3.1.6. United Kingdom
STRUCK, RECRUITMENT
In the UK, there were two waves of recruitment. In the first wave, Carers Trust (a UK-based charity) led the recruitment of the young carers projects to the study through its network of young carers support services. Carers Trust sent out informational leaflets to its network of hundreds of young carers projects across England. Three network partners were chosen because of their interest and perceived ability to achieve the target sample size. They were tasked with finding schools that would permit the ME-WE sessions to take place. Before COVID-19 struck, 13 schools were recruited for participation. However, once the pandemic started, the UK research team moved to an online mode of delivery. In Spring 2020, the team decided to expand its recruitment effort and performed an outreach to its wider network partners in England to find other organisations willing to take part in the project. A final total of eight young carers projects were recruited to participate in the study.