‘I was a mini adult looking after everyone’

UWE student Isla Kouassi-Kan had a very different childhood from most other young people. Now only 22, she has already spent half of her life caring for her parents.

Isla’s mum suffers from a range of health problems including diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, and depression. Her dad, who used to care for her mother, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. When the marriage broke down when Isla was just 11, she and her brother found themselves having to take on more and more responsibility.

“When my parents split up, my mum’s health started to really deteriorate and I became her carer,” Isla says. “I looked after her. I did all the chores. I was a mini adult looking after everyone: I cooked and cleaned and tidied.

“My mum would try and cook but I had to help. Me and my brother basically just had more chores than a normal kid would ever have. I had to help her with all the day-to-day things that she couldn’t do – normal things like getting her out and about to the shops.”

Isla is studying for a degree in history at UWE Bristol but still has caring responsibilities for her mum

Originally from Essex, Isla moved several times during her childhood, including spending two years in Ivory Coast, where her dad’s side of the family are from. When she was ten the family moved to Devon, and it was there that Isla later joined a group for young carers, which gave her time to herself and a chance to have fun and meet other people away from her responsibilities.

“The young carers’ group gave me a chance to be with people who understood what it was like,” Isla says. “Not everyone’s cases are the same, and some people were a lot worse off than others, but we all understood each other.”

Although Isla had support from the group, she still struggled to balance her social life with her responsibilities at home. At school people weren’t aware of her situation and Isla would sometimes clash with her friends, who didn’t understand why she didn’t have as much time to go out and play as the other children.

After she turned 18 Isla could no longer attend the young carers’ group, but she found further support through a scheme called Bright Futures. The organisation teaches skills to young people aged 18 to 24: things that they may have missed out on because of their commitments at home. They helped Isla with skills ranging from CV building to first aid.

When she started studying for a degree in history at UWE, Isla was the oldest in her class. She was a year behind in school and took a year out after college before resuming her studies. Isla received an enhanced bursary for being a student and young carer, but balancing both aspects of her life meant that she struggled to have a social life.

“In my first year of university, I saved the money and used it to help pay for travel to go home every weekend,” she says. “I was having to clean up a whole week’s worth of mess at home whilst trying to keep on top of uni work. I worked at Morrison’s at home too, so I was travelling down for that as well. I didn’t make any friends in first year because I was away every weekend, which is when people are socialising.”

In her second year Isla found the transition from living at home to being at university more difficult. She managed to find a new job in Bristol looking after a woman with disabilities, but it meant she couldn’t go home as regularly as she had. She worried about her mum not being able to keep the house clean without her and things getting out of hand, but was able to hire a cleaner using a UWE bursary she was eligible for.

Things at home are still difficult but Isla is determined to finish her degree. Now in her final year, she splits her time between living with her friend in a student flat near UWE, and living in Devon to help care for her mum. “My mum buries her head in the sand with things like finances, so because of that, I am financially in control of the whole house,” Isla says. “I am the adult of the house for sure, and I was from a young age.”

In spite of all of her commitments, Isla still manages to find the time for hobbies, a social life and university societies. “I have a brain that just likes to work all the time,” she says. “I’m not the kind of person who can do nothing for a day. I am always really busy. I play the guitar, I like socialising with my friends and I have time to relax as well. I’m just really good at time management because I’ve always had to be.”

Isla also mentors other university students who have caring responsibilities, directing them towards the help they are eligible for, from living in halls during the holidays to accessing bursaries.

One she graduates, Isla says she will return home to Devon to take care of her mum. However, her ambitious streak is still there, just under the surface. “I either want to work in the heritage sector, in a museum or heritage society. Or I want to be a detective,” she says. And with all that she has been through, anything she puts her mind will surely be a success.