It started in one school. Twenty years later, it's in 44. In 2006, the Caregiving Youth Project (CYP) launched in one Palm Beach County middle school as the nation’s first comprehensive school-based program created to identify and support students caring for family members with chronic health conditions, disabilities, mental health needs, or aging-related frailty. Today, CYP: • Supports about 700 students each year, with formal in-school programming in 44 middle and high schools, plus students enrolled from additional schools. • Has served more than 3,000 Caregiving Youth and their families. • Reports a 98.3% high school graduation rate across the past 12 graduating classes. For 20 years, CYP has shown what can happen when schools recognize Caregiving Youth and respond to their needs. But millions of Caregiving Youth across the United States remain isolated and alone. As we celebrate this milestone, the American Association of Caregiving Youth (AACY) is building on what we've learned in Palm Beach County to advance recognition, partnerships, and progress nationwide. Help us celebrate 20 years and make the next 20 possible. Read the anniversary story: aacy.org/aacy-celebrates-20-… #CaregivingYouth #FamilyCaregivers #Caregiving

The AACY Caregiving Youth Project team is back in schools, checking in with students, connecting with families, and making sure Caregiving Youth know where to find support. CYP students can turn to their Family Specialist for help with school, family resources, guidance as their family’s care needs change, a break, or someone to talk to. One of the messages we’re sharing with them this fall: You don’t have to handle everything alone. For 20 years, AACY’s Caregiving Youth Project has provided direct support to young people who care for a family member of any age who is chronically ill, injured, frail due to age, or disabled. CYP began in one Palm Beach County middle school in 2006 as the first program in the United States created to identify and directly support middle and high school students with these caregiving responsibilities. Thanks to donors, foundations, grants, and community partners, CYP provides services at no cost to participating youth and their families. Investing in Caregiving Youth means investing in their education, their future, and 20 years of proven support for young people whose caregiving is too often unseen and unrecognized. Learn more and support the 20th anniversary: aacy.org/events/brunch2026/ #CaregivingYouth #KidsAreCaregiversToo @AACYorg

I’ll take this one on behalf of my sons, @alzassociation. 💜 They were kids when they helped care for their grandmother with Alzheimer’s. Their experience, and the experience of so many kids like them, is why we started our advocacy. kidsarecaregiverstoo.org

Kids who are caregivers deserve the chance to tell their own stories. Over the past few years, I’ve worked alongside Connie Siskowski, RN, PhD, the team at @AACYorg , and others around the country as young people have spoken at events, advocated for Caregiving Youth, talked with national media, taken part in documentaries, and explained what caregiving looks like in their own lives. For a recent story in The New York Times by Helen Ouyang, MD, MPH, families in AACY's Caregiving Youth Project allowed reporters and photographers into their homes so people could see caregiving up close. Was that easy for those families? No. But sharing can help people understand what caregiving looks like when you're in middle or high school. It can help another student feel less alone. It can help change how this country sees the Caregiving Youth issue. When journalists, filmmakers, researchers, and others come to us asking to talk to kids who are caregiving, we think hard about it. Sometimes that means a young person we know through the Caregiving Youth Project. Sometimes it comes through our broader national network and partners. We consider the opportunity, the young person, and whether it's a good fit. It takes judgment and real knowledge of the family and the situation to support a young person in going public with something this personal. The stakes are high. These are kids, some of them still in middle school, being asked to share deeply personal parts of their family lives with a public audience. The benefit to the young person has to be part of the equation. It needs to be clear, supported, and worth it. When it is, speaking up can build confidence and communication skills. It can help young people see that their experience has value, and that their voice has value too. One story matters. Story after story builds a case that gets harder to ignore. There are millions of kids helping provide serious care for someone in their family. We already know caregivers of all ages need more support. We need to make sure kids are part of that conversation too. The world should hear from them. #CaregivingYouth #KidsAreCaregiversToo #Storytelling Photo: Hantz sharing his story as the Caregiving Youth Guest Speaker at AACY’s 2025 Community Caregiver Awards Brunch. Photo by Michael Connor.

Congratulations to Omarion Calloway! Omarion has continued to use his experience as a Caregiving Youth to advocate, speak up, and bring greater visibility to young people with real caregiving responsibilities at home. He presented at @AACYorg’s last national conference, and he continues to share his voice and his story. His latest piece in Business Insider looks at what it took to earn more than $1 million in combined college scholarship and financial aid offers while balancing school, college applications, and caregiving responsibilities at home. We love to see him fly. ❤️ businessinsider.com/college-… #CaregivingYouth #YoungCarers #CollegeAccess

Feylyn Lewis, PhD, @feylyn, a member of AACY's National Advisory Council @AACYorg and the Caregiving Youth Research Collaborative (CYRC), has spent years advocating for young people who provide care for family members. Her latest piece for Capital B brings another important lens to the caregiving conversation. capitalbnews.org/black-boys-…

Caregiving Youth don’t have a “look.” They are kids in our classrooms, neighborhoods, teams, and communities. Millions of children and teens in the U.S. help care for a parent, grandparent, sibling, or other family member who is ill, disabled, injured, or aging. They may help with meals, medications, mobility, personal care, household tasks, or simply keeping things going at home. According to @AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving @NA4Caregiving, 63 million adults in the U.S. provide family caregiving. Caregiving Youth are doing real caregiving too, but children and teens are far less likely to be recognized, counted, or connected to support. And most people around them may have no idea. When we know who they are, we can help make sure caregiving doesn’t get in the way of their education, opportunities, or just being a kid. Caregiving Youth are everywhere. We have to commit to identifying them. For 20 years, AACY’s @AACYorg Caregiving Youth Project has identified and supported students in Palm Beach County schools in partnership with @pbcsd. It was the first program of its kind in the U.S. and remains the only one providing this kind of focused, direct support to Caregiving Youth through schools. Other communities are developing different ways to identify and support Caregiving Youth, but millions of children and teens across the country still have no dedicated support where they live. If you work in a school, healthcare setting, social service organization, or community program, ask yourself: Would we recognize a Caregiving Youth if one were right in front of us? And if we did, what would we do next? #CaregivingYouth #FamilyCaregiving #KidsAreCaregiversToo

Caregiving Youth are already in families and communities across the country. The challenge is whether the systems around them can identify and support them. This new NASHP | National Academy for State Health Policy brief looks at how Colorado and Rhode Island are building that recognition into state systems through identification, data collection, education, and support. @AACYorg was glad to contribute to this work alongside partners in both states, with AACY Founder and President Connie Siskowski, RN, PhD, sharing her perspective in the brief. NASHP also thanked the American Association of Caregiving Youth (AACY), Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, Colorado Executive Office of Aging, Colorado Alliance for Caregiving Youth, Rhode Island Department of Education @RIDeptEd, and United Way of Rhode Island for contributing their insights to this work. Read the full brief at NASHP.org. @NASHPhealth #CaregivingYouth #KidsAreCaregiversToo

The August 2026 issue of AACY’s Treasure Talk is here. A new school year is underway, and the Caregiving Youth Project is back in schools across Palm Beach County. This month’s issue looks at the start of the school year, some final summer fun, and a month that brought significant national attention to Caregiving Youth. Inside this issue: • Back-to-school support and tips for CYP students, plus a school spotlight on Tradewinds Middle School • Final summer activities, including Urban Air and a Miami Marlins outing for CYP mentors and mentees • Caregiving Youth featured nationally in The New York Times Magazine and the Los Angeles Times • Details about the national Caregiving Youth Virtual Connection Call on November 12 This year marks 20 years of the Caregiving Youth Project serving students and families in Palm Beach County. As another school year begins, we are grateful to the donors, volunteers, mentors, partners, schools, staff, and friends who make this work possible. Please read, share, get involved, or make a gift to support Caregiving Youth and their families. Read the August issue: myemail.constantcontact.com/…

Identifying and supporting kids who are caregivers is possible. It’s possible. The UK has built systems to do it. (@CarersTrust) The U.S. hasn’t. AACY has been doing it for 20 years in the School District of Palm Beach County, the 10th-largest school district in the country. Caregiving Youth can be identified. They can be supported. We already know how. #CaregivingYouth #KidsAreCaregiversToo

New from @NASHPhealth | National Academy for State Health Policy: How Colorado and Rhode Island Are Supporting Caregiving Youth. The brief examines how Colorado and Rhode Island are identifying and supporting Caregiving Youth, including AACY’s work in both states. In Colorado, the article highlights the Colorado Alliance For Caregiving Youth (CACY), an AACY affiliate, and its work with state partners to collect data through the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey and advance recognition and support for Caregiving Youth. In Rhode Island, the work has included AACY, researchers Emma Armstrong-Carter, Ph.D., and Elizabeth (Betsy) Olson, Ph.D., and the Rhode Island Department of Education, including Steve Osborn and Olivia Smith. Rhode Island added a caregiving question to its statewide student survey and now requires high schools to adopt policies supporting Caregiving Youth beginning with the Class of 2028. That work also led to the Guide for Understanding and Supporting Rhode Island’s Caregiving Youth, developed in collaboration with AACY, Armstrong-Carter, and Olson. NASHP also links to its national Resource Guide for Caregiving Youth, written by AACY and commissioned by NASHP with support from The John A. Hartford Foundation. The article includes comments from AACY Founder and President Connie Siskowski, RN, PhD, and CACY Founder and Executive Director Nadine Roberts Cornish. Read the full brief: nashp.org/how-colorado-and-r… #CaregivingYouth #KidsAreCaregiversToo #YoungCarers #Caregiving @RIDeptEd @BetsyThinking @AACYorg