Changing Australia: Madeleine Buchner and caring for the young carers

This episode of Radio National Breakfast's 'Changing Australia' features Madeleine Buchner, founder of Little Dreamers, a nonprofit supporting young carers in Australia. Buchner shares her personal journey as a child caregiver, starting at age nine while caring for her sick brother, and later for her mother and grandmother. She describes the emotional toll, isolation, and identity struggles that come with being a young carer—often missing school, feeling jealous of the attention given to their ill family member, and lacking support systems. Despite her resilience, she highlights alarming statistics: only 4% of young carers in Australia complete high school, 50% live below the poverty line, and two in three suffer from mental illness. Buchner draws on her Churchill Fellowship experience in the UK, where Manchester City Council successfully mainstreamed young carer support by training all community workers to identify and assist young carers—leading to better mental health outcomes, higher school retention, and reduced stigma. She advocates for similar systemic change in Australia, emphasizing that support should not require young people to self-identify or seek out specialized services.