and caring for her ageing grandmother. Sara’s caring responsibilities have a negative impact on her studies.
Our research suggests that children and young people in transnational families in the UK, Sweden, Spain and France are engaged in a wide range of caring tasks, both proximately, for family members they live with, and at a distance, for those who live in other countries. An important task that often distinguishes the caring role of young people in transnational families from other young carers is language brokering – that is translating and interpreting for parents and older relatives. Young people often adopt a cultural mediating role, using their language and digital literacy skills to help older family members to access crucial public services. Tensions emerged when parents had to rely heavily on their children, and young people could not meet all the caring needs when required.
In feedback workshops, family participants highlighted the importance of teachers being aware of the family context of children’s lives, recognising their needs, and suggested that caring should be included in the educational curriculum so that there is more recognition of young people’s caring roles, alongside empowering children to speak up.
The film was co-produced with families participating in the Transnational Families in Europe: Care, Inequalities and Wellbeing research project (led by Professor Ruth Evans, University of Reading and Dr. Rosa Mas Giralt, University of Leeds) and performers from Rank and File Theatre, who have lived experience of forced migration, disability and mental health challenges. The research team and Rank and File actors discussed with transnational families the actions and social changes they would like to see to address these challenges in participatory workshops in England, using Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed approach.
Watch the film on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP-JzjjVKIg
For more films from the research project, check out our YouTube channel and subscribe: @CarewellTransnationalFamilies
Read more from Hannah and Jude from Rank and File Theatre about the participatory theatre approach we used in the family feedback workshops.
