Generation Pandemic: Recent Episodes

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In the final episode of the Generation Pandemic podcast, host Catherine McDonald talks to the two principal investigators behind the Interdisciplinary Child Well-Being Network. Dr Kat Chzhen is the Network's Irish principal investigator and is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Scoiology at Trinity College Dublin. Dr Julia Mikolai focuses on the UK and is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews. They discuss the point at which they realised the Network needed to exist and what their plans are moving forward. They also look at where they think we are in terms of recovery from the pandemic and what gaps in the evidence need to be addressed.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:09

Hello and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald, and today I'm in conversation with the two Principal Investigators behind the network. Dr. Kat Chzhen is the Irish Principal Investigator and is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology at Trinity College, Dublin. Dr. Julia Mikolai, is the network's Principal Investigator for the UK, and is a senior research fellow at the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St. Andrews. So hello Cat. Hello, Julia.

Kat Chzhen 0:48

Hi!

Julia Mikolai 0:49

Hi Catherine.

Catherine McDonald 0:50

So congratulations on the completion of your network's first podcast series.

Kat Chzhen 0:55

Thank you so much, Catherine, it's been an amazing experience, a lot of it, you know, thanks to you, and Research Podcasts. But of course, all the contributors, I personally am so impressed with how many people were eager to take part and how many episodes had you know more than even the few contributors, but three or four. And it was also great to have contributors who are not academics or practitioners. But you know, say mothers with children such as Laura and others, and I am extremely thankful to them. So for me, that's been the highlights the diversity of contributors, and just how smoothly it all went. And then how exciting the episodes are to listen to.

Catherine McDonald 1:36

And Julia, what have you thought as the episodes have been published?

Julia Mikolai 1:39

Yeah, I have completely agree with Kat, I think we have heard some really heart wrenching stories from parents and teachers. And that has really allowed us to get a better grasp of people's lived experiences of the pandemic, not only what we know, from research and our colleagues and amazing contributors, but also perhaps those voices that we hear a little bit less often as researchers who might work with a secondary data. So I hope that everybody really enjoyed the series, or enjoyed it as much as we did.

Catherine McDonald 2:09

Yes, you make a really good point there, Julia. These are stories that actually as a society as a whole we possibly don't hear enough of, and they're really important stories to be told, aren't they?

Julia Mikolai 2:20

Oh, absolutely. And I think that perhaps especially certain groups of society don't hear many of these stories. So I got the impression during the pandemic, that many people weren't actually aware of the scope of socioeconomic inequalities that we have here in the UK, and also in other countries. And obviously, the pandemic has kind of reaped these up. And there has been a lot more talk, at least that was my impression among the general public as well about these inequalities.

Kat Chzhen 2:48

But there could be so much more of that, sorry to interject. And partly, it's because the pandemic, at least in the beginning, had this feature where everybody stayed at home and focused on their own family. It's almost like everybody lived in a castle with a moat. And it was so difficult to interact with others. And so of course, living in those bubbles, those who are better off, probably had very little idea about how difficult it was for those who are less well off, especially when even those who are you know, socially economically better off those who have more money and those who kept their jobs and just worked from home. They also had immense struggles working from home, especially if they have children. So everybody was just so caught up in their own problems and the unexpected nature of the challenges the pandemic brought about that I think a lot of us just didn't think enough about the struggles of those who really, really had it very tough. And that is why I'm so happy with this podcast, because finally we did hear different voices. And we need to do more of that so that everybody really understands that there are significant social inequalities. And they may even be getting worse because of the pandemic and now also the cost of living crisis and all of the other challenges, including climate change and the war, of course.

Catherine McDonald 4:14

Absolutely. So before we move on to talk more about your network, I'd like to ask you both about your individual areas of research and what you focus on. So Julia, can I start with you?

Julia Mikolai 4:26

Yeah. So my research has always been centred around socio economic inequalities in demography behaviour. So just to give you some examples, during my doctoral research, I have focused on inequalities in the link between romantic relationships and childbearing across Europe, and this also included the UK. So for example, trying to understand who are the people who do not marry but still have children, and do they marry later after having children or not? And then as a postdoctoral researcher, I have analysed the residential and housing consequences of separation and divorce, obviously there are also huge inequalities in this. And currently I work on a project that explores the inter linkages between employment, housing and family trajectories of immigrants and their descendants across several European countries. So these projects are all focused on the experiences of adults. But not long before establishing the network. My research interests have shifted to also include the consequences of demographic change and inequalities for the lives of children.

Catherine McDonald 5:26

Wow, that sounds so wide ranging, and Kat, what about you?

Kat Chzhen 5:30

So like Julia, I have been working on socio economic inequalities for a long time. But I have focused on children in particular, probably for a bit longer. Because until I came to Trinity College, Dublin, about three years ago, I spent more than six years at UNICEF. So it's the United Nations Children's Fund, but I was at the Research Centre in Florence in Italy. And I was working specifically on projects having to deal with either child poverty or child wellbeing quite often in a cross country comparative perspective. So for example, it can be really useful to show that among otherwise quite similar countries, such as you know, those in the European Union, you can have very different gaps, say, by family income, in, for example, children's education, or you can have very different rates of child poverty. And that shows that these things are not inevitable - child poverty is certainly not inevitable. You know, social gaps in children's education or life satisfaction are not inevitable, but they're policy amenable because if Norway can have low rates of child poverty than Ireland could too. All the takes is to you know, refocus various policies to some extent. So that was that kind of work very cross country comparative. And now that I'm an assistant professor in sociology, I try to look more at what drives socio economic gaps and children's outcomes. Why do they come about? What kind of theories are there that help us explain it? And how can we derive specific propositions from those theories and test them with quite high quality data, including data from birth cohort studies. So these are some of the latest things I've been doing working with data from Growing Up In Ireland, for example, a really fascinating birth cohort study that allows us to look at some fundamental questions around why do we have such unfair inequalities in children's outcomes as children grow older?

Catherine McDonald 7:47

So you're both the Principal Investigators behind the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, and the Network was established in order to study the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. Can you tell us about the point at which you realise this network needed to exist?

Julia Mikolai 8:05

Yeah, so I usually do regular searches to see what kind of funding opportunities are out there and if any of them might align with my current or future plans. And during one of my regular searches, I discovered that there was a funding opportunity to establish a collaborative network between UK and Ireland based researchers. And given that my interest really was shifting to studying the lives of children, instead of only focusing on adults, I began to search for potential collaborators to work on this topic, but I didn't really know anybody in Ireland. So I just started to look for potential individuals on the internet. And I found out that Kat was based in Ireland. And actually, we have met once before in person at a high level expert meeting in Brussels that focused on lone parents. So then it was quite easy to strike up an email conversation, you know, just referring to our earlier meeting. And this was at the point when the pandemic only just began, I think, we were still working from the office. And we basically had no idea of what was to come. And initially, the network was going to focus on child's wellbeing more broadly, which really ties in very well with Kat's research, expertise and interests. But then as we chatted about the network, or the potential topics to address in this network, we realise that the pandemic will probably have a huge impact on the lives of children. And so eventually, then we decided to focus the network around the impact of the pandemic on children's lives.

Catherine McDonald 9:28

And Kat. Do you have anything to add to that?

Kat Chzhen 9:30

Well, only that it was really exciting to get an email from Julia in spring 2020. And here we are now, you know, two years later with the project done and dusted. And we have such exciting outputs as this podcast, but also a policy brief, a journal article, a workshop recorded on YouTube and things like that. So very exciting.

Catherine McDonald 9:55

And how did you go about setting it up?

Kat Chzhen 9:57

Well, thank you for this question. I think one can start setting up a network without funding necessarily, although it's great to have funding in order to be able to pay for travel and catering and bring people together. So because Julia and I were applying for a networking grant, two research councils, one in Ireland, one in the UK, we had to show that we already have a workable idea in mind. So we started emailing people who we thought would be good to include in our network before we applied for funding. So we contacted people who we either already knew, we're working on something related to the impacts of the COVID crisis on families and children. Because at that point in sort of mid-2020, they had already been a few research projects funded by other funders. And so that information was publicly available. And we emailed the Principal Investigators on those projects. Every single person we got in touch with agreed to take part at that point, we were saying, we're applying for funding, but we would like you to be a part of our core group, the central part of the network, so that we already have you on board once we get the the funding if we get it. And we were, of course, very fearful that if we don't get the funding, then what do we do? Do we still go ahead with doing some activities, you know, without any funding? Or do we write to everyone to say, well, we didn't get the funding, it's great to know that you're out there, let's see, to maybe meet up at some conference a few years down the line. But what we had in mind is not going ahead. So luckily, we were not in that situation, we got the funding. And we could immediately start setting up events and introductions on various mailing lists to keep people in touch and to grow the network. So we asked everyone who was part of our core group, who do you think would be great to invite and everybody gave us suggestions. So then immediately went from maybe 10 people to more than 20.

Julia Mikolai 12:09

Just to add a little bit to this, I just wanted to highlight that one of the key points for us was to make sure that the network is interdisciplinary. So we had academics from a range of disciplines, including sociology, social policy, psychology, and demography. And we tried to, as Kat mentioned, contact individuals who either worked on the impacts of COVID already or who were more generally interested in child outcomes in these disciplines. And the other important point to mention is that this network doesn't only consist of academics and researchers, but also of non-academics. So we were also very keen to invite representatives of charities and third sector organisations who focus on child wellbeing or inequalities in the lives of children.

Catherine McDonald 12:57

And where is the network at right now? So what are its next steps?

Julia Mikolai 13:01

So basically, I think we have established a really great network of academic and non-academic researchers and representatives of third sector organisations, all of who focus on child wellbeing, and many of whom have investigated indeed, the impact of the COVID crisis on the lives of children. And the funding period for this project has now ended. And we have managed to achieve all of the outcomes that we have hoped to achieve with the conclusion of this podcast series actually. That is definitely the end of us delivering all of the outcomes of the project. In terms of the future, we'll continue to maintain the network, including our website and our social media presence. And we really hope to be able to collaborate with each other and other network members in the future, through applying for additional funding opportunities that might come up. And basically, as the network is set up, I think we are ready to address any current and future challenges together.

Catherine McDonald 14:00

Absolutely. I guess, you know, once those connections are made, they're not going to go away are they? Kat would you have anything to add?

Kat Chzhen 14:06

It is really exciting to have a group of people who we have interacted with, you know, in some way, even if we never managed to bring them together in one location to have a workshop. But we had an online workshop, we collaborated on a policy brief, and then also in this podcast series, it was really nice to see people from both Ireland and the UK who are part of the network coming together in particular episodes on discussing things from the point of view of the policies and the overall situation in the two respective countries. So even though we didn't meet face to face, some of the network participants actually met during the recording of these podcasts with you, Catherine. So to me that's really encouraging because we still managed to bring people together in some form.

Catherine McDonald 14:58

And aside from the sort of specific outputs, as you say, like the podcast series and the online conference that you had, what else do you feel the network has achieved? Kat, I'll come back to you on that.

Kat Chzhen 15:10

Well, I think through all these different outfits, the network has publicised the work of its members. And it allowed people to see who is working on what who has got, what kind of research findings. And hopefully going forward, both network members and others will be getting in touch with people, potential collaborators on research projects, and not only and as Julia said, we also have practitioners and non-academic participants in the network. So all of these people can now network with each other, literally and collaborate on projects. And even if they don't do anything together in any foreseeable future, they're still aware of each other's work and the work of their respective organisations. And for me, that is one of the most important outcomes or even impacts of our project.

Catherine McDonald 16:05

I can well imagine. And Julia, is there a particular bit of impact that you're most proud of? Or would you say the same as Kat?

Julia Mikolai 16:12

Yeah, I think I would have said something similar, perhaps also highlighting that we might often undervalue these types of connections. So when Kat and myself met a few years back, I don't think we thought much of that connection. But when an opportunity arises in the future, you know, my, I immediately thought of contacting her. So often, we might make these connections and not know what kind of potential there might be in these connections. And I'm really proud that this networking didn't only take place between academics, I think academics, we are all kind of trained to network and perhaps recognise more how important it is for us to know about each other and each other's work. But I think there is really this bridge that is not so easy to cross between academic and non-academic research. And I think we really managed to create these linkages between academics and non-academics, and actually, through this podcast series also managed to bring the results of our research and the research of the network to the general public, which, again, is something that we often try to do, but might not always manage to do so well. So I think, yeah, for me, I think I'm actually most proud of this podcast series, which, ironically enough, was really made possible by the pandemic itself, because due to the travel restrictions, we really were unable to carry out most of our initial plans, which have related to in person meetings and in person networking. So we really had to think of a more creative and unusual way to conclude the project. And this was the situation that really motivated us to set up the podcast series to step out of our comfort zone, has really provided this opportunity to bring the results of our research to the general public.

Catherine McDonald 17:52

Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? How sometimes our hand can be forced by unexpected situations that make us then have to find new ways of doing, you know, the things we need to do. So I guess the next obvious question is to say to both of you, and I'll start with you, Kat, what would you say to researchers who are listening to this right now? And who would like to set up a network? And who would like to do what you and Julia have done? What would you say to them? What would your advice be?

Kat Chzhen 18:18

Well go ahead and start a network because it is reasonably easy to do to just start setting it up all you need is to email someone. And I can't imagine anyone going back to say, oh, no, I don't want to be part of any network. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone. Everybody always says yes, at least in my experience, and some people might kind of drop out later or become somewhat less engaged later. But the initial reaction is usually to say yes, and tell me more about your idea. And then it's great to just maybe set up a Twitter account dedicated to the network, just so that you have everything in one place. And to have a website is really great. And honestly, huge thanks to the University of St. Andrews, because it's really, really nice that they are pretty much you know, hosting the network's website for us. Start doing things on social media, set up a website, if you can, it's not always incredibly straightforward, but it can be done. And then start communicating with people and checking where you could actually meet face to face perhaps at other workshops, conferences, and so on and so forth. Now, of course, if you want to have an interdisciplinary network, that means that its members are not necessarily going to be going to the same conferences. So they're not going to be seeing each other once a year, once every two years, kind of these similar events within discipline. So to have an interdisciplinary network, you actually do need to try to find ways to bring people together and that may require funding.

Catherine McDonald 19:59

And Julia would you have anything to add to that?

Julia Mikolai 20:01

Yeah, firstly, just to emphasise again, that if you want to set up a network, don't be afraid to reach out to people who would be a good fit. Because really, based on our own experience, people are generally very enthusiastic and super happy to be recognised for the work they do, and are keen to network and further enhance the impact of their own research. And secondly, what I found very useful is to have a lovely colleague that you team up with, and we have, I think, really shared all of the work equally, and managed to, you know, bounce ideas off of each other, and tap into both of our networks, which were actually quite different. So I think that also really helped us to create this interdisciplinary network.

Kat Chzhen 20:44

I feel so embarrassed that it didn't mention how amazing it has been to work with Julia, because indeed, we wouldn't have done it just did on our own. But also, we have had incredible co-investigators, Susan Harkness, and Jennifer Symonds, who are senior colleagues to us and have supported us along the way with the incredible ideas and suggestions. So it has, in fact, been a team of four people working quite closely together. But I think Julia has been just an incredible collaborator. And it's been really an amazing two years from when we started writing the grant proposal to now. So thank you so much, Julia, but also Jennifer Symonds and Susan Harkness.

Catherine McDonald 21:33

And so if there's a researcher listening to this now, and their work aligns with the work of the network, can they get in touch with you?

Kat Chzhen 21:40

Oh, yes, so both our email addresses are on the ICWBN website. But also, if you know one of our names, so you can just Google that out, and everything else will just come up immediately. So just drop us a line, our emails are very easy to find. And also, you know, we're on Twitter.

Julia Mikolai 22:00

And just to highlight, again, that we also work on non-academic members. So if you're a researcher at another relevant research organisation, or a third sector organisation, or even better, if you're a policymaker, Please also feel free to reach out and check out our website.

Catherine McDonald 22:16

I'm sure you'll get emails. It's sort of moving away from the mechanics of the network, if you like and on to the content of you know, the work that the network has produced and the issues we've discussed in this series. In terms of the pandemic recovery, where do you both think we're at right now, Julia, can I start with you?

Julia Mikolai 22:36

Yeah, I think this is actually quite a difficult question. So we know some things we know, for example, that children who were left behind regarding their schooling haven't exactly managed to catch up. And it is unclear whether or how, or when they will catch up. But we know much less regarding other child outcomes. And in fact, it is still unclear whether the pandemic will have long term consequences for children's lives and outcomes in the first place. And then on top of this, the current energy and cost of living crisis related to Brexit, and the war in Ukraine will probably make it harder for some children to catch up, as many families will probably continue to struggle and may fare even worse than they did during the pandemic. So my feeling is that these are not exactly the right circumstances for recovery. And I think that social science researchers will be busy for many, many years to come really to establish the real impact of the pandemic and the scope of the recovery, if any.

Catherine McDonald 23:33

And Kat would you agree?

Kat Chzhen 23:34

Yes I would agree. And I also very much hope that the pandemic is over. Because we never really know, that's what we've learned over the past two years, just as you think it's all over. Turns out, it's not. But if the COVID crisis that we have lived through, is pretty much over, then indeed, we need to start looking at its medium term and longer term consequences. And because of all the other crises that are going on right now, it's easy, unfortunately, to lose sight of all the issues that haven't been resolved post-COVID. So for example, children who started school in the 2019-2020 academic year, and then lost easily one semester of their education, and then went to school the following year, and again, last months, either because in countries schools were actually closed for several months during 2020-2021, including in Ireland. In other countries, there were fewer school closures, but a lot of children had to stay at home because they either caught COVID or were close contacts. So there was schooling disruption for two years in a row. And for some children, that will be their first two years of compulsory schooling and we still don't know necessarily how well they're catching up with all of the other crises, including, you know, the energy crisis and the war and everything else that has been happening. So if anything, I would just like the consequences of the COVID crisis to remain on the agenda, both the policy agenda and the research agenda so that we continue figuring out what actually happened, and how to make things better for those who have been affected?

Catherine McDonald 25:24

And how do we keep it on the agenda, because we've talked a lot in this series about how, you know, there needs to be a political will, and a sort of a societal will. And that with other crisis emerging that we might go off the boil, as it were, in terms of thinking about COVID and the effects it's had, what would you say to that Kat?

Kat Chzhen 25:45

Well, it can be quite straightforward to keep the consequences of the pandemic on the agenda, because it's so closely related to all of the other crisis that are happening, particularly the cost of living or the energy prices, because there is an economic component to the COVID situation, the fact that a lot of people lost their jobs, or had to reduce their working hours or had to go on state benefits, that would be less generous than what they were on before. Or perhaps were already on state benefits before the pandemic. And then other people would get more generous benefits, because presumably, they lost their jobs through no fault of their own due to the pandemic. And so there was actually inequality in state benefits in several countries. And so because the COVID crisis has such a strong economic component, or at least in my view, it is still related to everything else that is going on, particularly the cost of living. So as long as we just keep this, it doesn't have to be the pandemic constantly on the agenda, but simply the socio economic inequalities that we have in our societies that have been highlighted by the pandemic. That's what we have to keep on the agenda. Well, I suppose anything related to the so called learning loss and how to help children catch up, education wise, that is perhaps somewhat more related to school closures and therefore the pandemic, but it is also related to the economic consequences of the pandemic itself. So because everything is related, we don't have to just keep on going on about COVID itself. We just have to talk about the situation of families and children and young people who have been adversely affected over the past two years and counting.

Catherine McDonald 27:35

Julia, would you agree with that?

Julia Mikolai 27:37

Yeah, I completely agree with that. And also, I wanted to highlight that, I think it's also really important that we learn the lessons from this pandemic, to make sure that we know what was best for children and their families, should there be another pandemic, which I know nobody wants to hear that. But it seems to me that, in fact, many researchers, including governments, were also aware that such a pandemic was not a matter of if it will happen, but when it will happen. And then we increasingly hear about the possibility of, you know, such or similar pandemics also happening in the future because of the globalised world and because of how we treat animals. So should something similar happen again, we should really know immediately, what it is that we should and shouldn't do, to be able to, you know, protect everyone's health, but also protect the lives of children to the extent that that is possible. So I think it's really important that we keep researching this and that we learn the lessons from this pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 28:40

And Julia, staying with that point, do you think there are now certain gaps in our evidence that have been highlighted because of the pandemic, and the gaps that we need to fill in order to move forward properly?

Julia Mikolai 28:51

I guess one of the big gaps was that we very clearly weren't prepared for a pandemic of this kind in many ways. So we really had no idea what to do in terms of you know, socio economic policies, school closures, all the decisions have been made, either in a panic or in a delayed manner. And as I said, if we learn these lessons, hopefully, should something similar happen again, we would be fairly confident on the decisions that we need to make in order to have more optimal outcomes, both in terms of health outcomes for the population, but also for the outcomes of children. And then the other one is that it is clear that there are huge socio economic inequalities among children and their families. And I think that this was clear to many of us who work on inequalities but the pandemic has clearly exaggerated, exposed and highlighted these differences. And it seems to me that awareness about socio economic inequalities has increased during the pandemic. And as I said before, I think much more research is needed to really understand the real and potential long term impact of the pandemic on children.

Catherine McDonald 30:02

And Kat what would you say to that?

Kat Chzhen 30:03

Well, I would also add that it will be good for all of us to have a clearer idea of what has happened to our societies since spring 2020, in the realms of education, and health and mental health, and income, and deprivation and things like that. And I'm specifically talking about the types of administrative data that the government's already have collected on a regular basis. And maybe there was a gap in Spring/Summer 2020, when some of these things weren't done. So for example, in Ireland standardised tests in primary schools were not done in Spring/Summer 2020, because of the pandemic, but then in the following years, those things were done again, and it will be good to see the trend, and to really have an idea of whether things got worse, potentially since before the pandemic, because there are all sorts of things that researchers are doing and collecting their own data. Some of it is small scale, and not necessarily nationally representative, or it is but again, it has some other limitations. While governments have all of these huge administrative databases that it would be nice to see some findings from those in anonymized and aggregated form so that all of us have a clear and transparent understanding of what has been happening to us and our societies since the start of the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 31:26

My thanks to doctors Kat Chzhen and Julia Mikolai. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcasts production. Thank you for listening.

View Details

In the penultimate episode of the Generation Pandemic podcast, we ask two important questions; where are we now in terms of the recovery of our children and young people, and what gaps in the evidence has the pandemic highlighted? Joining host Catherine McDonald are a selection of contributors from across the Generation Pandemic series.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald and in this penultimate episode of our series, I've spoken again to a selection of our series contributors, to ask them where they think we are now in terms of our recovery from the pandemic, and what further research we should be engaging in moving forward? Here's Professor Susan Harkness, from the University of Bristol, and Professor Mary Murphy from the National University of Ireland Maynooth with their thoughts on where we are now.

Susan Harkness 0:43

So I think as we come out of the pandemic, we really need to be keeping an eye on inequalities, and in particular the inequalities in children's learning. So I think what we're probably going to see as we get better and better data about how children are doing at school, but the broader sort of cognitive outcomes is going to be really important to understand how inequalities between children in terms of these in terms of their education are opening up or not. And I think in terms of policy, we will need to sort of step in if there's evidence that there are particular groups. So I think, you know, clearly some groups, some schools, some areas that have been more affected by COVID, than others. And I think we need them to need to really sort of think seriously about how we try and reduce inequalities between schools, between pupils, between regions. And I think maybe the other thing we need to think about as well is, I think we're gonna have to think about children's mental health and how they've really been affected by the pandemic. And I think once again, I think we've got evidence that there are big negative mental health effects. We know that children in single parent families, mental health has been more negatively affected, and it was already a bit worse pre-pandemic. And in many ways, it's not surprising because clearly, the pandemic has really adversely affected groups such as single parents, their employment has fallen more, it's going to be much more of a struggle, in terms of homeschooling in terms of sort of surviving on a single income over the course of the pandemic. And all these stresses, I think, are going to show up in both in mother's mental health, but also in their children's mental health. And I think we need to be concerned about whether these effects kind of persist in the longer term. And we've seen data, for example, on the Children's Commissioner talking about the increasing number of school absences, and the number of school refusals, I think we really need to be getting a handle on these children that are really, really a new and growing group are really going to be underperforming in terms of their education, I think that's a really, you know, there's a lot of very worrying trends for, for children and their well being and also differences inequalities between them. So not just between rich and poor, but between different types of schools and different areas, for example. So I think there's a lot of a lot of things we need to be concerned about for the future.

Mary Murphy 3:00

It's very, very hard to tell, isn't it? Because in a way, we're still in the pandemic, and we're still having to cope with various social protocols around it. But we're also emerging into a new crisis in inflation, but also causing war in Ukraine, I think our policy system that our way of working has to be able to respond to an assumption that we are always going to be chasing our tail to some degree around crisis in the next couple of decades. But I do think that we begin with the impacts of what happened in the pandemic crisis begin to show for example, I'm here with our pet dog, who was the pandemic pet if you like, and is experiencing really genuinely high levels of anxiety, if left alone at all. And if you multiply that out, then to the degree to which families are readjusting to having been at home, as complete units, young children born into that situation, are now having to experience a return to work of parents, new institutionalised forms of care. And this is all difficult for families to manage and to cope with. If I look at my own experiences as an educator in third level, really genuine amongst maybe young people aged 19 to 23 really serious mental health stress and anxiety issues, as they cope with not only the how the second level education ended so abruptly, in terms of not being able to consolidate or even, you know, exit friendship groups, but then their incapacity to develop new networks and friendships and social lives. And that is having an impact that I don't think we understand at all, in terms of their capacity to engage and attend their education. I think more broadly, then we have that issue of younger people returning to school and trying to negotiate expectations about education is now is this blended? Is it online? Is it back fully in person? And we're still grappling with that. And we don't really know what we're doing as educators, I would suggest. I think that the other thing is that it was an assumption, I think, as the care needs became more and more evident during the pandemic, that a lot of the care were assumed to be very elastic in their capacity to stretch out and provide all these kinds of forms of care. And we don't really know what the cost of that burden of care has been on women's lives, as mothers, as sisters, as daughters. And we need to understand that because we need to factor that into the real cost of the pandemic, and understand what we can heap on people's shoulders, as we're now demanding. They take off that place in the productive economy again. So I think, you know, the sense to which we should have a better understanding now, but I don't think we necessarily do of the real value of care that takes place in the informal unpaid economy, that became more obvious during the crisis, but were quickly putting it back in its box to some degree and that would worry me. So I think we do have evidence gaps around a number of things around the impact on mental health, the forms of education that might work for us, the reality of the care burden for women, particularly unpaid and informal care and trying to get a better sense of how much that impacts on the quality of lives of families and women. I think there's a lot that we could talk about in that context.

Catherine McDonald 6:04

Next, we hear from Professor Birgitta Rabe, from the Institute for Social and Economic Research, and Dr. Rod Hick from the University of Cardiff.

Birgitta Rabe 6:13

Well, I suppose, you know, we are at a point in time where the restrictions have been lifted. Everything's back to normal procedurally - children are going back to school. But there are still large scars remaining for children. Currently, people are sitting exams, young people are sitting exams, their A levels, and this cohort of children has never sat their GCSEs. Their last formal exams they've had was at the end of primary school. And I suspect there will be a lot of fallout from that. So there is not a sense that this is over. And I suppose children will carry that burden for quite some time with them. And our own research has shown that recovery is not instant for mental health problems. And there are many reports now especially how young children are affected by having been away from school for such a long time. So I wouldn't say that we can be overly optimistic, although obviously, it's great for the children to be able to be back at school.

Rod Hick 7:16

Life itself, I would say we're well on the way to returning to, you know, a good degree of normality. I mean, schools, our own colleges and universities, we're able to see our families and friends, again, we're able to travel again, so many of the aspects of life that were disrupted, most have resumed to, you know, some level of normality. And in many cases, actually, back to quite a good level of normality. But obviously, in terms of economy, things are more concerning in that we're facing very rapidly into a cost of living crisis. So hence, the storm clouds are gathering once again. And it's a real concern, partly because the economic impact of COVID, at least in terms of its potential impact on unemployment, in the longer term didn't really materialise. That potential risk didn't materialise, as we might have feared. But this new found concern about the cost of living crisis is very real. And I think there are real concerns about the extent to which an inflation shock, which is very much focused on energy prices at the moment sort of filters out into a more wide ranging inflation crisis. And we simply don't know how long this cost of living crisis will go on for. There are both kind of optimistic and relatively pessimistic estimates, and maybe the risk and the concern there is that in the last, or in the financial crisis, rather, one of the dynamics we saw was that some government decisions didn't always support families to the extent that they might have. That was one of the concerns, I think, emerging from that crisis. And I guess that's the particular risk that families face into, you know, not only facing into the winter ahead, but into the next two, three years.

Catherine McDonald 9:02

Finally, on the question of where we are in terms of our recovery from the pandemic, here's Dr. Aisling Murray, Senior Research Officer on the Growing Up in Ireland study team, and Dr. Jim Kaufman from the COVID Realities project.

Aisling Murray 9:17

I think we probably won't be able to answer that, for Growing Up in Ireland until next year, but what we are doing at the moment is our younger cohort of young people who were 12, back when we surveyed them in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, there are 13 going on 14 now. And we're actually interviewing them again to see how they're getting on. And we're asking them about how they've settled back in school, their physical and emotional health. And we're also asking their parents about the financial and household circumstances to see how that's changed or also how I suppose it compares not just to the pandemic times, but also pre-pandemic when this group of children were aged nine. So it's a work in progress for us at Ireland Catherine, Growing Up in Ireland, but do come back to us next year.

Jim Kaufman 10:05

So where I'm speaking from, which is the UK, it feels very much in terms of the broader kind of public narrative, it can often feel very much like the pandemic is almost over. But it's very clear in the work that we do on COVID Realities, talking to our participants, that the pandemic, and its effects are very much still with us. And they're not over at all. So I think there's that sense, we're in a strange moment where there can be a bit of a mismatch between the bigger public narratives, political narratives, and the kind of experiences of people that have been affected by the pandemic, which lingers on and has sort of slower unfolding consequences so I think we're in that kind of strange space.

Catherine McDonald 11:01

A strange space, but with a degree of recovery underway. So what do our serious contributors feel we need to keep monitoring as we move forward? Where are the gaps in the evidence base? And what research questions do we need to ask? Here's Professor Harkness and Professor Murphy.

Susan Harkness 11:17

What will be the consequences of these gaps in employment over the course of the pandemic? So for example, mothers who've given up work, perhaps to do home schooling or reduce their working hours, what impact will that have on their careers in the future? And these sorts of questions, I think, are also really kind of important as to whether some of these changes will be damaging, or whether we'll see for example, the growth in home working as something that maybe we can learn from, and that might help women's position in the labour market, and therefore really helps to support families and their incomes of single parents and couple parents.

Mary Murphy 11:51

Well, there's a lot but I'm just going to point towards three that I am personally quite close to. The first is going back to my oldest in education, I would feel that although we've got a lot of quantitative data about who watched what, where, why, how when we don't have a very good qualitative sense of how people experienced online education, both from the point of view of the students, but also from the point of view of the lecturers who were delivering online education. And I think until we have a better sense of that, we're not in a position to make value judgments about what worked and what didn't work and what we should proceed with. Because we don't know the cost of us in terms of the the the informal losses that occurred in the context of delivering informal blended kinds of education. And the second area I mentioned earlier, but it relates to having a real sense of what the mental health implications of the pandemic are, particularly on young adults, because I think there are a particular group that we name in our discourses haven't been impacted. But we do very little, I think, to really dig deep and try and understand what's going on. And I think this is difficult to do, because I think they're in the midst of other crises. I mean, even for example, the war in Ukraine, really unjust war is also impacting on anxiety and the kind of the existential kind of threat that that young people are feeling about the world in general. But I do think we need to give them more time and we need more space to understand what is going on for them, and what might work in terms of enabling them to resume a journey through life to adulthood. The third area relates to the degree to which we depend on paid and informal care in a lot of our lives in our own homes, but in other homes and in the broader community. And I think the pandemic did shine a light on that and exposed the degree to which there was a lot of informal unpaid care happening. But there is a sense now that we're moving on that we just want to put that back in his box, make it invisible, keep it so that we don't need to do anything about it. And we just assume that largely women in their lives will take up the burden of that care. But I think we need to do a lot to count this, to value it because it does play a fundamental role in a functioning healthy flourishing society, and economy.

Catherine McDonald 14:07

Next, we hear from Adam Salisbury research economist from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Professor Rabe and Dr. Hick.

Adam Salisbury 14:15

I would really like to see some more evidence on the value of remote learning compared to in person instruction. So this is something that came up a lot in our research. When we were trying to assess learning loss, we were able to measure the quantity of time that children spent learning quite nicely, but we found measuring the quality of this time was much more difficult. So before the pandemic, there were some studies looking at the effectiveness and distance learning in university contexts, but there was nothing in school contexts. And having had this information beforehand would have enabled us to get more accurate learning loss estimates, which could have helped inform the early policy response. Now having said this, while this is a gap in the evidence, the pandemic reveals, I expect we'll learn a lot more about this in the coming months and years as we get test score information on the cohorts that experience distance learning throughout the pandemic. So I would be surprised if we found out that distance learning was as effective as in person instruction. Because you can imagine if you're in a classroom, the teachers can pick up on cues much more easily from students, they can identify for students struggling with a problem, and they can provide more tailored support. Having said that, I think it's very possible that distance learning became more effective as the pandemic progressed. Because we've learned lots of stories about our schools and teachers were able to sort of adapt and learn how to deliver distance learning more effectively, as they got more experienced in doing so.

Birgitta Rabe 15:29

Definitely, we have to monitor and keep looking and seeing you know, how to meet the increased demand for mental health services. And monitoring definitely must be a part of that. We have conducted some research on free school meals fairly recently. And there seems to be a sense that the food that children eat at home is not as good nutritionally and often have higher calorific value than the food that children actually get at school. And added to that, I suspect, also children tend to get more exercise in school. And I mean, certainly if you compare the lockdown situation to going to school in the school run, and all of that will give you more physical exercise, I'm not surprised at all the children ended up being heavier for the height than they were pre-pandemic. But what we do know as well is that as households feel the financial squeeze, it is the case that if you have a low household budget, and often the quality of the food is worse, but it doesn't mean that the calories also go down. So it's more a matter of malnourishment. And that's one of the dangers that this cost of living process is going to pose.

Rod Hick 16:40

So I think there are probably three areas that we might productively see further research or that I think really are in need of further research. The first two are about the longer term impacts of what was really quite a unique experience during the pandemic. And those are the longer term impacts on people's mental health, both for children and for adults. And then the long term impact on educational attainment, the inequality in that attainment, those are two areas that strike me as being hugely significant, where the sheer uniqueness of the experience of the pandemic means that this type of shock might well look quite different to what we know from the evidence base in terms of other shocks. The third is perhaps less remarked upon but I think is, you know, equally important, which is any impact on changes in family formation itself. You know, the extent to which people find partners, the marriage rate for those who are married the divorce rate, and ultimately, the fertility rates, the extent to which people are having children. Those strikes me as being important variables for us to be monitoring and examining, you know, not only this year, but in the years ahead, and indeed, examining the interaction between where we might see a shock or little change in relation to those variables, the kind of longer term effect potentially of a recession as we face into the coming years.

Catherine McDonald 18:09

Finally, on the question of research priorities for the future, we hear from Dr. Murray and Dr. Kaufman.

Aisling Murray 18:15

I think, I suppose a lot of the focus will be on things that we already know to be important, and just how those are things have changed, like I said, that emotional wellbeing, physical health unknown, I suppose what the longer term impacts might be for children and young adults who contracted COVID. But I think we've kind of considering going forward more about things like their screen time, the good and bad, especially for the younger cohort, the pandemic, if you'd like accelerated their immersion into the digital world, when so many things that they'd have normally done in person moved online. So in the field work that we're currently doing with 13 year olds, we'll be asking them more about their relationship with the internet, and also the parents how much time they spend online these days.

Jim Kaufman 18:55

It's an interesting question. And I think I'm not sure that I have a really clear answer to that yet. I think it's still something that we're kind of working through and trying to identify where those gaps might be. But I think one thing that is really clear, is that it's not always about research gaps, so much as which research which evidence already have gets used, and which evidence gets, for whatever reason sidelined or ignored. So just speaking, in terms of COVID Realities, we're working with parents and carers on a low income, most of whom are engaged with the social security system. And there's already a great deal of evidence how that social security system currently inadequate to meet people's needs and increasingly to meet their basic needs. There's also a great deal of evidence documenting the ways that that doesn't always work for people and that can actually present greater problems into them's having to wait quite a long time for their first payments, in terms of repayable loans, rather than additional grants and all this kind of thing. So, you know, we already have a lot of evidence about these things. So I think there's a kind of question there about which evidence gets used, and which gets ignored. And I think, in that sense, it's not just about thinking about evidence gaps, but it's thinking about the policy process, and how we make sure that the evidence that comes from people lived experience gets a hearing.

Aisling Murray 20:37

One thing that came through from the focus groups we did with young adults was not just the idea that the pandemic had caused a traffic jam for them. But also that the pandemic combined with the housing crisis at the moment, meant that they weren't really achieving the milestones, I suppose any order at the time they'd expect to do so young people experienced much more job loss and disruption to employment patterns during the pandemic than did older adults. But also, I suppose, the idea that then many of them move back home to be with parents, and I suppose are still there. And actually, one young person said to us that we should ask other young adults, are they still living the same life they were when they were 15? So between being at home with parents and perhaps not being able to get a job or progress their career, you know, have they really moved on in 10 years? And I thought that was quite powerful quote for somebody who's approaching 25. But there were no there was a glimmer of some, you know, the kind of positive learnings from the pandemic and you know, suppose how you reevaluate sort of time with family and what you really want from life, it was a kind of an opportunity to pause if you like, and actually one young person said that, you know, they kind of think about changes in the idea of the social collective, as they describe that, you know, society and how we feel responsibility towards each other. So, you know, possibility for, I suppose, positive growth as well as negative aspects of the pandemic. And actually in our stakeholder councils, academics and researchers, they were quite keen to pursue that possibility of kind of positive growth for the self, if you like, as well as negative experiences.

Catherine McDonald 22:14

My thanks to today's guests, and indeed all our contributors on this series. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcasts production. Thank you for listening, and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode 8 of the Generation Pandemic podcast, we're looking through the eyes of a youth worker at the experiences of children and young people during COVID-19. Joining host Catherine McDonald is Declan Keenan, a youth worker at the Just Ask after-school club in Dublin. Declan explains how the pandemic affected the young people he works with and looks to the action he feels is needed as we move through the recovery.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald. And today I'm talking to Declan Keenan, a youth worker at the Just Ask after school club in Dublin, about the lives of the children he works with. I began by asking Declan how he became a youth worker?

Declan Keenan 0:32

Well, I fell into youth work quite accidentally in the late 80s. So in Ireland in the late 80s, there was quite an economic depression, there was no work around, so I was unemployed at the time, the company I'd worked with had just gone into liquidation. So I was asked to come down on help out with the youth club.

Catherine McDonald 0:51

And how old were you then?

Declan Keenan 0:53

I'd been in my early 20s, I suppose around 24 to 20, maybe 22/23, something like that.

Catherine McDonald 1:00

And we've not looked back, you've been doing it ever since?

Declan Keenan 1:03

Well, yes. As it kind of progressed. And we were looking at some of the issues that were coming in and facing us with the young people and started listening a little bit more to them, I started to realise that I didn't have a lot of answers. And I really was out on my depth. When it came to some of the questions young people were asked me or some of the challenges they had. And I took a big risk and applied to go back to college as a mature student, and study social science, in the hope to find some answers to these questions that were constantly coming at me.

Catherine McDonald 1:37

And can you give me an example of what the questions were back then?

Declan Keenan 1:41

So we had young people coming in from a quite a damaged community, and they had no controls on themselves, they would just come in, they would be loud, they would be aggressive, they'd be violent towards each other, some of them would be cowering away, they were trying to steal everything, they would try to disrupt everything. When you'd speak to them about it, you know, sometimes then they tell you about just what life was like for them and the estate they lived in and coming in to the kind of youth club setting was as weird for them as anything else was like going to school or anything like that you know, some of the things they were just up to, and it kind of reminded me of my own upbringing, and a lot of the problems and difficulties I had as a child and a lot of the wildness, I suppose I would have been in me as a young person.

Catherine McDonald 2:28

And so what did your study sort of bring out in you? And how did they enhance your understanding, and therefore your ability to help these young people?

Declan Keenan 2:37

I think, you know, the studies, although they were great and really interesting, I found it was bringing up more questions for me than answers. But obviously, as I was going through the studies, and I was still volunteering with this club, I was maturing, and some of the answers were coming. But they weren't like bolts of light out of the sky. They were just slowly seeping into the way I was thinking into the way I was trying to change how I reacted towards young people or approach them. So I was really learning on the job.

Catherine McDonald 3:10

And so fast forward, what is it 20/30 years and you're at the Just Ask, after school club in Dublin. Tell me about that club and how it started and how long you've been there?

Declan Keenan 3:22

Okay, so within the same organisation, one day, this young person knocked on the door. And his opening statement was, I am stupid. So we had a conversation around that and how it probably wasn't the case. And what came about in the conversation he said was, he was always in trouble. And he reckoned at the kind of 11 years of age, that that trouble stemmed from school, that he wasn't able to concentrate in school that he never done homework for school. So he was always in trouble with his teachers. And then the notes would come home to his parents, and he'd be in trouble at home. And then he'd be fighting with everybody. And then he bring it out onto the street. And it just seemed like his cycle of negativity was just stemming from just having a negative experience in school. And we had a teacher working with us at the time. We said to him, look, we'll help you. Every Wednesday we have some time we come in and we'll do the homework with you so he said okay, well, can I bring a friend? Started for these two young men every Wednesday just helping them with our homework. And it slowly developed into other children and other parents coming and saying, Hey, you're helping these, can you start helping me? I need to help. And then something we discovered as we were going on one of the workers said I think the kids are hungry. And we just started to have cereal there for them when they came in from school. And then we started to give them noodles and started to give them what are kind of just easy meals, just something easy to get some food into their stomach. And then the Jamie Oliver programme came on about school dinners. Both myself and the other worker had watched it. We kind of both came in the next morning and looked at each other and said, did you see our programme last night? We're probably doing these kids more damage than good. And he said, how about if I cook a dinner for them today? And I went, Okay, let's see how that goes. You know so we cooked a dinner for them. And, you know, the initial thing was urgh there's green stuff and that, like what's that? Like vegetables, and urgh so they ate the meat and they ate the potatoes. But we slowly started to build up just feeding the young people. By the end of the year, our club had gone from 8 young people to about 25, or 26. And the change in their behaviour was just astounding, you know, just to see how calm and relaxed that they where - they weren't fighting each other as much they weren't as unsettled, as distracted. And it was purely down to giving them a hot healthy meal every day. So that's become a staple of the Just Ask programme. At the time, it was just called a homework club. But we then developed it into an after school club. And we kind of said, Look, homework is part of it. But it's not our whole reason of being here together. You know, it's about looking after the needs of the child when they come in after school.

Catherine McDonald 6:13

Can you talk me through the sort of challenges that the children and young people you work with, were facing before COVID?

Declan Keenan 6:21

It's an inner city community, in the heart of Dublin, a lot of challenges in the community for young people is that it's a community that always has a high proportion of crisis cases going on. So there's always a high proportion of young people, really at the 11th hour in their schooling, when they're in secondary school, with schools threatening to expel them, or them deciding themselves that they're just not going to attend school anymore. They would have an over proportion compared to the society of young people, you know, being either taken into care, or coming into the state, view, you know, of young people who are very at risk. So, you know, schools, youth clubs, everybody would always have about 20% to a quarter of the young people who are in very high risk at that particular time. And should you get some of them crosses the line into a state of stability, there's always someone to take their place. That's the kind of community we were in before COVID. And we were coming out of the last economic recession where services had been slashed, you know, some of the kind of older quality people who had been in the community had lost their jobs, or had just retired and despair. And so we lost a lot of the knowledge base within the community within services, because the service was either just not there anymore, not able to be sustained by funding.

Catherine McDonald 7:51

And what sort of services are you referring to there?

Declan Keenan 7:54

So it'd be different child and adolescent services, maybe after school services, youth services had been cut, and our budgets and funding so they'd lost youth workers. Schools themselves, struggling for teachers, young people, then are always seeing people coming and going, they're not seeing the stability that they really need. It's a community that relies on services to help them get through day to day.

Catherine McDonald 8:19

And what about the home life of the young people that you work with on a daily basis? What kind of things are they experiencing at home?

Declan Keenan 8:27

So like I said, there is 20 to 25% of young people who are constantly in crisis, that also means that there's, you know, 75 to 80%, who are not in a crisis element, you know, but still for them, their families are struggling, the inner city community in Dublin, the indigenous people who would be there as well as for want of a better word. They'd have been there for generation after generation. And then we now have, in our small part of the community, we have 39 nationalities, living within that community, living in apartments, and living in quite inadequate housing. So they just kind of built apartments around the flat complexes and put in people from these communities. So it's not like you see in some of the large cities where there's, you know, sections where all the Romanian people live, or all the, you know, in London, the Irish people might have lived in certain sections of community, you know, and you had a little bit of more support with your own community being around you. Here, we have 39 different nationalities all put into the same pot. So they don't have the same value systems, sometimes from their own culture. They don't have the same cultural norms. They don't have the same language amongst the parents. So there's not the same support systems set up quickly, you know, that you'd find even in struggling communities, you know, where there's a large section of one type of people getting together and they might form a club or an association or something like that, and they'd have that support system around them.

Catherine McDonald 10:04

And what about employment so that the parents of the children that come to your club, and therefore the aspirations of the children that come to your club, what is the current employment picture in the area in which you work?

Declan Keenan 10:16

So employment, again, amongst the people who had been there for generations, has always remained a struggle, because their attainment usually hasn't been great in education, they haven't reached those jobs that are paying them well. The area of the community that we work in is known as the markets area. So it would have been the old fruit and vegetable markets. So people would have traditionally relied on jobs in the fruit or vegetable markets. So those markets then were removed, because you can't be bring in big trucks in through the city anymore. So they kind of moved out into the suburbs. So people have lost their traditional jobs. And so a lot of them do struggle, then to find employment locally within the community, they find it very difficult sometimes, to travel out into the suburbs. That was something that took me years to come to understand that, you know, everything, for the whole generation has been just at our fingertips, our job, to shops or like beside them to run in the city centre, they just have to walk down to the high street, they have everything they need within walking distance, and slowly but surely, that's been taken away from them, and been removed. So they do struggle, there's a high proportion of men missing from the community. So a lot of the employment would have been traditionally put on women. So again, they'd struggle to find jobs locally. And then employment has changed itself from years ago, you would have got a job where you expected to keep that job as long as it stayed open, or as long as you were willing to be in it. And now we have all these, you know, short term or no term contracts, where people just get work when it comes or it doesn't come and then they are going back to social welfare. And they're trying to find some more work. And it's just a cycle of trying to find work to work stopping times like Christmas, summer, when there's a big influx of tourism. Yes, there'll be jobs going. In other times that your slacks down and there's no work.

Catherine McDonald 12:17

Which all comes back doesn't it to that question of instability, the children that are coming to you seem to have an element of instability in most parts of their life?

Declan Keenan 12:26

Yes, you know, we often refer to how it is for young people in the inner city as like they're living in a chaotic society, everything seems to be chaotic for them. Their norm is chaos. And then for the 25%, that are kind of high maintenance families, their chaos goes to extreme. And then if you do well, you'll bring them back down to a normal level of chaos. And of course, if that's your norm, you don't notice it.

Catherine McDonald 12:53

So as COVID came upon us and the lockdowns were first introduced, what did you begin to notice?

Declan Keenan 13:01

As for everybody, it came upon us really like a guillotine coming down. What was really instantly noticeable was the young people who went missing, they just refused to answer anything that you'd put out to them, you know, any questions, any kind of outreach that you're trying to do to them, they just not interested. The sun was shining really strongly in Ireland in that first half of that lockdown, which is unusual for us. So we were having this fantastic spring, the children weren't allowed outside. So they were sneaking out and they were going into places where they knew people wouldn't come looking for them. And then the reports coming back instantly was of, you know, chaotic scenes happening along canal banks and things like that violence starting to increase. So that's happening one cohort of our young people, then we'd have a large proportion of young people who are being raised by grandparents. And so they were then sitting at home, extremely fearful, being told, if you go outside the door, you're gonna kill your grandmother. And that's the only person they have, who loves, cares for them in the world, as far as they can see. And they don't see that if anything would happen to that grandparent, who else would look after them? They would come onto the Zooms with us. They'd have lots of questions. They were panicky, they were panicky about trying to get schoolwork done without any guidance at all. So we set-up classes in the morning where they could ask questions about their schoolwork, and we'd help them with it. And the whole mood was just one of panic, you know, and then there was about 50% of them who kind of took it day by day, you know, and obviously we couldn't get in to see them. So you're just relying on what information was common to you through your computer or your phone.

Catherine McDonald 14:51

And obviously across the UK, there's pockets of digital poverty, the digital divide about who had tablets and laptops and computers and who didn't - did some of the children that you work with fall foul of that?

Declan Keenan 15:03

Yes, you know, there was young people who they were in a small flash. So if they had the internet, it was usually on their phone. And always usually that they paid the monthly subscription to the phone company, and they had broadband that way. But they normally relied on, you know, going to places where there was WiFi to kind of keep their broadband usage going. And then they found they were at home using broadband a lot more. But all of their family are also at home using broadband more, and everyone in the flat complex is using the broadband more so the signal was dropping, and they only had a phone to maybe do their homework on. These weren't young people who would have, you know, the families would have invested in laptops or things like that, that would have been too much money to spend on something - I remember, you know, frantically sending messages around to different people seeing who had laptops, that anyone got ones to spare that could send to some young people so that they could just have communication, because then maybe once a week, communicate and say I just got my dad's phone or my mom's phone or my sister's phone. And, you know, I don't have a phone myself. So, you know, I can only talk for a few minutes here.

Catherine McDonald 16:15

So the effects that you're talking about how did those change across the course of the pandemic? Because, you know, obviously, we have periods of lockdown periods of return to school, and to sort of a semi-normal life, how did those sorts of effects fluctuate?

Declan Keenan 16:32

Yeah, I think when we came out of that first initial lockdown, and the summer was kind of coming towards young people, so school didn't restart for them. So they had just such a huge long break. And we almost had a respite period in the summer, where the cases were just remaining stable, which we're still constantly getting the message across from media, you know, to be careful to watch out to distance to wear masks. So there was an element coming back in of this new normal as they were calling it. So people were very unsure. Well, how long is this gonna last? Is it gonna get worse? Is it gonna get better. And it was just day to day, you know, it was just a very unclear two years of ups and downs.

Catherine McDonald 17:17

And several people across this series have sort of specifically spoken about that post Christmas lockdown when the children certainly here in the UK didn't go back to school after Christmas, as expected was that the same in Ireland, and given that it was in the middle of winter, was that a particularly difficult time?

Declan Keenan 17:36

So I remember, there was a young person we work with, and sadly, the grandparent who they lived with passed away of COVID, and went in travelled up to Dublin to see them, we had to meet them in a park. And it was the first time we're really seen the streets empty, and one or two people kind of scurring by fully with masks on - it was stark. So the school had kind of come up with new ideas how to keep people safe, so they put them into bubbles. And we see in young people sometimes been sent home three or four times, because someone in their bubble, had someone in their family or themselves had tested positive for COVID. So the whole bubble was sent home, to isolate in an already isolated community, while I'd go in from time to time, to the flats, and you would see a young person standing up on our balcony, not able to go down to the playground because they were isolating. And you'll start to look of despair on our face, you know, when you couldn't even go up to them.

Catherine McDonald 18:41

So those children that you could reach and have a conversation with what were they saying to you during these times?

Declan Keenan 18:48

The first lockdown. You know, there was elements of, you know, nervousness, and excitement and newness. And like it was strange in a different way. This one felt much more had the air of despair. So as I said, it was winter time, for the first time you started to see a real sense of despair on people's face, almost giving up like, this is our lot, we just have to start accepting it.

Catherine McDonald 19:15

I mean, it must have felt overwhelming for you, the children that you were, you know, pre-COVID being able to keep a relatively close eye on and provide such huge support to and then suddenly you couldn't reach them. How did that feel?

Declan Keenan 19:31

At that stage it became a case of like, so people who are in uniform are considered at that stage then to be essential workers. So you could go in and but a lot of services had shut down and decided that they weren't going to do any face-to-face work. So one of the real issues was our whole ability to work well the way we do at Just Ask is to be able to rely on other services when we see a young person, in distress for whatever reason, we'd work out who do we need to get this young person to? Who do we need to involve in the conversation here? How do we need to wrap services, not just a service, but services around this young person. And then all of a sudden, you're ringing other services and they are just going we are not doing face to face work, we can't do any of that. Young person, just refusing - I'm not going on another Zoom call. I don't want to talk to someone over Zoom, just to see and all of those services being pulled from people. At the end of the second lockdown, we had the case where young people were going back to school. And for the first time, they had to wear masks in secondary school. In primary school, in the fifth and sixth classes in primary school, they had to wear masks, it was quite frightening for a lot of young people. So they weren't sure that it just felt a school experience just felt very bad for them. They were coming back saying they didn't want to be in school, they didn't like going to school, don't want to wear this mask anymore. I don't want to be stuck in the class wearing a mask. I want to see my friends. My friends are not in my bubble anymore. So I can't even sit near my friends. So just seemed like you know, where we were saying wave after wave of COVID. There was wave after wave of restrictions on young people being young people.

Catherine McDonald 21:22

And how would you say COVID, therefore has left those young people?

Declan Keenan 21:27

I think there's still a very strong feeling of this is not over if it happened that way before is it going to happen that way, again? But I think it has left young people with an air of doom in them, you know, and even though, you know, we talk about and we can see the resilience of young people, they will just get on day to day on on the outside, at least you know, they'll seem happy go lucky. They'll be playing away. If you ask them the direct question, are you okay today? Is everything good? They'll go fine, no problem. Because they don't want to be in a conversation about not being fine. It's not a place you want to be as a child, is it?

Catherine McDonald 22:04

So what are you being able to do to kind of make sure that those who might have sort of a deep seated fear that doesn't come out in that original sort of line of how are you today type questioning? How are you working with the children to sort of make sure that the deep seated fears don't go completely undetected?

Declan Keenan 22:23

One of the things we did was we got a group of young people and we formed a group with them, they named it the vibes. So they would talk regularly, not only about how they were feeling, but how the classmates are feeling or people in different clubs or in their family at their age were feeling. And they put together some Instagram pages and Facebook pages, where they would share positivity, they had this idea of these five things a day that you could do to stay positive, you know, by connecting with other people by contributing, you know, by staying healthy, all of these kinds of things that they would do. So they promote that amongst young people. So that got a lot of our young people talking and then as they would come in and share what they were doing. So that would help young people maybe loosen up and say, yeah, I feel that way. I feel a bit this way. And the young people themselves, then, you know, we're trying to just share their experiences about how, you know, they would get over that.

Catherine McDonald 23:18

And you know, we've talked a lot in this series so far about the resilience of our children and young people and the level of resilience, they've shown through the pandemic, which you yourself referred to earlier, and also how good a lot of them have been at articulating their feelings. It sounds like you would agree with that.

Declan Keenan 23:37

I would it to some degree. But I'd also be cautious. Because going back to earlier, where we're saying we're working in a community that always consistently has a high proportion of young people who are in some form of chaos, when we look at the adults in our community. So they would have been the young people when I started working and, you know, most of the parents of the Just Ask children came to Just Ask when they were children. So yes, you know, we would have seen resilience in them in everything that they had to face, all the things that they had to overcome. But when we look at the outcomes of that life, there's so much sadness, there's so much despair. There's so much, you know, abuse of substances. There's so much broken families, you know, so on the outside, like I say, a child might seem resilient to the eye, you know, and they say they're fine and are happy and are playing with their friends or whatever. But will the outcome be something far more difficult to face? That's what my fear will be, you know, and if as a society we just say, well, that's over and done with let's try and put it behind us now and move forward. But we don't really start to piece together what went wrong? What was bad, allowing young people to talk about it for having also solutions for them because a young person who have not learned those solutions, and are not going to learn solutions from adults who have never learned those solutions. So like I said, a community like ours has a high dependency on outside organisations being there for them. And all of the stuff that was causing these people to be highly dependent on services before COVID, has not changed. Some of it's got worse, it's one thing after another after another, on top of an already struggling community. So, you know, it would be a question, you know, what is resilience? You know, is it just the ability to be able to push it down a little bit further and smile a little bit better, I'd suggest that for some people, at least, that that's the case, I have a strong recollection of a young lady who's a mother now in a very struggling family. And when I was quite young, much younger, working in the job, I drove past our house. And at the moment, I was driving past our house, she was coming out the door, there was screaming, coming behind her. And she was crying, she was visibly upset. And she closed slammed the door behind her. And then she didn't notice me. And she just took this deep breath, wiped her face, and put on a smile, and changed her stance, and then walked out. And it was one of those paradigm shift moments for me of seeing, Oh, my goodness, look at all that trauma just being shoved down and put a smile on the face. And so we're looking at a community that already has layer upon layer, upon layer of disadvantage of struggle, before the pandemic ever hit. And all of those struggles are still there. All of those problems are still there. And now, we've got this thing still looming over us still looming over our young people. They've been told your world has changed forever, without any quantifying of what does that actually mean? So my fear is like, that young people yes, they don't want to be in a sad place. They don't want to be in an upset place. They don't want to be sitting having a conversation with somebody about their difficulties. I mean, sometimes it's like trying to grab a cat to get a young person to sit down and talk about their difficulties. You know, that's why something like play therapy works so well you know. But we can't afford to do that for every child can we? Here you know, a child who's struggling with speech and language difficulties in the inner city, might in their childhood get two or three hours of a speech and language therapist. So how are they going to get the services that they need to help them to unravel all this? And if they're living in a broken community how are they ever going to rise above that? Some will, just by sheer numbers and luck or opportunity, you know, but I feared a lot, won't, will be left dealing with that for many years.

Catherine McDonald 28:00

So what needs to be done to address the impacts on young people and children? And I guess there's two sort of levels, things that we could do as a society, as communities, but also at a government level. So if we do this government policy level first, what should be being prioritised in your opinion?

Declan Keenan 28:20

One thing in our society in Ireland here that we see it very clearly, and it was kind of a bit of a shock was how easy it was to shut down the country for two years, pay people not to go to work, all of a sudden, we have no problem in funding, and fueling this with no problem and open up, you know, massive warehouses in order to be able to medically look after people to be able to test and trace the amount of money that went into it. And yet, we're told year in year out, there's no money for education, there's no money for youth services, there's no money for this that or the other. I personally think we need to I would love to see a government say, the child that's born today, we're going to invest for the next 21 years ring fenced guaranteed, and we're going to invest in this young person, we're going to invest in their education, we're going to invest in their health, we're going to invest in their wellbeing, we're going to make sure at school that they have opportunities, not just academically in sports. We're going to make sure that when they are out of school that are going to have outlets that are going to be funded. That are going to have people there who are going to be there for them are going to be there to encourage them who are going to be there to pick up pieces when things fall apart for them. We're going to invest for 21 years, so that the child born today, when they're 21. We will see the outcome of their life. How come that never happens in our progressive Western societies, you know, that we just make that decision that determination. Instead, you know, we have systems where it's year in year out. It's on the whims of what's going on, as to, you know, can we form schools? Can we make one more teacher? Can we give a special needs teacher? Can we have, you know, an extra help in the classroom for children who are obviously struggling? Where do children go to have sports in the inner city, if you're not interested in soccer, or boxing, there's not a lot of opportunity for you in sports. There's no play areas for children, they will build buildings, which they know are going to house for many years, young families with young children without a playground, without a piece of green grass, without anywhere for them to go. It just seems like, you know, we do knee jerk policies when it comes to struggling communities, and we never just sit down and get it right.

Catherine McDonald 30:51

And what about as a society and as a community? What could we do?

Declan Keenan 30:56

Yes, I mean, look, society, I think has got to realise that as we've made progress over the years, we've also had some regress, if I just took the community I work in and look at it at the moment, I've never seen the amount of young people standing on corners, involved in selling drugs and taking drugs just openly. And people are afraid to say anything, they are afraid to mention it. They're afraid to challenge it. You know, so we have a society that has been told over the last few years. It's none of your business, you know, to interfere, you don't get involved. You stay away, you keep to yourself, you know, so we're trying to send that message out to people in one hand, and then we're trying to say in your hand, on our we need to be more caring, we need to be more inclusive, you can't do both things. You can't have a society where nobody gets to point out what's going wrong. You know, I think there's got to be a big, deep breath taken by society and looking at, you know, some of the issues that's happening on our streets. Why have we allowed that to happen? Why have we allowed it to get to this stage? You know, we need to think as people you know, we need to think about those who we don't see, that's hard, isn't it, you know, to say in here, out of sight, out of mind, what's not confronting us? How do we ever rise up to meet the challenge of it, you know. It's a festering wound isn't it? Some of the negative parts of our society and nobody likes, especially a child or young person, they don't like to expose that would if it's never done, it's never going to get better, it's only gonna get worse. So we need to find a kind and professional way of gently helping people to show a stab wound and to explain to them that we're going to clean the wound up with them, and we're going to cover it up properly. And we're going to make sure it stays healthy and clean and that it heals. And they must be part of the solution. Because look, the honest truth is this a lot of the wounds are self inflicted, you know, when we can argue about the who, what, when, where, how, why, but they are self inflicted, and we need to try to help these communities not be inflicting so much wounds on themselves.

Catherine McDonald 33:17

And one final question, how much worse has COVID made all of this?

Declan Keenan 33:23

You know, for me personally, like I mean, I find that even as a worker, you know, COVID has affected me, it's affected my ability to respond to be just full of fire to be full of enthusiasm. I've had days where I've just wanted to go back and retreat it just does something weird to your psyche, I think. you know, I believe we're all in a bit of COVID fatigue at one level or another. You know, I think society at the moment has all this talk about a great reset, well I think we need a great reset, as communities. We need a day of reviving ourselves almost, of revitalising ourselves and reassessing where we're at and re-planning as to how do we take on the next 10 years, say, you know, as communities individually, and as society in general.

Catherine McDonald 34:16

My thanks to Declan Keenan, You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcasts production. Thank you for listening, and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode 7 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we focus on how COVID-19 has doubled down on lone parent families. Joining host Catherine McDonald are Professor Susan Harkness from the University of Bristol; Dr Jim Kaufman from the COVID Realities project; Niamh Kelly, Policy Manager at One Family Ireland and Stacey, a lone parent of two children. Following a first hand account from Stacey as to how her family experienced the pandemic, the panel discuss whether it was inevitable that lone parents would experience the pandemic in the way they did and how we ensure they don't experience it in the same way should it happen again.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald, and today we're looking at how the pandemic has affected lone parent families. Joining me are Professor Susan Harkness from the University of Bristol, Dr. Jim Kaufman from the COVID Realities project and Niamh Kelly, Policy Manager at One Family Ireland. We're going to start though by hearing from Stacey, a lone parent of two children, who begins by talking us through her experiences of parenting during the pandemic.

Stacey 0:44

At first, I guess it was exciting because I was furloughed. It was a break that I wouldn't have normally had. I was at home with their kids, summer was coming, it was it was getting warmer, and it all felt a bit new. And just like a bit of a rest, didn't expect it to go on that long either. So it didn't matter. But then as time sort of went on, and it become harder to shop, and then you couldn't go out. And there was no childcare. And you were stuck in the house with the children who were bored and sad and missing their friends at school and it become harder and harder to manage everything. And it was lonely, really lonely. And there hasn't been a time where I felt so on my own for so long.

Catherine McDonald 1:29

And I guess what a lot of us felt whatever our home situation is that there was no definition to the day was there? There was no sort of segmentation where people are coming in or going out, or it's bath time or bedtime, or it just all seemed to be one big day.

Stacey 1:45

Exactly that there was no routine. And the days just sort of rolled into each other in the end. But it didn't make a difference whether it's the weekend or whether it was a Wednesday, like who knew what day of the week it was because every single day just become the same. And it didn't feel at that point that there was an end in sight for it.

Catherine McDonald 2:03

Now, am I right in saying that you've got two children, and they're both primary school age?

Stacey 2:09

Yes. So at the start of COVID, they were three and five, I think.

Catherine McDonald 2:13

Wow. So actually, you had a preschool child and a primary school child?

Stacey 2:17

Yes.

Catherine McDonald 2:17

So how did you approach homeschooling? How did that go?

Stacey 2:22

It was tough. I had one child that wasn't at school that wanted to get involved with everything the eldest was doing. And I don't understand the work they do at the moment - it is much, much different to when I was at school. So it was a learning curve for me. And it was stressful. Because I still had stuff to do. There was stuff that I still had to get involved in from my job, and trying to juggle the children and schooling and housework and trying to get shopping done on my own with no help no support because we weren't allowed to see anyone. It was hard work. And it was stressful.

Catherine McDonald 2:58

And how quickly did that beginning to take its toll?

Stacey 3:02

By the end of the year of the first lockdown it felt like I was gonna have a mental breakdown. At some points where I was spending hours and hours with the eldest trying to get her to do her schoolwork. The nights were drawing in it was freezing cold. And it felt like COVID had sort of gone on forever.

Catherine McDonald 3:21

And you mentioned earlier that there was no sort of childcare to rely obviously we'd lost the school provision. We weren't allowed in each other's homes. Can you talk to me a little bit about those extra services and that extra practical help that you usually rely upon that you had to do without during the lockdowns?

Stacey 3:40

So being the lone parent, the children used to go to family, at least every other weekend. At school, they'd have breakfast club, and all of that was taken away. And it just become me and them. So I would go for days without speaking to an adult. The only time I might speak to somebody is if I was in the shop on my once a week shopping trip. And I felt like I lost part of my identity during lockdown.

Catherine McDonald 4:05

That part of your identity that we get through socialising and being with the people who make us who we are?

Stacey 4:11

Yeah, even going to work. The children's dad passed away two years before lockdown happened. So even going to work and seeing people at work that formed a good part of my social life. And all of a sudden that wasn't there anymore. And it become tough. It was lonely and there was no way out of it.

Catherine McDonald 4:31

I'm so sorry to hear about your loss. So we've we've talked about the homeschooling. We've talked about those extra services, whether informal via family or more formal sort of via breakfast club at school that you often usually rely on. What about your finances? So you mentioned you were furloughed? Did your finances take a hit?

Stacey 4:52

They didn't at first because we weren't going out spending anything or there wasn't the trips but then as time went on, I was losing money that I would have earned at work. And because we were home, we were using more gas, electric things were costing more. And where there was reports of everyone having so much more money than they were used to, that quickly dried up, especially when the prices of everything started going up. And the food prices started rising in supermarkets, especially at the start, when there was so much panic buying, you couldn't buy what you were usually buying, and you have to buy sort of what was there at the time, there wasn't the money there. And it was wondering where that money was gonna come from, because you couldn't go out and earn anything or do extra overtime.

Catherine McDonald 5:35

The overtime is that something you would normally rely on?

Stacey 5:38

I work in sales. So I rely on sales to do extra on my sales to earn extra commission, whereas all that went. I had had two jobs before, whereas that had stopped. So money just sort of dwindled into nothing really.

Catherine McDonald 5:54

And what did keep you going?

Stacey 5:56

Knowing that there was other people in the same situation, and knowing that no matter what happened, my kids needed me, because they had no one else to rely on.

Catherine McDonald 6:05

And how are the children?

Stacey 6:07

They're fine for two little girls that have been through so much. They, they are amazing.

Catherine McDonald 6:12

That's great. That's great to hear. So Jim, if I could bring you in now, how typical is Stacey's experience when it comes to parenting alone during the pandemic?

Jim Kaufman 6:22

I think there are a number of things that Stacy has mentioned, that will really resonate, certainly with the other single parents who are part of the COVID Realities project. I guess the thing that Stacy puts really well is just the cumulative impact of lockdown and of the pandemic. And how that weighs differently on different people and perhaps has a heavier weight or you know, was a heavier burden to carry if you were carrying it on your own one thing after another of having to manage of never being able to fully switch off, we know that single parents are more likely to be getting by on low incomes. And the work of getting by on the low income is work. Getting by requires an awful lot of thought and planning. And one of the things that happened in the pandemic for everybody, I guess, is that that became much more difficult. So lots of the practices that low income families have for getting by on limited insufficient means became impossible. So like Stacey mentioned, the panic buying at the start of the pandemic meant that everyday shopping practices of looking for the best bargain, trying to find the best deals, shopping in different places became impossible. And you know, people were having in certain circumstances, if they were isolated having to use deliveries and to buy things online, there was less choice. People were less able to kind of make the incomes that they have stretch, also the impact on parents’ mental health. And that's something that we found as a very common theme of conversation among our participants and not being able to access other forms of support the relationships that they normally get help and support from they were cut off from.

Catherine McDonald 8:22

And also that parenting from work issue in that we were all living and working in the same space. Was that a theme that came through?

Jim Kaufman 8:31

Yeah, for sure. That's definitely something that many people have mentioned. Although I should perhaps say that some people also welcomed the flexibility or well at the time, it wasn't flexibility, but the the ability to work from home. So there was something about that for some people, for sure. Not for everybody. But for some people for whom working from home was perhaps an improvement, they were saving money on the commute. And also it made picking up their children easier and things like this. So there's something there. That's that's quite interesting, although obviously, it doesn't apply to everyone, certainly not for people who were unable to work from home. The other thing that people talk about having to deal with and having to manage is the uncertainty introduced by the pandemic for people with school aged children, the uncertainty of not knowing whether your child whether their bubble would burst and whether they would have to then come home and self isolate to the uncertainty of not knowing whether you would be able to work or not, or whether you would have to increase your expenditure because your children are at home and not eating at school. So these uncertainties had a real profound effect on people on everyone, but they were definitely particularly acute for people who were parenting on their own.

Catherine McDonald 9:54

Absolutely. It's important to remember, isn't it that the pandemic wasn't just about the lockdowns. Even when we did get back to a certain degree of normality there was, as you say, still that uncertainty there.

Jim Kaufman 10:06

Yeah, absolutely. And there were other aspects of the pandemic and the pandemic response, particularly in the UK, where the policy response itself introduced this uncertainty. So I'm thinking about the decision to extend the £20 increase to universal credit. You know, this was a decision that was taken and when it was extended, that was very welcome. But often people were left waiting until the very last minute to know whether that was going to go ahead. And then subsequently, it's been cut again, but just the impact of not knowing of not being able to plan was something that was common in the pandemic, but it was also something that the policy response, in some cases contributed to rather than mitigated.

Catherine McDonald 10:51

So Niamh through the research that you've done, what were the main issues unique to lone parents during COVID?

Niamh Kelly 10:59

Well, I think a lot of the issues that were present during COVID, maybe weren't unique to lone parents. But I think their experience during the pandemic was very unique in terms of the impact on them. One parent families went into the pandemic at a much lower base than other family types so on things like poverty, deprivation, indebtedness, housing insecurity, you name it, they fare worse across all these various indicators. So they were going into the pandemic at a low base. And then I suppose the issues that all families encountered such as working from home and trying to balance childcare, doing the schooling from home, all of these things were multiplied for lone parents, you know, we had feedback of parents saying that they had caring responsibilities not only for their children in the home, but then also for parents who might be cocooning. There's also the response to the pandemic, both from society and a policy standpoint, a lot of time, it didn't take into account the needs of lone parents and their specific circumstances. So a good example of this is where at the start of the pandemic, children were viewed as spreading the disease. And they were banned a lot of shops, and you had a situation where parents literally couldn't get into a shop, and they were being refused entry. You know, we had news stories and reports from our own parents about people bursting into tears, I said to talk because they can't access it with their children, but they have no choice. But to go in because they don't have any childcare, they have no nowhere else to leave their children. A lot of the online shopping slots were booked out well in advance. So parents were in a really, really difficult situation, particularly at the start of the pandemic, as the pandemic went on, the policies changed a little bit, but the experience still remain the same. They still had that extra caring responsibility and extra burden of trying to juggle and make ends meet at the same time as caring for their children.

Catherine McDonald 12:48

And from the start of the pandemic, to where we are now. Have any policies come in that have specifically helped lone parents? Or are we still not there yet?

Niamh Kelly 12:58

The core areas, I suppose that maybe have seen a bit of a shift is around childcare. But there still hasn't been whilst there might be more of a - how would you put it? I suppose a will to change and a will to invest in a will to reform childcare, there still hasn't been the change on the ground that we would like to see. And certainly, that's something that we push for in our work, we, you know, we feel that one parent families should have free access to childcare, and it should be accessible to them and in their area. And certainly to see that barrier to employment and education removed for lone parent families.

Catherine McDonald 13:04

Susan, you've recently co-authored research that compared the experiences of couple parent families and single mother families in the UK, can you tell us a bit about what you found?

Susan Harkness 13:44

We know that single parents were particularly adversely affected so many people suffered during the sort of lockdown and COVID pandemic, but I think there were lots of reasons to think that single parents may have had a tougher time. And that includes things like the the pressure of parenting alone, the pressure of homeschooling, and in many of these, these effects really show up in the data. So we know, for example, that the employment of all mothers dropped quite substantially during the pandemic. But we also know that whilst for men and particularly for fathers, their employment has sort of recovered pretty rapidly for single mothers. And mothers generally, there's been a much slower pattern of return to sort of old norms. And single mothers in particular have seen their recovery to where they were before as being particularly slow. So they sort of still falling behind in terms of employment. And I think that pressure of the uncertainty over schooling and so on is when you have no one to share parenting with is obviously really, really very, very tough. So I think it shows up in some of the sort of data that we've looked at, we see that employment has been particularly hard hit, that recoveries has been slower. And of course employment and routine really matter for people's mental health. And what we see is that single mothers mental health has deteriorated more than for other parents and again, the sort of patterns of recovery, we've seen less clear recovery to those norms. So I think particularly hard hit, but also particularly sort of slow patterns of recovery amongst single mothers.

Catherine McDonald 15:12

Why is it that the employment of single mothers has been slower to sort of return to its baseline than for others?

Susan Harkness 15:19

I mean, this is really good question. But of course, we know that mothers are taking on the burden of caring. We also know that some sectors have been harder hit than others. And of course, the those that have been hard hit include the, for example, hospitality, where mothers and single mothers are particularly likely to work. So there's several things going on there. One is the caring responsibilities may be meaning that mothers feel much more constrained or much less able to work. And then we also have this demand side where the occupations that single mothers and mothers in general, indeed, are likely to work and have really been adversely hit by the pandemic. The other thing we know is that mental health of mothers really affects how children do so I think the other really important finding from the data that we looked at is around the mental health of children and single mother families. And we know that it has deteriorated more than for children living in couples. And so I suppose this is something that's particularly concerning. And in terms of policy, I think, you know, thinking about how we can support single parents much better both in terms of you know, enabling them to work if they want to, but also reducing pressure, for example, through school closures and homeschooling, I think, a really kind of important aspect of supporting people that are parenting alone.

Catherine McDonald 16:36

And looking back to a pre-COVID world, was it inevitable that lone parent families would experience the pandemic in the way they have?

Susan Harkness 16:44

Gosh, that's a really hard question. Obviously, nobody was expecting a pandemic. And in particular, these policies around for example, school closures have been enormously new types of policies, these are things we've not really experienced before. I think it was fairly obvious from the outset that school closures would affect some people more than others. And for I think it's fairly clear that, you know, single parents, if you're parenting, and there's only one person doing the parenting, then closing schools is going to be particularly difficult for single parents. And I know in Germany, for example, early on in the pandemic, people were calling for single parents, you know, to be given greater access to schooling in the same way that keyworkers were, for example, so I don't think was inevitable. And I think the fact that we've had these school closures means that some of the effects we're seeing in the data are really not all that surprising.

Niamh Kelly 17:35

It's not inevitable, inevitable. I think this you know, there are some examples from the pandemic itself, of where there's a will, there's a way. So if you look at the experience of childcare in Ireland, you know, during the pandemic, the government stepped in and paid wages, and basically took over the system, and worked to get childcare facilities open as soon as possible. I mean, most of the childcare facilities and creches and things in Ireland are operated by private business owners, we don't really have a state provision of service. But here's an example of where there is a will there is a way. And I think the same can be said for lone parents. We know that children in one parent families are more likely six times more likely than children in two parent families in Ireland to experience poverty. We know that these children experienced deprivation, we know there's this really strong link between poor housing and homelessness on one parent family. So so we know all this. And I think this, there are solutions. I know in Ireland anyway, I'm not sure about the UK. But in Ireland, we've had several government supported papers and policy recommendations, over the last, say five to eight years, all of them indicating solutions. But there just hasn't been a political will to step in and make sure that these families are supported. And I suppose that's where One Family comes in. And we are really working very hard to get some of the recommendations that are coming through from the EU mainstreamed in Ireland. So it's really looking at child poverty and looking at lone parents as a vulnerable group because we know where these children live, you know, they are and one parent families, a lot of them. So I think that it's not inevitable. I think that there's if there's a political will there, the inevitability can be removed.

Catherine McDonald 19:23

Sure, Jim, what would you say to that, I guess, you know, to sort of weave in what the policy landscape was that surrounded single parent families pre-COVID, whether there's anything in that pre-COVID policy landscape that could have made their journey a little easier?

Jim Kaufman 19:38

I would say that there are things in the recent history of social policy and particularly social security policy. That meant that certain groups of people and definitely among them, single parents were more vulnerable to the disruption and impact that the pandemic brought so ten years of austerity and cuts to a variety of services, local authority funding, particularly local authority services will be one thing. So we were already starting from a kind of system that was sort of low in capacity and not particularly serving people that kind of need single parent families not serving their needs very well. And also cuts and freezes and erosion of the value in out of work benefits will have had a particularly pronounced impact on single parent families when it when it came to the pandemic. So I think like those things definitely contributed. And we couldn't see a pandemic coming. But like, I think looking back, it's kind of clear that there were factors that definitely contributed to that to their experience.

Catherine McDonald 20:49

Stacey, what would you say to that?

Stacey 20:51

Before COVID, all I had to really worry about is if the kids were off sick. And there's no part of me that would have thought that it could get as bad as it did. But COVID and everything that come with COVID, by the end of it heightened my anxiety so much it yeah, it's had a knock on effect for me. And it feels like now there's always something to worry about - it is what happens if the school shuts? What happens if the kids are ill, and they get sent home and they've got an isolate for five days? What happens then if I don't get paid, because I'm at home, and I can't do my job, and then I can't pay the bills? And then if I can't pay the bills, what happens if I get thrown out of my house? Where would I live? And you've got all of that going around your head. And it's tough, everything has just become a constant worry.

Catherine McDonald 21:42

Which leads me on to what can we put in place? And I guess this is a question to everyone. What can we put in place to make sure that this doesn't happen again to people like Stacey, so we can't ward off the next pandemic. But what can we do from a policy point of view to make sure that Stacy's experience isn't the same as the one she's just had? Jim?

Jim Kaufman 22:05

So part of the work that we've been doing with COVID Realities is working with our participants to come up with a series of policy recommendations that are grounded in their lived experience of getting by on a low income, a significant number, so around 70% of our participants are single parents. So together, we've come up with that kind of biggish list of policy recommendations, I won't go through them all, but there are some that I think would be particularly relevant. And that would make a particular difference for lone parent families. The first set of recommendations that we came up with is around addressing the costs of childhood. So something that came out really strongly in our research was that lots of people just simply couldn't afford many of the everyday costs of raising children and allowing them to participate with their peers in childhood. So we think there are a number of things that could be done, firstly, increasing child benefit, and making it universal again. We've argued that an additional £10 a week for every child would be able to make a significant difference. There are a number of other costs that participants particularly emphasised one would be around free school meals. So there are a number of gaps in provision, it varies by local authority, how its administered, and between the devolved regions. So we argue that there needs to be kind of more universal approach to free school meals. And the kind of goal would be to provide universal free school meals. The other thing that we think really needs to be done is to support schools to eliminate or reduce some of the costs of participation for children. So here we're thinking about school trips, the cost of uniforms was a significant issue for many of our participants. We think there are things that that need to be done around education and enabling all children to participate. And we think that there should be extra cash based support for families, so not vouchers. So we did see during the pandemic, there's been a kind of preference for providing families with vouchers over cash often rooted in quite paternalistic ideas about controlling what people are able to spend the money on. But you know, this, as well as being kind of patronising and simply not appreciative of the realities, it stops parents from being able to make the best choices and to make money go as far as it needs to. And then finally around addressing the cost of childhood, and we think it's really important to increase access to affordable childcare. I think the second set of recommendations that we came up with are around addressing adequacy within the social security system, we've seen, you know, a long term erosion of the value of social security benefits, to the extent that as we argue in our report, you know, to call the system that we have a social security system is now really a bit of a misnomer. One of the things it doesn't do is provide much security for people, but rather, it kind of maintains people in a very uncomfortable and difficult situation of insecurity. So forever, staving off total disaster, but definitely not providing anything like security for people. So we think that the social security system needs to be restored to something that is worthy of that name, to restore the £20 uplift to universal credit, and also extending it to all claimants. We also think there needs to be an end to the two child limit, which arbitrarily punishes children coming from larger families, and also to the benefit cap. Finally, lots and lots of our participants really struggle with debt deductions. So these are deductions made to their benefits by the social security system. And this is debt that they accrue while they're waiting for their first payment. So those are a number of things that we think will begin to like address inadequacy in the benefit system, and also gaps around supporting parenting and childhood.

Niamh Kelly 26:34

The key step that needs to be taken is to have a national child poverty strategy, which we don't have. And as part of that coming in underneath us, would be targets around one parent families, linking them to other areas, for example, we've no family homeless strategy in Ireland, either. So these are kind of core areas where lone parent families are really falling through the cracks. And, you know, we see that around 55 to 60% of all families in homelessness are one parent families. So it's, it's very clear, there's a very strong link there. But without a strategy. And without formal plans in place with targets that are reported on on the have a bit of teeth behind the implementation of them, we're not going to see any change, because what happens is, in general strategies, children are maybe an add on at the end, on one parent families are an add on after that, you know, it's like they're footnotes in the general plans. What we need is targeted plans, we need plans that identify the families that we know, and the children that we know are most risk and put in place measures to address them. So they include things like developing that child maintenance system, it's about ensuring that families have free access to childcare, ensuring that there's an education first approach to employment. So parents aren't being pushed into low paid insecure jobs, that they're actually being supported into education so they can make a better future for their family. So we know what works. But we need a strategy in place, we need something in place to guarantee that these families are supported. And it needs to be a whole of government approach that is backed by a strong oversight arm, whether that be the Department of Children, or another department that is overseeing this and is ensure that the reporting is done.

Catherine McDonald 28:19

And Susan if I could bring you in again, how would you say that we could get lone parent families to a place where a crisis like COVID doesn't have such a devastating and debilitating effect?

Susan Harkness 28:30

Well, one of the things that I think was maybe a positive about policy under COVID, was this sort of rollout of furlough, and the fact that the replacement you could get if you weren't working was much higher than it would have been under the sort of old benefit system. So I think in some ways, what that did was it provided greater insurance against job loss than under the sort of the benefit system as it was pre-COVID. And I think in many ways that the withdrawal of that is going to be particularly worrying, and particularly if, for example, some schools are closed, or COVID continues to be a problem. If furlough has gone, I think that's going to be even more problematic. So I think there are things that maybe we can learn from the policies that were implemented over the period that maybe would be sort of positive, in terms of learning about how we might adapt our welfare system going forward. The comment of Stacey about uncertainty, again, really, really resonates. And I think this sort of inability of the welfare system to really sort of stabilise people's incomes is something that I think we really need to be sort of thinking very seriously about it, but I don't think it's just money that matters. And again, I think the sort of policies around schools and how we think about which children, for example, were given access, or the type of support that was given I think, are also really important. And I think as we as we sort of go forward, we know that there have been effects from COVID. We're getting increasing evidence of learning gaps, arising as a result of the COVID pandemic. So we know that many children are behind and those effects that we're seeing are likely to be very unequal. We've also seen these problems of children missing from schools, high rates of absences. And again, I my expectation are these, these are going to look quite different for different groups of children from better off backgrounds and from those that are not as advantaged. So I think there are real problems that we need to be thinking about how we're going to be dealing with these in the future. Another thing that I think is also important is thinking about how the toll that this pandemic has taken on people's mental health. And we know that that's been particularly tough for single parents. But I would be really concerned about as we sort of come out of the pandemic, hopefully, what effect that will have on people in the longer term, because we know that these effects can have long term implications for people's wellbeing. And I think this is something we need to be really keeping an eye on both for parents and children. And we know that and then the case of single mothers that they've been particularly adversely affected.

Niamh Kelly 30:59

Unfortunately, I would worry now with the next crises that we face into particularly around cost of living and the rise in inflation on goods and services, I would worry that those most vulnerable will fall down the pecking order again, I mean, we see already in Ireland, there was the government put in place some extraordinary measures in relation to fuel and they put in place some targeted messages, but they also gave everybody a rebate or a payment towards their fuel. And I mean, we were really shouting like this and saying, not everybody needs this. Not everybody needs the support, give the support to the people who are most in need, give it to the most vulnerable. So I suppose my fear and what we would really like to avoid is going back to similar approaches, there was during austerity times when really the most vulnerable in society suffered far greater disadvantage than than other people. And you know, that's something that we don't want to see repeated again.

Catherine McDonald 31:55

My thanks to Professor Susan Harkness, Dr. Jim Kaufman, Niamh Kelly and Stacey. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcasts production. Thank you for listening, and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode 6 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we're looking at the lived experience of children in the UK and Ireland during the pandemic. Joining host Catherine McDonald are Dr Aisling Murray, Senior Research Officer on the Growing Up in Ireland study team; Aoife McNamara, Participation and Rights Education Co-ordinator at the Ombudsman for Children's Office in Ireland; and Dr Louise Moore, Research and Impact Manager at The Children's Society. The panel discuss first hand accounts from children about their experiences, look at the nuanced effects of the things they've missed and highlght the need for our young people to keep talking.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network looking at the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald, and today we're looking at the lived experiences of children during the pandemic. Joining me are Dr. Aisling Murray, Senior Research Officer on the Growing Up in Ireland study team. Aoife McNamara, Participation and Rights Education Coordinator at the Ombudsman for Children's Office in Ireland. And Dr. Louise Moore, Research and Impact Manager at the Children's Society. I began by asking Aoife, what she felt had been the main effects of COVID-19?

Aoife McNamara 0:46

I'd say the biggest impact really has been on education. So this was particularly highlighted in our No Filter survey. So 1389 children from 23 different schools across Ireland took part and 8 out of 10 of those children felt that COVID had had an impact on their education. Probably as well, one of the biggest things is that they missed out on those extracurricular activities that happen after school with 60% of children saying that restrictions had a major impact on things like sports training, school trips, choir, drama, those sorts of things. And interestingly, as well, the survey drew attention to the fact that while a lot of the restrictions in schools eased in 2021, since September 2021, over a quarter of children reported, having missed more than two weeks of school as a result of COVID-19 and 29% have missed between one and two weeks, so that we're still seeing the impacts of this ongoing. And we do believe that this has had a major impact on children's mental health. So one child said in the survey, that she felt that more and more children felt stressed at home than they did at school as a no support. And potentially no one at home was able to help them. And this child said that left her feeling hopeless. We also really looked in depth at the school closures through our child rights impact assessment. And it really underscored how much we rely on schools and professionals working in schools. And this really had an impact on children's rights. So the top line kinda findings of our children's rights impact assessment was that school closures had predominantly negative effects on children's right to education. And those experiencing educational disadvantage were disproportionately affected. It also had a negative impact on children's right to the highest attainable standard of health, including on their mental health and had an impact as well on their right to adequate nutrition. As school closures meant that food provided under school meals programmes didn't happen, or didn't reach children who might have otherwise received it. And shockingly, really, the school closures together with other lockdown measures increase children's exposure to harm and abuse, including domestic violence, and that the school closures really reduced the opportunities for a school-based professional to identify, monitor and report on child protection and welfare concerns.

Catherine McDonald 3:05

It's such a complex picture, isn't it? I mean, already, there's so much there. Aisling, does this resonate with what the Growing Up in Ireland study team have found?

Aisling Murray 3:15

Yeah, so I certainly recognise themes there. Growing Up in Ireland has two cohorts of children and young people that we've been following since 2007. So suppose we're in a good position to in the future, consider how things were before and after COVID, if you like, but in December 2020, we did a short online survey for both our cohorts who would have been aged 12 and 22, approximately at the time, just to kind of get a snapshot of how things had changed for them as a result of COVID. So we could get that contemporary information. And yes, certainly disruptions to usual activities, especially activities outside the home were common, large portions of both children and young adults were saying they were doing fewer cultural activities, like Aoife mentioned, and they'd have done pre-pandemic. They had more screen time than they would have usually had quite a few were doing sort of more sports and exercise and they'd normally have, but it was more common for young adults and children to say they were doing less than they had done pre-pandemic. And also I think it kind of the changes to interactions with people. So they were spending more time with their family generally, but they had less face-to-face contact with friends. And that was particularly so for the 22 year olds, because at the time the schools had gone back to in person teaching but the colleges were still mostly online. So 81% of 22 year olds said that they were seeing their friends less face-to-face and they would have pre-pandemic, but then there was kind of like the emotional cost. So for our 22 year olds, we use the same measure of kind of depressive symptoms like trouble sleeping, feeling lonely, etc, during the COVID pandemic compared to just two years earlier when they'd been 20. Before COVID was on the horizon at all. And we saw a big increase in the number of young adults who were kind of reaching that threshold of concern about the frequency of symptoms they had. And it went up from 27%, pre-COVID to 48% a that thresholds at the COVID survey in December 2020. So quite a lot of disruptions to routines and things that they could do outside the home, obviously, because there were restrictions on gatherings, but also changes in the amount of contact and relationships with family and friends.

Catherine McDonald 5:25

So Louise, would you say these effects are echoed across the UK as well?

Louise Moore 5:29

I think children will have had some differences and experiences between the UK and Ireland. And indeed, within the four countries that comprise the UK, which will have affected obviously, you know, how they responded to COVID. We do an annual survey with Children's Society of children and young people aged 10 to 17 and their parents. In our survey in 2020, was actually conducted during the first national lockdown. We found then that there was a decline in children's cognitive wellbeing but encouraging the assay last year in 2021, which was just after the lockdown suggested that children had had some recovery in wellbeing. And that's been reflected, actually, in other work by the Department for Education showing a reduction in wellbeing during periods of lockdown and recovery and other times. One of the things that we really wanted to look at in our survey as well the effects that families and children experienced. And in particular, we asked families about the impacts and their anticipated longer term consequences. And one of the areas they did report which relates to things that other speakers have said today was about the impact on their children's education. We asked both children and parents about how well they felt they'd coped with the restrictions that were in place, because of the pandemic and encouragingly, most of them felt that they'd coped relatively well. So responding above five in five out of 10, zero to 10 scale. But what we did find is that there were pockets of children and parents who responded below the midpoint of that scale, indicating they hadn't coped very well, overall. And I think, you know, we have to be careful to take into account that there are real variations in experience. One of the things that we found was within that group, there were much more children in particular, whose parents had reported multiple impacts from the pandemic, so showing that they've not coped as well, perhaps, as a result of being disproportionately affected. What we also asked them about was individual areas, that they coped in individual areas and the areas that children told us that more children were coping less well when we're around things like not seeing their family or friends. And then last year, we didn't ask this in the first year, we did the survey during the pandemic, we asked them last year about how they felt about not being able to do hobbies, and pastimes, and that was another area where they seem to have coped less well. So I think there's lots of kind of resonance with what the other speakers have said, based on the events being experienced in Ireland. And our NHS survey in the UK has obviously shown that rates of comparable mental disorder are much higher in children and young people now compared to before the pandemic. And I think we were already aware of some of the issues that was already arising children's needs, and from a mental health perspective before the pandemic hit. And then the most recent NHS survey suggests that there's been an increase from one in nine children and young people aged six to 16, with probable mental disorder in 2017, to one and six in 2021. So I think there's kind of a range of things that children have experienced across the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 8:20

And Aisling certain groups of children and young people were at greater risk, weren't they?

Aisling Murray 8:26

Well, yes, because Growing Up in Ireland has several waves pre-pandemic, we can look at, I suppose, how the families who are already low income versus high income before the pandemic and how they were sort of differentially affected by what happened. And we can see that the children from families in the lowest income group say the lowest 20% compared to those and families in the highest 20% of the income distribution, that the low income families, they were more likely to say that the children had fewer activities than normal, fewer cultural activities, less time outdoors, less time spent on sports and exercise, they were obviously less likely to be saying that they were able to easily make ends meet. But they were also more likely to say that they lived with someone who was vulnerable to severe COVID and that was true for both a younger group and the older group of young adults. But aside from income, we also see I suppose a gender difference because the girls and women for both 12 year olds and 22 year olds, they were more likely to meet that threshold of concern for mental wellbeing and so I suppose its income, but also I suppose that a gender divide particularly on the socio-emotional front

Catherine McDonald 9:35

Aoife you mentioned earlier children involved in direct provision. Can you just explain a little bit about what that is, and the experiences of those children?

Aoife McNamara 9:45

Direct provision is the system in which asylum seekers live in Ireland. So generally, it's in congregated living settings such as hotels and things like that. So it's a quite intense living environment for a lot of children. So we spoke directly to some children in living in the direct provision system during lockdown. And we summarised that then in Our Life in Lockdown report. This report was a follow up to a consultation we've done a few months earlier, just before the pandemic had hit, which is called direct division. So for us the issues that our direct division consultation outlined really remained but we're intensifying during the COVID-19 restrictions. So social exclusion, physical isolation from communities, lack of facilities, lack of space and privacy all remained. But boredom and loneliness and frustration was really magnified for children living in direct provision by the fact that they had to stay indoors, often in one small room with their whole family for months on end. So really, the rights of the child were greatly affected in terms of their privacy, their play, and rest, food, access to education, and information provision are really most impacted. And these difficulties were really intensified and magnified by the communal living aspect. And the children really spoke of a real difficulty in keeping up with school due to lack of support services to digital poverty and language barriers. But I think really a social isolation and fear element that most of us experienced during lockdown was really intensified for these children. So because of the congregated living setting, whenever there was an outbreak or a suspected outbreak within direct provision centres, often families were moved to isolation centres. So this did happen to one child that we spoke to. They subsequently tested negative but was removed from her home with her mum, and asked to stay in a separate hotel in Dublin, which was quite a while from where her centre was located. So we really talked about then how she felt. So I'm going to share a quote with you if you don't mind. "The times that I felt like I was being blamed for something I did not have. When I came back to the direct provision centre, most of the kids did not want to play with me. Everyone then had to get tested. They kind of stayed away from us. It was kind of like we had the Coronavirus, but after all those days I spent in the hotel in Dublin without having Coronavirus. I felt like I was being blamed for something I did not have. And I was worried about my mom". So I think that that's particularly sad because most of the children in Ireland or the UK, you know, they were able to self-isolate in the comfort of their own homes. And they didn't face this upheaval and the stigma that was kind of brought on by that as well. And you know, that was only one of the things that the children faced, really, their disruption to education was massive, and it was enormous y stressful for the children. I have another quote here that really outlines the enormous stress the children were feeling about their schooling while living in direct provision. So this child says "it was hard, it was stressful. Normally in school they'd explain it to you more, you'd be able to understand better, you're more comfortable to ask questions. But online, you feel like you have to try and sort it out yourself. It was a lot harder. I felt so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable in online classes". And that really speaks to this language barrier issue as well. Another child explained, "if my mom knew English, it would be great because I'd understand it way better. My mom could explain it and help me with the homework. Yeah, to be honest, it was too much. It was not good at English or reading at the time, I used to send emails to my teacher to explain to them what I did. But it was way better to go to school and understand stuff more than online". So those real supports that teachers can provide and really breaking things down and explaining stuff was completely removed from children living in direct provision and the situation was not helped by, you know, the language barrier issue. So these children faced enormous difficulties within the lockdowns and restrictions on skills.

Catherine McDonald 13:43

So listening to all it is a very complex picture, what our children have been through. There is the learning loss. There's the mental health aspects, there's the physical health aspects. And it's interesting to hear that, that some actually reported better physical health because they were getting outside more. But obviously, we as we know, that wasn't open to everybody. And there's the fear and the uncertainty. So I think that it's really hard to hear that about that child's fear. Which would you say and Aisling, can I ask you first? Which would you say of all of those is going to have the biggest effect? What has had the biggest effect? And possibly the longer lasting effect?

Aisling Murray 14:20

I suppose, for Growing Up in Ireland are two cohorts they were both at transition points. So the younger cohort, 12 year olds, they were actually when the schools closed in March of 2020. Many of them were in their last year of primary school. So then, they restarted school in September, but actually, they went from primary school to secondary school, like a major transition in any time period, but they were doing that in the context of COVID. And I suppose without the benefit of what the sort of the preparation in the closing stages of primary school might have been able to give them. And for our older cohort, they were a bit more distributed and what they were doing between employment, study, but a lot of them were also in the closing stages of undergraduate courses. So in terms of like quite a lot of them said they missed out on a work experience or internship because of COVID as part of their third level course. So it will be kind of I think that sort of disruption to learning. And I suppose the disruption that followed after lockdown because of individual closures or third level remaining online, I suppose all of it necessary because of the public health emergency. But it will be interesting to see as these two cohorts develop as to like kind of what impact that disruption will have had on their longer-term prospects and achievements. And also, I guess, that kind of divide between lower income and higher income families that that sudden lockdown, like whether they had adequate internet connection, whether they had compatible computers at home whether children and young adults are quiet places to study, quite large variation in that. So even though the lockdown affected everybody, the resources available to individual families and young adults to cope with that change were quite different. And that might have a lasting effect as both younger and older cohorts progress through education and into the labour market.

Catherine McDonald 16:06

Yes. And it was that loss of the sort of almost like the rites of passage that go with certain stages of leaving primary school, leaving secondary school. I'm thinking sort of residential trips, proms, leavers parties, all of those sorts of things that mark that time in your life, and that, you know, you're unlikely to ever forget. Louise, have the Children's Society looked into that type of thing? And if so, what's being said, and how do we get that back for them in some way?

Louise Moore 16:35

I think in terms of transitions, and specifically is not something that we looked at as part of our research. But we know from kind of the long research programme on wellbeing that we have that transitions can be difficult for young people, there are kind of well known deaths in wellbeing as children get older. And the pandemic was kind of said previously, has made that really more difficult for children, there's those who didn't get to do in person exams and those who left or move to schools without contact with their peers and teachers. And the difficulties posed, obviously, in terms of gaining work experience. In recent days. In England, in particular, there have been media reports that teachers are seeing increased anxiety about exams in the run up to the first set of GCSEs, and A levels being sat by young people in three years. And there's also been reports that higher education students have poorer wellbeing scores than the adult population. Again, it's not clear there, by how much of that is down to the pandemic and other factors. But practitioners certainly reported that on entry in higher education, children, young people will show in social anxiety about being out and kind of fear about COVID, they weren't interacting. So there was real unpredictability in terms of high risk behaviours and loneliness. And I think that's something we really need to take into account going forward. I think whilst you know, kind of, for example, things like the wellbeing data showing some encouragement in terms of recovery, we don't know how long that's going to be sustained. And it's really important that we continue to track that going forward. Because we you know, you don't know whether the bounce back is because of the changes in terms of children's, you know, being able to do more, and that initial almost relief and things kind of getting back to normal, but we know that some children have been really disproportionately affected by COVID. And I'm from a practice perspective of the Children's Society, you know, we had to mobilise our services pretty much overnight from being you know, face-to-face to online. And there were challenges around that in terms of, you know, content, digital technology, obviously, concerns about young people who are victims of domestic violence being placed in the family with, you know, kind of, not support that they might normally have in school and other areas. So I think going forward, we've got to be really mindful of the experiences that children have had, and that there might be an impact down the line. So we've really got to take into account their personal experiences. And I think one of the really key things is that we need to listen to children, we need to find out kind of how they're feeling and what they need in terms of their recovery from the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 18:59

Absolutely. Aoife what have you heard and found out about those transition stages in children's lives and how they've undergone those in the pandemic?

Aoife McNamara 19:09

Yeah, I can share some anecdotal evidence with you. Currently, we are doing a children's report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child as Ireland is being examined this year. And we have find all of those things that both Louise and Aisling are discussing that children struggled on the real social aspects and the things that they were missing out with, and that they are now expected to pick up almost where they left off. And so they're trying to get back into their hobbies, and they're trying to put themselves out there and they're trying to get back into the swing of doing exams and those formalised kind of education things. So really, what we find in our No Filter survey is that children are facing a lot more uncertainty because they haven't been exposed to as many things potentially as other children before them had. So you know, some children's Junior cert was cancelled, so that will be our equivalent of GCSEs and now their facing in to doing leaving certs without having ever done some state exams. So I have some quotes for some children around that uncertainty of exams and how that's affecting them. So in the No Filter survey one child explained that "the pandemic has made the school environment very difficult. Large amounts of students and teachers are absent from school due to COVID. Therefore, progress in the curriculum can't be made. And it seems impossible to catch up. Inflated points have increased the stress on students, and we've grown unsure of what our future looks like regarding college courses". And that is a girl who's aged between 15 and 17, from Dublin. And another child explained that "with COVID-19, we've missed out on so much, including our junior certificate, and we're worried about the leaving certificate, especially how crazy high points have got. This is very stressful, since we missed out on so much learning. And we are at a disadvantage this year as we've never sat state exams. And a lot of teachers were out for the most of the year with COVID-19 of some sort". And again, that's a girl aged between 15 and 17 from Wexford. So that kind of uncertainty and that lack of experiences and doing those transitions, you know, from junior cert or GCSEs, and into A levels or leaving certs has really impacted children. But one I suppose real positive from this is how much that we have heard from children in this period. So for us in Ireland, the Irish Secondary School Union, the ISSU has gone to extraordinary lengths to put across the views of children in exam years, and have positioned themselves extremely well to influence government and the Department of Education. And I think one of the most telling things and that was evident from their hard work is the fact that the Minister for Education, Norma Foley has signed a statutory instrument, updating the membership of the National Council for Curriculum Assessment. And that's going to now include the president of the Irish Second Level Students' Union. So that is showing the kind of power and influence the children have had, they have taken it into their own hands to kind of redress the imbalance that they have felt over the last few years. And you know, governments are obviously taking this on board and listening. So I think that's particularly interesting.

Catherine McDonald 22:11

Absolutely. And it's really interesting you say that, actually, because in a previous episode in this series, where we focused on learning loss, and I think also in the mental health episode, we were hearing about the resilience of these children of this generation, they are speaking up, and they are demonstrating their resilience by sort of voicing their experience and that that might allude to a whole skill set that they might not have had had, they have not gone through the pandemic, I don't know what you'd say to that Aoife?

Aoife McNamara 22:37

Yeah, I think that's particularly interesting, actually. And it would be something that we would really love to look into. For us, we are seeing a lot of children with worries and fears that they didn't previously have, but that they have channelled a lot of their energies into, you know, self-organisation, and ensuring that their voices are out there. So I think yeah, that's potentially something really interesting to explore.

Catherine McDonald 22:59

And Louise, what would you say about that?

Louise Moore 23:01

I think our research has shown that children overall have shown, you know, kind of great resilience over the pandemic, there's obviously, of course, some children who have been really adversely affected, and that, you know, we can't take away from that. But in our survey last year, in 2021, one of the things that we asked children about is how positive they felt about the future, even in the context of a, you know, kind of national and international pandemic. And 72% of children said they felt positive about the future. And I think that really resonated with us that Children's Society that inspite of everything they've been through seven in 10 children feel positive. I know, still three and 10. And we want to get them all there. But I think that does really show you know, kind of an encouraging sense about the generation of young people that we have, and their ability to, you know, kind of deal with really extreme things and come out the other side and still feel positive about the future.

Catherine McDonald 23:52

Aisling what would you say to that?

Aisling Murray 23:54

Well, certainly, I think one of the interesting things from growing up in Ireland survey is the, the level of individual differences among the responses to both from children and young adults. So for example, we asked the young adults about their changes in drinking, smoking and sleep. And then we see that, you know, there's, for sleep in particular, it was equally divided between those people who were saying they're getting less sleep than usual more sleep than usual or the same, as usual and, and similarly for smoking, even though only about a third of them smoked about a quarter of them we're doing it more than usual and quarter doing it less than usual. So I think it's important to consider those individual differences, I suppose, especially a policy response that suppose policy has to be nuanced to kind of consider that children and young people were affected differently and there were some perhaps benefits from the change brought about by COVID. You know, I said earlier that a lot of children/young people were doing less sports and exercise than usual, but quite a few about 20% did more. And you know, some also reported benefits to learning at home, as well as some difficulties. And in terms of optimism for the future yes, we see in the Growing Up in Ireland survey that the 12 year olds in particular were very optimistic about the future and about 9 in 10 were kind of looking forward to the next year at the time. And the 22 year olds, about three quarters of them were kind of optimistic about the future as well. But then, as Louise mentioned, then we kind of looking at, I suppose, considering the majority figure, but then there's those kind of substantial minorities. So yes, I think that the individual differences is going to be an important consideration for policy responses, but also a challenge given as to how do you kind of respond best to every individual when the reactions and the experiences during the pandemic and I suppose the prospects for the future are quite different?

Catherine McDonald 25:40

And how do we do that? Because obviously, policy is made for the collective and as you say, this is so nuanced, and I think it is very easy to get carried away and think, Oh, great, okay, well sort it this way. But what do we do? How do we make it as nuanced as it needs to be?

Aisling Murray 25:55

I suppose I wouldn't like to speak for policymakers. But I suppose what in terms of trying to gather evidence and rounded evidence for policy is for I suppose things like the Growing Up in Ireland study, because we have a lot of information about different groups of people. So we can contrast the experiences of children from low income backgrounds, higher income backgrounds, and also look at regional differences. So you know, the big Dublin city versus more rural areas. I think, probably a policy direction, but with flexibility to adapt at local levels, because you will probably get, you know, within counties or cities or communities like a slightly different response that may be required, again, like studies and feedbacks coming forward from the OCO work. And our studies here at Growing Up in Ireland can kind of help to pinpoint like, what are the issues? And who are those groups of children that are more affected by certain issues, like say, not having adequate internet connection or home learning resources compared to other children? So it has the potential to be a bit more targeted? But yeah, so I mean, a significant policy challenge to try and address the needs of everyone. But we have a lot of evidence now to help inform policymakers to make those decisions, and potentially with flexibility at local level.

Catherine McDonald 27:04

And as you say, that evidence is so important. Louise, would you say the same?

Louise Moore 27:09

I mean, I think one of the challenges we've got, particularly in England at the moment is that we don't make policy for children as a whole, there isn't, you know, kind of a single strategy for children in England currently, and we look at them generally, through particular policy lenses, rather than seeing the whole child. I think there's been some really great movement that we, you know, kind of shouldn't ignore in terms of just the fact that, you know, the term wellbeing is being used quite globally, and people are, you know, kind of recognising its importance. It's all throughout, you know, the documentation on levelling up, I think more is definitely needed to tackle poverty. And there's been, as we said, kind of particular issues like digital poverty have been really highlighted through the pandemic. I think one of the reservations that I have about kind of the current policy situation is there's been a real focus on the school, and not all children are in school, and then you naturally leave out particular groups, but also, not all children will want their needs to be met within the school. So I think, you know, kind of looking beyond that, and how we can support children more generally, I think there's been a real lens put on the family, because there's been so much reliance on the family, you know, with children being at home more often. And for longer periods, that maybe you kind of have to look at different measures of support and sort of think beyond the walls of the school a bit. It's definitely challenging, but I think, you know, kind of thinking about global sort of wellbeing and recovery from the pandemic, but then looking within that at the particular groups of your people that have been disproportionately affected. And also kind of recent policy changes are seen during the pandemic, there were some really positive things in terms of universal credit being uplifted, but that uplifts have been removed or free school meals globally provided. So you can't underestimate also the impact of some of the things like furlough also that have been taken away. So I think, you know, kind of there's got to be a real consideration of the fact that there, you know, there's a need to look obviously at the wellbeing of children in general, but also to really focus on the pockets where support is needed.

Catherine McDonald 29:08

Yes, and we've talked a lot in this series so far about the positives that we must try and draw from the pandemic, and maybe laws specifically focused on children, which, as you say, so far have been lacking could be one of the things that came out of it?

Louise Moore 29:23

Yeah. And I mean, you just in the Queen's speech, there were at least four bills that had really important provisions for children. So as I say, there's, you know, there's real positive movement and I think, you know, hopefully there's momentum to go with that right now as well and to make sure that we. The pandemic has highlighted so many issues to us. And it's also highlighted, I guess, how, you know, kind of important it is for us to consider what children one as well so I think, you know, in terms of making these changes, but also making them with children and making sure that they're things that you know, kind of children are involved in.

Catherine McDonald 29:57

And Aoife what would you say to that?

Aoife McNamara 29:59

Yeah, Absolutely I completely agree with what Louise has said there. For us in the ombudsman for children this is really about taking a child rights approach to find solutions that are right for children. And one of the cornerstones of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is article 12 about having their voice listened to and having due weight and consideration placed on their voice and opinions. And for us, we can see that children are innovative, they are creative, they are resilient, and they need to be listened to on what they need. So for us, really, we need to include their views on education, on mental health services, on housing provision, on reform of all of these services, because children are telling us that they're not fit for purpose for them. And we need to uphold that article 12 right, and take this rights based approach to find workable solutions for all children.

Catherine McDonald 30:49

So Aisling what would you say to children right now?

Aisling Murray 30:52

I think, Catherine, it's been a challenging time for everyone. But that children and young adults have shown great resilience and also great interest in what's happening in their local communities and the world at large. So really wants to thank those young people and their parents for contributing to the collective effort for researchers like ourselves at Growing Up in Ireland, that they talk to us about their experiences, they're willing to be very candid about what's gone well, and what's gone wrong for them. And my wish for them will be to keep that up not just when they're talking to us, but also when they're talking to the people around them that they talk about what's going on for them, and what would work for them, because that's a very healthy approach. And it also makes it easier for people in research and policy then to respond to their needs if we can talk to them directly about what's going on for them.

Catherine McDonald 31:41

Louise, what would your message be?

Louise Moore 31:43

I think it's really important for us and we really, really, you know are so grateful to children, for working with us during the pandemic for taking part in the research that we've been doing, and being so open in providing their experiences, as well as doing the surveys that I've talked about today. We did some consultation work with children as well. And we're absolutely you know taken aback by their ability to see the benefits of the pandemic. And I think, you know, that's something that is very valuable. They're what's important to us, you know, what young people need in order to make their lives better is really key to our work. And also, I think, to be really proud, actually, of how they've reacted to the pandemic and the resilience that they have shown.

Catherine McDonald 32:26

And Aoife what would you say?

Aoife McNamara 32:27

We are listening. We are ready to hear what you have to say we want to hear from you, we urge children to continue to make complaints to us. We ask schools to continue to begin workshops. We are now open again and accepting children into our office. And we just really appreciate the bravery and the honesty of children and particularly vulnerable positions who have spoken to us. We know that it's difficult to speak up and to put your head above the parapet. And that's one amazing thing that children have put that much trust in us in the office and we want to extend that trust back out. We are here. We're open and continue to come to us because we want to hear from you.

Catherine McDonald 33:07

My thanks to Dr. Aisling Murray, Aoife McNamara and Dr. Louise Moore. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC -IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcast production. Thank you for listening, and remember to subscribe wherever you receive your podcasts.

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In episode 5 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we discuss the mental health and wellbeing of children before, during and after the pandemic. Joining host, Catherine McDonald, are Professor Cathy Cresswell and Dr Jennifer McMahon from the Co-SPACE study, Professor Birgitta Rabe from the Institute of Social and Economic Research, and Laura, a mother of two primary school aged children. Laura explains how the isolation and anxiety caused by the pandemic has manifested in her children's behaviour, and the panel discuss how they have tracked children's mental health changes and the urgent need to address the effects they have evidenced.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald and today we're focusing on how the pandemic has affected the mental health and wellbeing of children. In a moment we'll be hearing about the work of Professor Cathy Cresswell and Dr. Jennifer McMahon from the Co-SPACE study, and a Professor Birgitta Rabe from the Institute for Social and Economic Research. But first we're going to hear from Laura, a mother of two primary school aged children. I began by asking her what effects the pandemic has had on her son and daughter?

Laura 0:45

I had a seven-year-old girl and a just turned five year old boy. And I've noticed a significant change in their mental health through the pandemic and through the lock downs that we had. Most noticeably, during the pandemic, my daughter developed a very strong anxiety and separation anxiety. She has always been a very confident little girl. And she's always been very independent. And from being at home during the pandemic, she started to want us to sleep in the same bed as her or in the same room as her and want lots of cuddles and reassurance that we were there and that we weren't going to go away anywhere. If I was to change room putting the laundry away for say she would follow me I can no longer visit the bathroom without having a little visitor with me at the same time. Because she feels me being in another room from her is quite anxiety provoking. And equally, we've had issues at school with her wanting to be close to other students almost sitting on top of them and needing that close bonds, and not necessarily respecting their personal space because she feels that they're going to not be there, or she might lose them. With my son, I felt he was a young enough age not to be affected by the pandemic. But I feel as though I may have underestimated that. And having started school, he's had issues with settling in. And he's got a big issue around personal space. So, with other children coming too close to him, he reacts and that isn't necessarily an appropriate way either. He will either push another child to get them out of his personal space, because he finds it too difficult to verbalise his feelings. And I think that's due to the lack of stimulation during the pandemic with children of his age and developing those relationships and those bonds and behavioural attitudes that he would have normally learned in his preschool years which he just missed because he was at home with us as a family.

Catherine McDonald 2:46

And when COVID had hit and we were then in the various lockdowns, his age combined with that meant that he had not had a birthday party had he So has he had one now?

Laura 2:55

He has just had his fifth birthday, and has had his first birthday party, which he really enjoyed. But again, he struggled with being in a room full of 30 children that halfway through he kind of switched off and was playing with the balloon and hitting it himself and needed some time on his own. Because he was being overstimulated by all the excitement that was going on. Because he not only had he not had a birthday party up until that point, he's not had the normal playdates. Normally you go around to other people's homes and have a playdate. Or you might go to a toddler and baby group and socialise with other children. He's had none of that he's had no experience of forming relationships with children of his own age. So he doesn't know how to interact with them how to share toys, how to take turns. So he sometimes then retreats into his own little world until he feels comfortable and ready to talk to another child or interact with them.

Catherine McDonald 3:55

And as we all tried to get back to normal, do you have long term concerns around the effects that COVID and the lockdowns have had on your children?

Laura 4:04

I do. I think it's a bit of an unknown. I don't quite know what the long term effects will be. But it's certainly a huge learning curve for them. They're having to learn the skills that ordinarily would have come naturally to them through hitting various different milestones of playdates, birthdays, preschool transitioning into reception. And they've lost that natural progression. So we've almost got to go back a couple of years and start that from the beginning. And be respectful that actually these children don't have those life skills that would have normally been built and how long that will take I don't know, because they're suddenly thrown into reception or my daughter's now in year two. And there's a level of expectation of right this is what a reception child should do. Or this is what a year two child should do, but actually forgetting that they haven't had the foundation leading up to that.

Catherine McDonald 4:32

And to what extent have you found that they're able to articulate how they're feeling and what's going on for them?

Laura 5:02

I think that is something that is still evolving. We used an emotions diary for my daughter when we were at home so she could log the positive and negative things that happened throughout the day and trying to get her to focus on the positives. And that is still ongoing. With my son he is only now just starting to verbalise his feelings. And that has been a significant challenge because up until now, he would verbalise his emotions through a tantrum, or through crying or having a really big meltdown, because he didn't know how to say, actually, mummy, I'm scared, or I'm a little bit worried about things.

Catherine McDonald 5:43

And what do you think we need to be prioritising in the recovery process to help our children through this and move into the new normal?

Laura 5:53

I think it needs to be focusing on their relationships through play, and emotions around that, and allowing them to explore it in a nice, safe environment and in a fun environment. Because realistically, over the last few years, the fun has been lost in their lives, you know, they got up, they've stayed in their homes, yes, they've had access to their toys at home. But, you know, multiply that over the past two years, that then becomes quite boring. So actually allowing them to explore life and life skills. And around those activities, I think around forming relationships and by forming the relationships, other things will then come into play from that naturally.

Catherine McDonald 6:35

Sure. So Cathy, Jennifer, you're joining us today from the Co-SPACE study, which has tracked the mental health of children and young people during the pandemic. Can you talk us through your main findings, and Cathy, if I could start with you.

Cathy Cresswell 6:48

So the Co-SPACE study is a longitudinal study where we invited parents of school aged children to report on their children and young people's mental health on a monthly basis throughout the pandemic. And we have data from over 8000 families. And we started in March of 2020. So a week after the first lockdown started in the UK. And we continued until a summer of last year, so collecting data on a monthly basis. And we're actually now we've just done the two year follow up. So two years from our very first lockdown. And we'll be following up families now in six months, and then again this time next year. So that will give us a better sense of the longer term impacts. But the data that we've really had a good look at so far has focused much more on what was happening during those times when we were at peak restrictions. And essentially, what we saw from our UK sample was that if we focus on the parent report, because that we can look at that across all ages, the pattern that we saw was that as restrictions increased, unsurprisingly, we saw parents report higher levels of difficulties, both in terms of emotional, but particularly in terms of behavioural difficulties, including kind of attention hyperactivity type difficulties. Ours isn't a representative sample. So we can't draw conclusions about what things were like for people as a whole. But what we are able to do within our sample is look at how patterns may have differed for people in different circumstances. And some of the things that were really clear were that families who we already know are more vulnerable to mental health problems. So those living on very low incomes, or where children have special educational needs. For those groups, we saw consistently elevated levels of emotional behavioural difficulties throughout the pandemic. And one of the most concerning things was that when we were looking last summer at the patterns and how symptoms seem to generally show some improvement as restrictions had eased among those groups, that we actually weren't seeing that evidence of kind of bounce back after restrictions ease. So it really raised concerns about ongoing challenges for some young people, and particularly those that we could see that that was the case where people had those sorts of vulnerabilities. Among our sample, we saw particular, more dramatic changes in symptoms among the primary school age group among our samples. And so particularly the sort of behavioural disturbance at times when schools were closed, which I guess is not necessarily surprising when children, you know, didn't have many opportunities, and were often cooped up at home. And certainly among our sample, the secondary school age group were much more connected with their peers. And also parents of younger children reported having a much more challenging time. You know, obviously, the childcare commitments are higher. And often parents were struggling juggling that with work commitments as well, which often made things quite difficult within the home. So as I said, we're now coming up to our two year follow up. So that's going to be really important and useful to help us see how things have continued over time as restrictions have continued to ease and critically be able to really pay more attention to question about who's been able to kind of bounce back after such an unusual period, and who has seen ongoing, persistent difficulties, as restrictions have eased?

Catherine McDonald 10:11

And from the data that you've analysed so far, did you notice any differences between boys and girls?

Cathy Cresswell 10:17

We haven't actually seeing clear differences in terms of the trajectories and how things have changed over time. So there obviously are at any point in time differences between boys and girls and the sorts of symptoms that we measure. So typically, you see higher levels of the more behavioural difficulties reported on boys, you see higher levels of emotional symptoms reported among girls, particularly as you move into adolescence. And we saw that typical pattern throughout the pandemic as well. But we didn't see that boys and girls differed in response to the changing restrictions particularly.

Catherine McDonald 10:51

And Jennifer, was it a similar picture in Ireland?

Jennifer McMahon 10:53

Yes, we found similar findings to the Co-SPACE UK team. And I suppose just to say, we didn't track our young people monthly, we tracked them at certain time intervals throughout. But like the Co-SPACE UK findings, we found that at particular time points young people did better than others. So like in the restrictions, when schools were closed, young people tended to have more difficulty around their emotional symptoms. And these alleviated somewhat as we moved into periods of, say, the summer or periods around the Christmas break. So young people were finding it more difficult to manage when they were out of their normal environment and their traditional supports. And so overall, I think one takeaway from our research is that it really highlighted how inequalities that already existed in the child and young person's environment, were amplified during the pandemic, as those aspects that normally work to offset the inequality were inaccessible, such as school closures, or for children with special education needs, the loss of their support services, which was very widespread throughout the pandemic. And even very simple things that we found. So for one piece we included was a qualitative question around stressors and issues for young people. And parents told us that those young people who had access to outdoor space, for example, they tended to report that their young people were doing well and that they felt that they had time to spend outdoors in nature. Now, again, not everybody would have had that access to outdoor space. So there was various different aspects of the environment that fed into the issues around who did better and who struggled more during the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 12:21

It does all make sense, doesn't it? You know, we know as adults, what makes us feel better, and it's no surprise, is it our children react in similar ways? But I guess much as I said to Laura, it's very difficult, isn't it when we're dealing with one so young to kind of get inside how they're feeling? How is the study managed to do that?

Cathy Cresswell 12:40

Certainly, from the UK point of view, there are two main ways that we've tried to understand how things have been going. One is based on parent report for young children and parent reports have been found to be reliable and valid. But of course, you know, parents can only report on what they can see. And as Laura highlighted, obviously, children's emotions can be expressed in a range of different ways. But certainly the standard measures that we use to try to capture both those sort of behavioural and more obviously, emotional symptoms. So that's one way that we do it. But the other way that we've been doing it is through qualitative interviews. So within Co-SPACE my colleague Polly Wade has been leading a couple of qualitative studies that have tried to really understand and get a more in depth understanding of how children and young people have been getting on. And that's by both working with families directly, but also by having interviews with people that work with families so that we can get a broader sense of the things that they've been seeing in the families they're working with, as well.

Catherine McDonald 13:38

And I wonder, actually, if this generation that have been children during this time, where they're actually they will grow up being far more aware. And, you know, with the ability to be far more articulate about their mental health.

Cathy Cresswell 13:52

I mean, I think we were definitely moving into that situation already. Prior to the pandemic. I'm constantly, you know, surprised and impressed by how articulate young people today are about talking about mental health and also much more accepting and aware of mental health challenges that people experience, you know, whether the pandemic has added to that, but it's a really interesting question. And certainly, I think, obviously, it has raised lots of conversations about wellbeing and mental health, which I hope will contribute to that wider awareness and acceptance.

Jennifer McMahon 14:24

I think I think that could be one of the really positive aspects that might come out of the pandemic is a focus on young people and children's emotional well being now might provide them with the emotional literacy tools to really reflect on the pandemic and the impact that it had on them. And I suppose there is a piece around encouraging that and building opportunities for that to happen, because the two years that the pandemic went on for indeed for some families the impacts are still persisting in terms of like, you may still be out of school if you have COVID or so on or a lot of work. We have started a qualitative study exploring young people's perspectives on the pandemic, retrospectively. And we had our first meeting yesterday. So the data is not ready. But we did have a meeting, I was really impressed with the young people's perspectives on the pandemic. And one interesting thing that young people said to us was that it was as though there was multiple pandemics. And I thought that was interesting because young people can reflect that sometimes it was good. And that initial lockdown, for example, some young people found that really rewarding and exciting, and they had time to do things that they didn't normally do. But as the pandemic went on, and the uncertainty around how long it would persist, for things started to change, and young people could start to sense that in their own emotional well being that they were actually on a different trajectory. And I think now is a really good time for young people to really think back and reflect on how they actually need to move forward to offset some of maybe the harm that that caused, or how they can actually deal with some of the issues and key time points that they missed out on. So for example, one of our young people said that they missed those key milestones around their graduation around their Debs, around that first year of college. And I suppose, as young people emerging from that they really need to consider how might this impact them moving forward? And is there anything that they can do right now to actually enhance their experience in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Cathy Cresswell 16:08

And we found very much the same that when people look back at the first lockdown some people, which was when it was quite warm, and certainly for those who could get outside, they could see some positives of that. Whereas the second national lockdown, which was in the winter, and obviously by then everything was feeling quite relentless, really felt quite difficult and quite different for people. And we certainly saw that in our data as well, where we saw greater elevations and symptoms in that second lockdown. So I think that variability of experience is really important to capture. And I think also, as Jennifer said, that there are studies that have highlighted that, you know, proportions of children, young people, have definitely seen some positives from the experience. And actually, often children who may have struggled in school prior to the pandemic, there were things that they found easier during lockdown when those demands of school were relieved from them. So that maybe children who had special educational needs who were struggling in school, children who have pre existing mental health difficulties where school was a challenge. And so I think it has also raised some really important questions and highlighted areas where we could think about why was life easier for those children, young people? And how can we think about how we do school in ways that are easier for children and young people where their experiences at school may contribute to the mental health difficulties that they experience?

Catherine McDonald 17:25

Yeah, so it's so interesting, isn't it? And we have to take what we can from what we've all been through, don't we and as you said, if we can find the positives, and support the children to be more emotionally literate, or more in touch with their mental health, that would be a positive and massive positive to take from it. Birgitta, I'd like to bring you in here. So you also looked at the effects school closures had on the mental health of children during the pandemic, can you tell us what you were able to compare and what you found?

Birgitta Rabe 17:51

Yeah, so it looks to me that Cathy and Jennifer with the Co-SPACE study, they followed the children over time, and we know when the schools were locked down, and when the lockdowns, eased and all of that, but we cannot really say to what extent it was the schools that were contributing to the mental health problems, or was it other things like anxieties in the family, and so on. So that's basically where our study comes in. We have used a little event in the June of 2020, where after the schools were closed for everyone during everyone remembers that fated day 23rd of March 2020, schools were then closed for everybody, as we know, and from June there was government guidance to reopen schools just for some children, but not for all of them. Because if you remember back, there was social distancing in the classroom, and so on. So they couldn't have all the children back. And this little episode enables us to look specifically at the role of school closures, as opposed to all the other things that might impact on mental health. So what we do is we look at children aged five to 12. And we compare those who had the opportunity to go back with those that didn't and the ones that were asked to come back were reception and year one and also year six in primary school. And this is because research shows that the youngest children, you know, it's a very formative period. It's very important to have them back. And then the year sixes were asked back, I think, because they were about to transition into secondary school, which is also quite a key moment in children's lives. So the children that were prioritised had the opportunity to have seven weeks of more schooling than the ones that weren't prioritised the other year groups. And we find that there was a massive difference in the mental health of those that were and weren't prioritised to go back. We use data from understanding society, which is a UK household Longitudinal Survey, which was running for years and years anyway and then had the opportunity to ask monthly questions including about mental health of children to our respondents that we have, and we use the strength and difficulty questionnaire, which measures the emotional behavioural difficulties of children. And we found that those who didn't have the opportunity to go back to school had behaviours that were quite worse and emotional symptoms, and those that did they have the opportunity. So for example, children who had no tantrum ever went up to having tantrums all of the time. Or another example would be fidgeting with stuff children who never fidgeted before going on to fidgeting all the time, or two of those behaviours going up by a bit. So that was kind of the size of the effect for those that didn't go compared to those that did go back to school. And comparing this with the learning loss, because as we know, there was a lot of focus on the learning loss, we find that the strength of this effect is larger, or most likely than that on learning loss.

Catherine McDonald 20:56

And were you able to get a sense of how long the negative effects on mental health might last?

Birgitta Rabe 21:02

So the effect I just spoke about was at the end of July. So this was already in the summer holiday, when everyone was in the holiday, we could still see those differences between children who had seven weeks of school and those that didn't, then we looked again, at the end of September when everyone was back at school. And we still saw those differences between children lingering. So this is now two, three months down the line, some children had the opportunity to have seven weeks of school, and we still see that this was benefiting them compared to those who didn't. So this is suggesting that the effects were quite not only large, but relatively long lasting in total children missed about 18-19 weeks of school, not just the seven that we were able to look at. And we don't know whether this just accumulates the negative effects or they exacerbate over time. These are questions we cannot answer in our research, but it sort of indicates that they might be quite long lasting, and strong, which I think tells us I mean, going back to what Laura was saying that she was seeing, it was so important for children to have interactions with other children and forming relationships. That's exactly what we would expect to happen in school. Girls actually had one positive effect during this first lockdown. And this was a reduction in their peer problems. So this is quite interesting, I find thinking about the positive that for some children, it might have been a relief to be away from their peers for some of the time,

Catherine McDonald 22:31

Which is very interesting, but it's also very depressing isn't it?

Birgitta Rabe 22:35

It is yeah, if you think about I suppose it's about things like bullying and peer pressures and, and things like those.

Catherine McDonald 22:42

Cathy, Jennifer, I mean, obviously, what Birgitta is saying is going to resonate with you. What would you say about it?

Cathy Cresswell 22:48

I mean, I Well, I think it did resonate very much. And it's such useful data to be able to have and, and actually, within our Co-SPACE sample, there's certainly a lot more we want to do of digging in and looking at those who were able to be at school and those who weren't. But certainly the variety of experiences that's highlighted there and the particular vulnerabilities are very consistent with the findings that we've been getting.

Catherine McDonald 23:08

Sure, which again, is a good thing when we have to learn from this, don't we and we have to take these messages forward. On that, Birgitta, who has listened to your research so far, and sort of taken it forward?

Birgitta Rabe 23:22

But we were quite amazed actually at the impact this has had because if you remember back the vaccinations for 12 to 15 year olds, the JCVI, the Joint Committee for Vaccinations, didn't recommend vaccinations for this age group on health grounds. But they did ask the chief medical officer to look at it a little bit more broadly. So what they did was to look at the effect of school closures on mental health because this is obviously another, you know, area of health other than the physical health. And looking at that evidence, the chief medical officer then recommended vaccinations for 12 to 15 year olds to avoid school closures and to avoid the negative impact on children's mental health. And this was, you know, with citing various studies, they also referred to our work because we had looked specifically at the effect of school closures, which is quite amazing, because then around 2 million children subsequently had the opportunity to go for the vaccine if they opted to do so.

Catherine McDonald 24:23

And Jennifer , how has the CO-SPACE findings resonated in the wider world? Who's picked that up and who's been listening?

Jennifer McMahon 24:29

A lot of key stakeholders have been really interested in the findings of the Co-SPACE study, particularly because there was very little information in the early days of the pandemic. And we were one of the only studies in Ireland that had any information. So we were picked up by an agency such as the ESRI in Ireland who kind of set the kind of policy and advise government and so on and we also presented to the offices within the government, within government agencies. So the Department of Children and Youth Affairs we presented to those and they actually fed into some of the development of the questionnaire over time. So the findings have been picked up by lots of different agencies and stakeholders that have a keen interest in understanding how the pandemic has affected young people.

Catherine McDonald 25:07

Which is great. And Cathy, would you say the same about the UK? Who's been listening over here?

Cathy Cresswell 25:12

Yes, absolutely. So we were obviously, for exactly the reasons Jennifer mentioned that there was very little data, particularly early on, we were really keen that we were feeding it into decision making all the way through. So we were trying to produce very rapid reports, which we would send off to lots of key stakeholders, policymakers and practitioners, voluntary community sector organisations, they were Public Health England at that time, and also the Department for Education, who used a lot of Co-SPACE based data, for example, in the State of the Nation report for the last couple of years. So we've been really trying to make sure that policymakers have had the data at their fingertips and been able to use it throughout, it's sometimes hard to know exactly how that translates into practice and how it changes things. But we have also tried to pick up on the findings ourselves and take forward other research that's able to have a more direct impact. So we launched a couple of quite large randomised control trials to try and address some of the things parents were telling us early on in the pandemic. So one of those is the SPARKLE trial, which is led by Edmund Sonuga-Barke and colleagues at King's College London, where they rapidly developed an app to support parents with everyday sort of parenting challenges, and randomised a large group of families to evaluate that very rapidly, because parents were telling us they would really welcome that sort of support when we were in the full restriction period. And we also launched a large randomised controlled trial, which we've been conducting in NHS and local authority, child adolescent mental health services to evaluate an online parent led cognitive behaviour therapy intervention for child anxiety problems, to enable families to access support remotely, but for services to be able to deliver efficient support that's also effective. So that's actually continuing, we're coming into the final phases of that now. But we hope that as well as being able to communicate the results to policymakers, we've also taken the opportunity to sort of innovate and carry out rapid evaluations, which we hope will provide some useful solutions for practice going forwards you know, but in pandemic context, but also beyond just as ways of increasing access to evidence based support for families.

Catherine McDonald 27:20

So Cathy, Jennifer, Brigitta, what has your research told you about what policymakers should be focusing on in terms of priorities for the recovery?

Cathy Cresswell 27:31

So I mean, I absolutely agree with Laura about opportunities for children and young people to have fun and play and build connections, and also to make up for lost opportunities, you know, opportunities to kind of be inspired and discover, you know, what they enjoy doing what they want to be doing with their lives, I completely agree that that is really critical. As a clinical psychologist, I'm also quite focused on the end of those children, young people who are struggling and where families are struggling and thinking about their needs. So I think one thing that was obviously really important prior to the pandemic, and the pandemic has really highlighted the need is for, you know, rapid access to evidence base psychological support for families when they first need it. And it's something that families were telling us that they wanted prior to the pandemic, people don't want to have to wait until problems are really severe. They want to be able to get support, you know, it could be low level support, but support that has an evidence base behind it, you know, at an early stage when they first have concerns about their children and young people. And we really, you know, I think the pandemic has really highlighted how we need to find creative ways to make sure that families can access that evidence-based support when they first need it.

Catherine McDonald 28:43

Sure. And Jennifer, would you say the same?

Jennifer McMahon 28:45

And if I could just add to what Cathy said there, because I think that's really just very spot on in terms of what needs to happen post pandemic. But I think what it also highlighted was that we need to be quite creative also in the way that we provide supports to families so that they are protected against something like a pandemic happening again. So for example, one of the first things to go during the pandemic was face to face contact for people who are seeking counselling or support and or any kind of intervention. So we need to actually enhance and develop methods where we can actually engage with families with young people with children that are not all about face to face. So enhancing those online supports, providing more toolkits, enhancing the supports through schools, and schools are largely under resourced in this area around providing therapeutic or emotional support to families. So I think if we could just focus on maybe some of the aspects that didn't work well, during the pandemic, certainly we need to think about if something like this was to happen again, would we be back to square one? Or have we actually taken lessons from the pandemic, whereby that we actually develop a suite of programmes and methods where we can enhance and support families wellbeing post the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 29:50

Yes. Which brings us back doesn't it too, we must learn from this. And Birgitta, what would your policy recommendations be moving forward?

Birgitta Rabe 29:57

So I guess I'm looking more at what the schools can do to help. And one area here is curriculum as far as I'm aware of. So there is a mental wellbeing curriculum in its own right. But it's also possible to integrate it in all subject areas. And then schools are trying to get back to having extracurricular and extra after school activities. And one quite interesting area as well are the holiday activity and food programmes that are being run. This is something that we want to evaluate and to see how that affects children's and also parents’ mental health over the summer holidays, when often poor children may be not able to access very stimulating activities. And finally, I guess the schools need to be trained and given the resources to link up children quickly to provision where it is available. And I think in that sense, it all comes down to resourcing. And the schools have had a huge role in the pandemic. It's been highlighted that you know, they have a role in feeding children and ensuring they're physically active and so on. And all of these things kind of work together. But schools are also under a lot of strain. And it's a lot to ask, but I do think they have a very important role to play because they are a point of contact for children and their families.

Catherine McDonald 31:13

My thanks to Professor Cathy Cresswell, Dr. Jennifer McMahon, Professor Birgitta Rabe and Laura. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcasts production. Thank you for listening and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode 4 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic doubled down on disadvantaged familes and children. Joining host, Catherine McDonald, are Dr Jim Kaufman from the COVID Realities project, Sarah Edmonds from the Irish Youth Foundation and Emma, a mum of three whose family has been hit hard by the pandemic. Emma gives a first-hand account of her family's experience and the panel discuss both the enormity and complexity of the pandemic's legacy. Transcript

Catherine McDonald 0:05

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine MacDonald and today we're focusing on how the pandemic has doubled down on children and young people from disadvantaged and low income families. In a moment we'll be hearing from Dr. Jim Kaufman, from the Covid Realities project, and Sarah Edmonds from the Irish Youth Foundation. But first we're going to hear from Emma, a mum of three, as she explains the point at which the pandemic began to put a strain on her family.

Emma 0:43

It started to affect us just a few months in my husband was furloughed on 80%. I wasn't working at that stage because my middle child had health issues. So I had to give up work a few months before the pandemic in order to look after her. It just it gradually got worse and hit an all time low, mid-summer, last year. And it's just generally got worse from there.

Catherine McDonald 1:12

And what is it that's got worse? Is it mainly financial income?

Emma 1:15

Yeah, completely. I mean, inflation obviously hasn't helped. And we was already playing catch up. And when you're on a downward spiral, financially, it is so hard to get on top of that. You're constantly chasing your tail. And it is generally just got worse and worse and worse, no matter how hard we're trying to improve our situation.

Catherine McDonald 1:39

And what has happened with your husband's work now has the furlough, so obviously the furlough period has ended has he now gone back?

Emma 1:39

He's now gone back on reduced hours and reduced income. He was working full-time, six days a week. But he's now working full-time, five days a week. He's lost seven hours a week, but he was furloughed for a total of 10 months. And the application for universal credit took a while. So that automatically put us on a setback. It has been hard without what we had before. I mean, it's crazy to say that two years on, we're now doing more to improve our situation, but we're worse off than where we was back, then.

Catherine McDonald 2:26

That's a really interesting point, actually, isn't it that even though you know, we are all back at work, and the children are back at school and preschool and nursery, so to that extent life is back to normal, but you are still having to pedal faster than you were just to be in the same position as you were?

Emma 2:43

Yeah, exactly. You just you constantly feel like you're drowning. I looked at going to work full-time. So I figured that would be my only option. And in order to do that, and put my two youngest in childcare, it was gonna cost over £900 a month. And there was no way that it would be beneficial to be working full-time, and to be paying out that at the same time, because then you've got travel costs on top of that, and it didn't matter what we did, you felt like there was no way out of it. And there still isn't, I mean, things are starting to look a bit brighter. Now I've got the warmer weather, but it is just so hard, and it does consume you completely. It's had a massive impact on my mental health and my oldest child as well. And is this just a sad the last few years have been absolutely horrendous.

Catherine McDonald 3:40

And do you mind me asking how that's impacted on your mental health and that of your child?

Emma 3:46

No, I mean, when, when we was in the midst of lockdown, and I was trying to homeschool my son, the girls were only two and three at the time. And it was just so hard and my son is a very sociable person. So it impacted his mental health greatly. And he even we even went for a patch where he turned around and said, Mom don't want to be here anymore. It breaks your heart but it's just what. It's so hard to get out of that situation. We got him the help he needed. And now everything has opened up again. He's fine, but it made me feel like such a failure as a parent. I couldn't do a weekly food shop like I used to do so the kids went from being able to eat almost what they wanted when they wanted to basically having rations. And everyone knows when when you've got kids at home and they're bored all they want to do is eat and it was it was such hard work and it took a massive toll on my mental health because financially we just couldn't cope. I couldn't give the kids what they wanted, what they needed. And if it hadn't been for the children, I can honestly say I wouldn't be here now.

Catherine McDonald 5:10

Emma, that's just you know, that's, that's just gonna stop everyone in their tracks. That's just so awful to hear. But um, you know, obviously, we'll all be pleased to hear that, as you said earlier, things are starting to look a bit brighter for you. So what was it about your sort of pre-pandemic situation would you say that sort of laid the ground really, for you and your family to experience the pandemic in the way you did?

Emma 5:36

Well, my daughter's health issues started in the November before the pandemic, and we nearly lost her. And I had to give up work to look after her. It's just it's so it's so sad in this day and age that a man who's working full-time still can't provide what he needs for his family. Do you know if you went back, God knows how many years that used to be the thing moms used to stay at home, look after the children, the man bringing the money, but it just doesn't work that way now.

Catherine McDonald 5:36

Exactly, and as you say, for families who want to live that way. And like you said, you knew because of your daughter's health issues that you wanted to be at home, that's where you felt you needed to be. But doing that put you in an awful situation.

Emma 6:26

Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's frustrating. The fact of the matter is, I had to put my child's health first and look after her in order for her to make it through the pandemic. And by doing that, we went through, well we are still going through the financial repercussions, and it shouldn't be that way.

Catherine McDonald 6:49

So what would you say to policymakers listening to this?

Emma 6:53

Policymakers? Well, I think at the end of the day, as far as the decisions they're making at the moment, they're not putting the younger generation first, which is what we need to do, because ultimately, they're the ones that are going to suffer in the future. They're the ones that are going to have to live with it long term, and they are our country's future. So there should be more in the way of supporting the younger generations and all the children going through child poverty that aren't getting that fair start. There should be something to support them.

Catherine McDonald 7:27

And how are your children now in themselves? How are they doing?

Emma 7:30

My daughter has come out the other side of her illness, my son's mental health has improved. I think they're just they're much happier now. Because they get to socialise with other children live a pretty normal life. Yes, it's not as I'd like it to be at home. I'm skipping meals to make sure the kids are fed. And my son's now noticed, but it's a case of swings and roundabouts I suppose. It's positive that they're now being able to social and get the education that they need. And they're improving in that sense. So we're at a point where we need to be grateful as there are worse things.

Catherine McDonald 8:06

But you are skipping meals?

Emma 8:08

Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't have breakfast or dinner. I will just have something small throughout the day. I mean, it was a few weeks ago, my son said to me, said, he asked for some cereal, and he picked up two bowls. I said, you don't need two bowls of cereal. You have one bowl breakfast, and he was like. No, I'm doing you some cereal mum. But I haven't seen you eat in days, I will need to make sure you eaten before I go to school. And that broke my heart because he's actually noticed that and he's trying to make sure that I'm eating but I've got to make the food last as long as possible. And we are using food banks.

Catherine McDonald 8:42

And obviously it's we're seeing as you mentioned earlier, inflation and everything just seems to be getting more and more expensive. And at the moment we're heading for summer. How do you feel about the year ahead, you know, including a winter in that where you're going to need heating.

Emma 8:58

I'm absolutely dreading next winter. I mean, last winter was hard enough because we had the universal credit uplift got taken away. Our energy price went up the same month, we had Christmas around the corner. That was hard enough, but this winter, I'm absolutely dreading because the prices are meant to go back up again in October. We can't even cope with the prices that we're having to pay now. And it's the warmer weather imagine I can't even begin to imagine how much next winter is gonna affect us. I really can't.

Catherine McDonald 9:32

Jim, so obviously Emma takes part in the Covid Realities project. Are you hearing similar experiences to Emma a lot?

Jim Kaufman 9:41

Obviously Emma's experience, and everyone's on the project is unique, but there are some common themes that come up. So Emma's talked about the inadequacy of pay, particularly in relation to rising costs. So not having enough income and not really having enough income before the pandemic either. So just getting by. And then the pandemic comes along as a shock, other things that have impacted on COVID realities, participants, the difficulties of homeschooling, but also the price of care, I think comes up for lots of people. So the costs that are imposed by any choice to care whether that be as a parent for a child or other kind of family members that those choices around caring impose costs on people. And in these sorts of situations, people often turn to the benefit system, which is ostensibly there to, to kind of support people in moments of crises, or when situations mean that they have to step away from the labour market for whatever reason. But what we see in lots of cases is that the benefit system doesn't really plug that gap and engaging with it even puts people on the back foot. So yeah, I think those those themes that Emma's mentioned do come up for lots of people.

Catherine McDonald 11:06

And Sarah, again, your reaction to Emma's experience, how does that align with what the Irish Youth Foundation has seen and heard as people come out of the pandemic?

Sarah Edmonds 11:15

I mean, it's so impactful, listening to you speak Emma I am listening, I suppose, with my Irish Youth Foundation lens. And something that's slightly different, I suppose to what we have witnessed is that Emma has clearly created a lovely home for her family, her kids are growing up in a very loving environment. And of course, there has been huge challenges for you, Emma over the last number of years with COVID. But listening to you what I'm hearing is a mom who's incredibly focused on her children's wellbeing and two parents and a couple who are doing their best in extremely challenging circumstances to meet their children's needs. What we have witnessed, unfortunately, is a lot of children coming from homes where there isn't that parental support, and that safe family structure and that family unit. I mean, what we have seen is before the kind of onslaught of COVID, the children, young people that we were working with, were already really struggling to secure a safe foothold in society, and poverty and exclusion, had really placed them at the furthest point from meaningful participation in education, from wellbeing in terms of their mental and their physical health. And I suppose really just distancing them from being able to make the most positive life choices. So then for those children that were already living with that experience, what COVID meant was that all of a sudden, their most trusted support and their most critical support systems and services, outside of school, local youth project or after school clubs, these were suddenly taken away from them, they were shut down overnight. And what we saw was so many children and young people, I suppose suddenly experiencing a deeper like an additional trauma in their lives in that maybe homes that weren't safe spaces, were the only spaces where they could be. Adults, such as their youth worker, or their support worker, or teacher, even in so many cases, and who were the trusted people in their lives were no longer available to them. So they were left incredibly isolated, and very often in quite unsafe circumstances. In the second lockdown that we experienced over here, those youth services were available. But for youth workers, what we heard from them was that they had to engage them online and young people were so disengaged from online work that, that the youth workers lost a lot of relationships. And these were relationships that had been established over years with children and young people who were living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage or living with chaos or trauma in their lives. So it created, I suppose, a massive crisis really. And, you know, Emma spoke there about how two years on she and her husband are doing more to improve their situation, but they're worse off than they were. And this really aligns to what I've heard from a lot of youth workers. One youth worker described it to me very powerfully back in 2020. She said, what we're experiencing now is the building of a tidal wave, the school closures, the lock downs, the lack of access to important services, all of this is building building. And everybody thinks because this was just as we were coming into the reopening after a third lockdown. She said everybody thinks that returning to school and getting kids back into services where everything's going to be fine, but she said we're going to see the impact of this for years to come. We're going to be dealing with a mental health fall out that as the generation we've never witnessed, we are going to be dealing with a crisis in terms of skills and employability opportunities, and we are going to be dealing with early school leaving and lack of education as a direct result of COVID-19 and the lockdowns. She said, it's going to be a tidal wave that's going to crash. And the impact will be seen for years. We think I think quite often that, you know, we've closed the door and it almost back to not wearing masks. And we're back to socialising as we were able to pre-COVID. But the long-term effects and the long-term impacts are going to be with us, I think, for a very long time to come.

Catherine McDonald 15:24

Absolutely. And hearing you say that it's overwhelming, you know, to picture it as a tidal wave. What do we do? What can we do?

Sarah Edmonds 15:33

Yeah, I know, it's hard, isn't it? It's hard to know what we can do. I mean, to direct policymakers, I would say that we urgently need to fund more evidence based mental health intervention support programmes. I mean, Emma spoke about her son's mental health being impacted and her own mental health being impacted. And the challenge with mental health difficulties is that mental health doesn't discriminate, but we don't have enough access to services, Emma's talking about skipping meals to make sure her children are fed. How can she prioritise counselling when that's her her most basic and urgent needs? Certainly in Ireland, we're not providing enough access and enough support to mental health interventions at an affordable rate for people I believe, we also just need to invest in safe spaces. This came out of our research the foundation did a piece of research last year. We surveyed just over 300 youth workers, they represented 35,000 children, young people around Ireland, and safe spaces was a huge thing that came out of the research. We need to invest in safe spaces where youth workers can rebuild relationships, and directly engage children and young people. Children and young people need the opportunity to socialise again, to engage in activities, and to build their self confidence to have a chance to build their resilience, in order for them to go forward out of this devastating pandemic with the best possible shot at well being in the future.

Catherine McDonald 16:59

And Jim, would you echo that? Have you got anything to add to that in terms of, as I say, this overwhelming feeling of we need to do something? What do we do?

Jim Kaufman 17:08

I've actually got a question for Sarah. So Sarah spoke about the impact of the pandemic being like a tidal wave, and something that's built in and that won't be fully experienced, or that will take a number of years to unfold. But she also spoke about very clearly about, like the sense of urgency in the sector in the area that that she works in, in youth services that something needs to be done now. That definitely resonates with Covid Realities. But I wondered, does she perceive an awareness amongst policymakers of that urgency? Does she think that there's a kind of, a sort of readiness amongst policymakers to begin to address things on the scale that she says is needed?

Sarah Edmonds 17:54

I, I don't to be quite truthful. I know from what we have learned from the youth workers, who are the people on the ground that the people doing the direct work with these families and these children and young people is that there isn't that sense of urgency and that there isn't that sense of immediate response. I think that our, and again it's different in Ireland to the UK, but I think that our mental health system over here at the moment, and the structures that we have in place would really highlight that that sense of urgency is not there that it's not being prioritised. We did a survey in May 2020. It was young people only. So between the ages of 15 and 24. That responded - 59% of the young people that responded reported being worried about their mental health. That was in May 2020. In July 2020, only 15% of young people surveyed through a different national mental health survey reported being engaged with a mental health support service, there's a huge deficit there. And then we saw that at the end of August 2021. We had 2,384 children on a waiting list for their first appointment with our child and adolescent mental health service. So I don't think the priority is being placed where it needs to be placed right now. Youth services that we engage with reported no increase in their funding, post COVID-19. They have all stated that there is actually a deficit in funding at the moment. And it's putting huge strain on resources to enable them to get out into communities and to engage with families and engage with young people and start to thread together solutions and it's stopping them from prioritising work that needs to be done. And that's down to resources. It's down to a lack of staffing and a lack of funding.

Catherine McDonald 19:54

Jim, is that what you expected Sarah to say?

Jim Kaufman 19:58

Yeah, that kind of reflects the situation in the UK as well, and particularly around, you know, addressing the kind of problems that have been revealed in terms of people's incomes and the cost of living crisis. That's that's kind of emerged out of the back of the pandemic. So yeah, I mean, I think there was perhaps a bit of hope that in the spring statement, more might have been done to address the disparity between incomes and and outgoings that many people are facing. But unfortunately, that's not been the case. And yeah, I don't see a real sort of urgency to address the damages that have been done during the pandemic. And unfortunately, what we seem to be seeing is a kind of a wish, really to kind of return to normal when things really still aren't normal at all. So yeah, unfortunately, I kind of recognise what Sarah is saying.

Sarah Edmonds 21:00

Can I jump in there, Jim, because just when you say, a wish to return to normal, I totally agree with you. But quite often, what I'm experiencing is that's a privilege piece. If you're from a household where you're earning an average or above average income, you have the privilege to move forward, and maybe not address the challenges the long term impact of COVID-19 in a very different way to families who are earning lower incomes. And I think it's really important that we acknowledge that, but I think there is an absence, certainly in the Irish government, of representation of those families, within the policy making system and the policy makers themselves. And I think that's a huge challenge, then that needs to be acknowledged and address.

Jim Kaufman 21:49

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. In the workshop that we attended, you said that during the pandemic, we may have all been in the same storm, but we weren't all in the same boat. And I think, you know, that struck a chord with with lots of people in the workshop. And I think it applies now, coming out of the pandemic. And what you said really reminded me of this quote from one of our participants, so one of their diary entries, this is is Howie, and she describes reading the news one morning about the fact that some families have been able to save during the pandemic that their outgoings had gone down. So they put money aside, and there was lots of news coverage around this, you know, talking about what people are going to do with the extra money that they've got. And that happened in the same week, that there was a scandal in the UK, around the provision of free school meal replacements were certain private contractors were providing about five pounds worth of food, but we're being paid 30 pounds per head for this service. So Howie woke up, she read the news, and she wrote, I have the red mist this morning, discovering that some people have been able to save during this pandemic was a blow and a shock this week. But I'm totally floored by the fact that some companies have been given families only about five pound worth of food, when they're allocated 30 pounds, meaning like we all know deep down that some companies have actually made a choice to profit from those struggling with poverty, it is utterly immoral. The idea that we're all in the same storm, but with different boats just blew up for me this morning. We all know we don't have the same boats. But actually some people from companies are not even in a storm at all. They are sunning it on a beach somewhere while we work out how to ride the coming tsunami with a rubber ring. And I think, you know, it reflects a kind of perception amongst lots of people that we're working with on this project, that either then, you know, their needs aren't kind of recognised, they're not really seen. The realities of their situation aren't aren't even perceived by by some people. Or worse, perhaps they are perceived, but they're perceived as opportunities, you know, more cynically, as kind of opportunities as Howie sees fit for kind of profit making. So I think what you know what you say about representation and about needing to have better representation and more inclusion of lived experience, that policy can better reflect the needs that people actually have really resonates with, with lots of the things that we're finding on our project.

Sarah Edmonds 24:36

That's a really powerful quote that you just shared there, Jim, from Howie. And I think something that, you know, it's just important to note there and I think we know it, but it's not being said enough is that families who are experiencing lower incomes will naturally have less time and fewer resources than to invest into homework, health or extracurricular activities for their children. And chronic financial stress can quite often cause parents to have lower quality interactions with their children. It is just a direct consequence of financial struggle. And when that is not being acknowledged, and the impact of it is not being recognised and addressed, we are only going to cause further trauma for our children and young people. And as Emma said earlier, we need to be investing in these children and young people, we need to be putting our younger generation first. And in choosing to ignore these impacts, we are doing a huge disservice to a generation of young people. And it is very frustrating to be witnessing these consequences in these impacts and feel that there is not everything being done to support people who are in these situations.

Catherine McDonald 25:51

Emma, can I ask you, what do you think about what you've heard from Sarah and Jim?

Emma 25:56

There's definitely people sunning themselves. And unfortunately, there is so many families that have are gonna be listening to this and thinking that, yeah, that's me and the rubber ring. And it's something needs to change. I think there's a hell of a lot of greed about now. And it's time that a lot of people put their own gains aside and thought about the future. There's a lot of people now who are so wrapped up in their own wealth and their own wellbeing that a lot of people don't want to face up to what's going on. And it's a case of ignorance is bliss. And it needs to be brought forward in order to make a change, until it's the forefront of policymakers minds and people that can actually make a huge difference - we're going to be on the same road. And it's only going to get worse.

Catherine McDonald 26:54

And I know it's a hugely complex picture. But Emma, can you quantify certain things you would like to see done?

Emma 27:03

It used to be a case of I knew exactly what needed to change in the beginning. But I think now it's become it's like a plate of spaghetti and trying to straighten it all out. It's, there's just so many different angles. And it's like any structure, sometimes the smallest thing to change can then impact the rest. And there is many, many things that could be changed. But we need to work out which one is going to make the biggest impact because there is a lot of urgency around it. I'm at a point now where I don't know anymore. I really don't. I've thought about it daily from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, what needs to change, what will make our lives better. But I think it's such a sorry state of affairs at the moment. I just, I wouldn't even know where to start.

Catherine McDonald 27:52

Sarah, what what's your reaction to that? In your work? Do you feel the same?

Sarah Edmonds 27:58

We proposed solutions to our research under three key themes of education, mental health and skills and employability. And because those were the three areas for children, young people, where there was the greatest need, when we investigated it. Emma's point of what she's saying about I just don't know, I've thought about it day and night, I think it's so many different levels, you know, we have the micro level of the very basic targeted support for, you know, food, and I guess after school clubs where children can go so that there isn't like a cost. If Emma wanted to go back out to work that she's not paying outrageous fees at nursery. But it's there's such an I suppose a scale to the level of solution, that we almost have to start, I think at a very local community level. And that's what seems to be where there's the most powerful impact that I've witnessed on individuals. If we all take responsibility for being an active member of our community, just where I am, and where I am based, and what I can do within my community, and maybe it's an hour a week of visiting somebody who's maybe on their own. Or maybe it's volunteering at a homework club to help kids who don't have parents at home to help them with homework. I think we need to actually peel back a lot of layers here in order to start at a very core fundamental level and grow out. However, in saying that I'm very cautious to also acknowledge that it is not the responsibility of individuals to do work that should be done at a governmental and national level. We are really letting down a generation of families and young people at the moment and more needs to be done to tackle that crisis.

Catherine McDonald 29:49

Jim, do you feel the same?

Jim Kaufman 29:51

Yeah, we're circling around something that's it's very tricky, isn't it? Because it's clear that things weren't okay going into the pandemic, the social and economic structures of our society is becoming increasingly unequal. There were problems that pre-existed the pandemic pre-existing conditions, if you like, that made people more vulnerable to the pandemic, and its impact living on a low income, or being a carer or caregiver in some way. And those kind of pre-existing conditions that make things much more difficult for some people are not really things that are amenable to small tweaks. Having said that, I think there are some small things that could be done that could make really important changes to people's lives in the short term. And in particular things that the state could do, like in the UK, restoring the £20 uplift to universal credit, and also making it more universal. So extending it to legacy benefit claimants. We could do something to address the lack of income that people have. So this is a key part of the problem, incomes are too low, and they're too unequal. So it would be quite a simple thing to raise benefits. And there's a campaign at the moment in the UK to raise benefits by at least 7 or 8%. So the actual amount of inflation, and there could also be sort of action to sort of strengthen or to improve incomes in the workplace. Restoring some ability of trade unions to bargain for their workers and increasing their kind of strength and leverage would be another way to kind of address some of the problems that have been revealed by the pandemic. And then finally, making sure that we value care, and that we value the care that people give one another, the care that keeps society going, which is too often neglected, and has been particularly neglected by the Social Security system in the UK, over the last two or even three decades, where it's become increasingly about kind of policing the boundaries of the labour market and making sure that people are oriented toward work and all the rest of it. So that has tended to devalue care and make caring, kind of more costly for people. So I think we could do more to sort of value care. And one simple way of doing that would be to increase child benefit, and to make it universal again, so these are small things, but they would definitely make a difference.

Catherine McDonald 32:37

And I think what it also, what it also demonstrates is the importance of the work that you know the Irish Youth Foundation and projects like COVID Realities, the importance of the work that they're doing to highlight the experiences of people during the pandemic and as we come out of it. And, and Emma, I want to thank-you for sharing your experience with us because it's it's very much a story that needs to be told. It's clearly, as we've heard very much a story that's going to resonate with many people listening. So I'd like to give you the final word really, what would you like to say to sort of round off the discussion today?

Emma 33:13

I think that if you see anyone who might be struggling, even if it's just something little in a supermarket, just reach out and see if they're okay, because that goes a long way to making someone feel less alone. Even people you're close with you can guarantee that beneath the surface, you have no idea what they're going, and they just may meet a friend right now.

Catherine McDonald 33:39

My thanks to Dr. Jim Kaufman, Sarah Edmonds, and to Emma for sharing her story. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcast production. Thank-you for listening and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode 3 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we focus on the learning loss suffered by children as a result of the pandemic. Joining host, Catherine McDonald, are Adam Salisbury, Research Economist from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Dr Jennifer Symonds, Asosciate Professor of Education at University College Dublin's School of Education, and Alice Brighty-Glover, Head of Humanities at Hall Mead School in Essex. The panel discuss how children's learning loss evolved during the pandemic, raise concerns about the negativity around phrases such as 'learning loss' and look to the future employment prospects of Generation Pandemic. Transcript Catherine McDonald 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald today we're focusing on the loss of learning experienced by children as a result of the pandemic. Joining me are Adam Salisbury research economist from the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Dr. Jennifer Symond's Associate Professor of Education at University College Dublin School of Education, and Alice Brighty-Glover, Head of Humanities at Hall Mead school in Essex. I began by asking Adam how the learning experiences of school children in England evolved during the pandemic.

Adam Salisbury 0:48

So my colleagues and I at the IFS are interested in this question. And to answer it, we fielded two surveys of parents of English schoolchildren at two critical points in the pandemic. So the first was in March and April 2020. So during the first lockdown, and the first round of national school closures, and the second was in February and March 2021, and that was during the second round of national school closures. And we asked parents about the educational experiences of their kids, so how long they spent on various educational activities, and what resources they had available to them. And when we compared the answers two broad messages came out. The first is that learning experiences appear to have gotten better between the first period of closures and the second. So to give an example, primary school kids back in April and May 2020, spent around 22 hours per week on learning activities. By early 2021 that had increased to 26 hours per week. And we also found that they spend more of this time on interactive activities, such as online classes, which we probably think of as more valuable than more passive, based learning. So that's kind of the positive message, the more concerning one is that even though things improved, they were still significantly below pre-pandemic benchmarks. We know from time use surveys before COVID, that primary school kids tend to spend around 35 hours per week on learning activities. Clearly, this is quite a lot higher than both the 22 hours and 26 hours per week, we recorded in our surveys. So obviously, this raises concerns about substantial and protracted learning loss throughout the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 2:19

And then of course, learning loss has continued, hasn't it? So even when the children went back to school, there were periods of isolation, first if they came into contact with somebody who'd had COVID. And then obviously, if they got COVID themselves. So through that sort of detection and isolation process, learning loss continued, didn't it?

Adam Salisbury 2:37

Yeah, I think that's right. So we didn't collect any data after March 2021. But we could ask the parents about the autumn term of 2020. And this was a period when schools were open to all children. But learning was frequently disrupted because children caught COVID, or their classmates caught COVID. So they had to sort of frequently self-isolate at home. And I suppose this model of instruction, this that characterised most of 2021, as well. So we can think that the lessons that we learned in autumn 2020, are probably applicable, at least somewhat to 2021, as well. And what we found was that children lost out on average, eight days of face-to-face instruction. And when they were forced to self-isolate, they had less access to things like online classes than periods of national closure as well. So again, these periods were probably very disruptive for children.

Catherine McDonald 3:23

So Jennifer, what would you say about the significance of the learning loss that's been experienced by children across the pandemic?

Jennifer Symonds 3:30

Well, I would say that it's too early to tell whether the learning loss will be sustained into later ages for the individuals who experienced a learning loss during the pandemic, because we haven't had the opportunity to follow up these cohorts over a longer period of time. But the concern I think, amongst the research community of learning losses is that if there is a difference in the standardised test scores. In particular the school leaving qualifications that can be observed for cohorts who are completing those who have experienced a learning loss due to the pandemic, compared to previous cohorts that did not. That this potential inequality between cohorts in school leaving qualifications will lead to losses and income between age cohorts across a much longer period of time and potential losses in opportunities for different types of employment that might be available with different levels of qualification. So that's one of the significances that people are, I think, rightly concerned about. But as I say, I think it's far too early to tell whether or not this will become a reality. I think something that's important to be considered is how individual children, individual families and individual schools are managing the learning loss that would have occurred as a result of the pandemic and the school closures. Because when we consider how we prepare young people and children for standardised testing, including school leaving qualifications. Quite often we start the study periods at a particular point in time during the school year. Whereas I know from anecdotal evidence that some schools are now starting the studying period earlier. And I think it's important also to consider the pace of learning during an ordinary school term, and during an ordinary school year, and how the curriculum is covered in class, and how schools and teachers and indeed, families and children can also in their own way impact on the rate of their learning. So whether that be through a teacher teaching the curriculum quicker, or through starting the study period earlier, or through individual families focusing with their children, and here, I'm referring to younger children, on the types of academic competencies that they would like their children to recover or to develop more quickly, and also the role of individual children and their agency in managing their own learning and classrooms.

Catherine McDonald 6:01

And as you say, Jennifer, we're talking about individual experiences, no two families are the same. It seems a good time to start talking about the socio-economic inequalities her. Adam, how did the socio-economic learning inequalities evolve during the pandemic.

Adam Salisbury 6:17

Learning inequalities between children widened quite significantly in the first lockdown. So for example, children from the poorest 20% of households spent around 19 hours per week on learning activities, whereas children from the richest 20% of households spend 27 hours per week on learning activities. So really quite a substantial difference, and one that we didn't see before the pandemic. So during the second national closures in February and March 2021, inequalities in learning time had largely returned to their pre-pandemic levels. So children spend about the same amount of time learning. There's many reasons we can speculate for this, we find in our data that poorer kids are more likely to have gained access to laptops and tablets. And they were also more likely to gained access to things like online classes, which they were less likely to have access to during the first lockdown.

Catherine McDonald 7:02

And so am I right in saying then that COVID has sort of doubled down if you like, on children, who might have already been finding it harder to learn for various reasons.

Adam Salisbury 7:13

Yeah, I think that's right. So even though sort of patterns of inequality had returned to the pre-pandemic levels in early 2021. I don't think that necessarily means that inequalities after COVID, will be the same as they were before. They could indeed be worse. There's two reasons for this I think. The first is that the inequalities that emerged during the early pandemic could have sort of long lasting consequences. And the second is that inequalities could also have widened outside these periods of nationwide school closures. And we have some evidence for this in our data. So we find that during the autumn term, so when kids were back in school, poorer kids lost out on more in person instruction compared to richer kids due to the need to self-isolate. Again, there's reasons we can speculate for this one being that we know infection rates were higher in poorer communities. And also poorer kids tend to attend schools with larger pupil-classroom ratios. With more kids in the class, just the likelihood of catching COVID and having to isolate is higher.

Catherine McDonald 8:07

Sure. Alice, I'm really keen to bring you in here. So you teach in a secondary school. What are you thinking, as you're hearing Adam and Jennifer talk about the work that they've done?

Alice Brighty-Glover 8:18

From everything that I've heard from Jennifer and Adam, so far, I completely and wholeheartedly agree. Talk of a digital divide between socio-economic groups has been really poignant. And although the pupil premium or disadvantaged gap has been very prominent in education. Over the pandemic, it has never been wider in terms of students accessing online materials and online teaching. And what I would say is that the journey that teachers have been on during the pandemic, in terms of what we've provided in lockdown one to where we are now, in terms of our capacity to deal with online teaching has been a real journey in itself. In my own school context, we started with an archaic dinosaur model whereby we had no real concept of what students were able to access. We were uploading work or tasks, because truly speaking as someone that was on the ground, we thought it was going to be such a short-term thing. We thought two to three weeks. And then as, I think we as well as the whole nation, I guess, the reality of the lockdown became very apparent, we had to really move in order to I guess account for what we now call as lost learning. We moved from just uploading material to loom videos where we would record ourselves over PowerPoints to doing zoom lessons. My first zoom lesson was with our whole cohort of year 11s. I think there were 127 students on zoom with me trying to teach them about climate change over the Quaternary Period. And now where we are right now is at a place whereby we use Microsoft Teams to enable students that might be isolating, we do live lessons, we upload all our materials. So we've really been on a journey ourselves as well as we try and equal the playing field that has come from this lost learning.

Catherine McDonald 10:11

And how do you equal that playing field?

Alice Brighty-Glover 10:14

I mean, there's been a lot of discussion in education about adapted and reactive curriculums. We as subject leaders, I'm currently the Head of Geography here at my school have all done deep retrospective looks in our curriculum to see where can we adapt to the learning lost by children? Where can we seek opportunities for retrieval? Another big key term in education at the moment. For instance, for year nine, who have lost two years of learning, I would have expected them to be able to do very complex geographical skills. And whilst I can't go and re-teach back year seven, and eight, within the course of a year, re-going through our curriculums and identifying areas where we can not only strengthen their knowledge, but also strengthen their skills. And it's been a real challenge for people and educators and curriculum designers in order to meet the needs of this generation of lost learners.

Catherine McDonald 11:08

And what would you say to any policymaker listening about what they need to prioritise when it comes to generating catch up policies.

Alice Brighty-Glover 11:16

Now, I would say above all, that the learning loss is global, and it's significant, and students have paid such a heavy price. However, talk of loss alone, is to adopt a deficit model, in my opinion. And if we continue this solo dialogue of learning loss, actually what we've we see in the classroom and I see with my very large cohort of geographers going through their GCSE is this heightened anxiety. This concept of loss is actually one we as a school have sought not to adopt, i.e. the language around loss. At the start of this academic year in September, we started our school year with a burning brighter lighting fires week, which was seeking to enhance what students already knew. So I would actually say to policymakers, whilst it's important that we recognise that there has been learning loss, avoiding talk of learning loss, actually focusing on helping our pupils to readjust to school life, by re-establishing good habits and study skills should be our focus. And actually, I'm very keen on pedagogy. I spend quite a lot of my my time on various courses, looking at educational psychology. And quite a famous American psychologist said, along the lines of this the most important single factor that influencing learning is what the learner already knows. And that, for me is really key focus on retrieval, focus on catch-up, focus on what the student already knows, because this language of loss, has actually been seen in the classroom to be quite detrimental to student mental health.

Catherine McDonald 12:58

That's so interesting. And I think that's the first time I've ever heard it flipped around like that. Jennifer, how does that resonate with you?

Jennifer Symonds 13:07

I'm actually really happy to hear Alice talk about flipping it around. Because I would come at the experience of the pandemic from looking at learning not just as what children are learning and young people are learning in terms of curriculum content, but also what they're learning in terms of competencies. And that by competencies, I mean social and emotional competencies as well as academic competencies. And I think that when we define learning loss as standardised test scores, and the difference in standardised test scores between cohorts of children and young people, we define learning much, much too narrowly. So I would consider learning to be much broader than just learning curriculum content. And I think that actually, the experience of the pandemic has created many opportunities for learning that young people wouldn't necessarily have had. And I think that these types of competencies that young people can develop through working independently, through learning how to work with digital technologies in the way they might not have done so before. In learning other things about themselves and about their lives and about the world. And especially the way that knowledge can be communicated and the role of beliefs. And I think that many people are engaged in these arguments and thinking about COVID and how it's been portrayed, and that includes our young people. So I would think that learning more broadly defined should be really central to our conversation to balance this negativity around the concept of academic learning loss.

Catherine McDonald 14:42

And Adam, do you have anything to add?

Adam Salisbury 14:43

Yeah, I do. And I completely agree with everything that's been said. And the final thing to add, as well as I think like a narrow focus on academic learning loss is kind of a too restrictive viewpoint to look at the consequences of the pandemic. We actually asked parents back in early 2021 about what they were most concerned about and what kind of remedial policies they would most support. And it was interesting that parents were concerned about sort of academic learning loss. But they were also as concerned about the loss in sort of socio-emotional skills and socialising opportunities for their children. And one of the catch-up policies they were most in favour of, was just giving children more time to sort of play and interact with their fellow classmates.

Catherine McDonald 15:20

Absolutely. And as a parent myself, I totally echo that.

Jennifer Symonds 15:23

We've done a study in Ireland as part of our professional doctorate in educational psychology programme, where we studied children's social and emotional competencies, the start of spring 2020, and then went back and looked at the change in their social and emotional competencies in September 2020. And during that period, we had one of the world's longest periods of school closures. And this was a very interesting study that was done with primary school aged children. And what we found was that social and emotional competencies in general did decline over the summer period. We looked at the role of children's socialising experiences during the school closures. So we looked at whether children were spending quality time with their parents, whether they got to play outdoors with their friends, whether they talked to their friends using digital technologies, whether they had a sibling to play with, whether they attended when the lockdown finally ended, any kind of extracurricular activity or camp. And what we found was that digital technology to talk to friends during the school closures didn't have an impact on the development of their social and emotional competencies. But what we did find was that spending quality time with parents, and playing outdoors with friends for this primary school aged sample of children were really significant predictors that were protective factors against the decline in social and emotional competencies across the period of school closure due to the pandemic. So I think this is really interesting as well, and tallies with what Adam and Alice are saying about the social and emotional competencies and the importance of working with children to help children develop these because and I just really want to make this point, going back to something I said earlier in our conversation about the life course perspective, and the long term impact of potential learning loss. These are the things that employers really value. So we've done research into employability. And when you talk to employers, and you ask them, what's important for them, in the recent graduates from university, they don't straightaway say high grades, or excellent academic outcomes, unless you're looking at very specific jobs that need very, very high levels of hard skills. But what employers really are very interested in is his key soft skills. So the ability to make decisions and to work independently in collaboration with others, is very important. The ability to show leadership skills, the ability to problem solve, the ability to manage conflict well and to work in a diverse environment of others in your, in your workplace. So these are the kinds of competencies which are very, very important for employability, and for transferable competencies that can actually see young people through this other crisis that we're currently having, which is in young adulthood, with the employment crisis for young adults because of the pandemic. So these kinds of competencies are really important to develop. So I just wanted to take that life course perspective on this idea of social and emotional competency development, throughout the school closures because of the pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 18:36

Can you envisage a time sort of further on, say, 10 years time where you've got a group of people going for a job, and the employer has the CVs in front of them. And their sort of instinctive reaction would be, oh, that's a COVID generation CV there, we have to account for this, or we have to account for that because they were in year eight, or nine or 10, when the pandemic hit. Do you think it will still be in our consciousness that much in the future?

Jennifer Symonds 19:04

Unfortunately, without a crystal ball, I can't say. But I do think that there needs to be flexibility around school leaving qualifications, if we notice that these are significantly impacted for the COVID generation. And whether that flexibility will be in the perception of employers, or whether we might develop some type of value added scheme that policymakers would have to lead on to account for any difference in grades between cohorts. I don't really know, I think that there does need to be flexibility in the consideration of young people from this generation. However, I do think we're also going to see remarkable things from this generation of young people. And if you look at other circumstances where societies have been, for example, plunged into recession. So if you look at the great recession in the United States, for example, the historical life course work on that finds that there was this absolute blossoming of entrepreneurs during that time period. And so I think, even though we're talking about academic learning loss in today's podcast, I think that there are other things that are going to come out of this experience of the school closures, of the lockdowns, of this so called COVID generation of young people, which are going to surprise and amaze us, when it does come time for them to graduate from school.

Catherine McDonald 20:32

And Alice, what would you say? So as a teacher, what would you say about sort of my fictional question about this job interview scenario?

Alice Brighty-Glover 20:39

I mean, it'll be interesting, I can't remember if I've just imagined this, or whether I have seen in news, the term Gen C, the term Gen C, like popping up in media reports to kind of describe, I think it was in the early pandemic, this concept of what will this generation look like? I would say about this Gen C, or this generation pandemic, that they are incredibly resilient. I think that everyone, especially in education, and yes, I'm speaking from an education point of view, have been through a level of trauma in the sense that all communities regarding education have experienced this level of trauma. But the resilience, but the desire to improve, engage, the skills that they have learned. This generation will be the most digitally aware, then I think the generations that have come before them. And yes, there'll be those GCSEs and we'll look back on where they got their GCSEs and 2020, 2021, COVID generation. But I think the skills and the resilience that they've gained from this period of time, and the work that's been done in and outside of education, I don't think this will be a scarred generation. I only think they'll have, I liked Jennifer's concept of entrepreneurial. I think that they will surprise us in years to come.

Catherine McDonald 21:56

That's fantastic to hear. Adam, do you have anything to add there? Would you say the same?

Adam Salisbury 22:00

Yeah, I would, I guess one more sort of positive bit I can add is some other research we did, which was on the labour market transitions of young people that had recently left full-time education. And one of the ways in which we can imagine in your hypothetical scenario that the COVID generation could be sort of hard done by as if if COVID really messes up their first job after school or university that could have a sort of like ratchet effect, whether that then affects their trajectory. And the job afterwards, and the job after that, and after that. But what we found in 2021, is that the young people that left school and university, the percentage of whom had found jobs within six months of leaving was no lower than it was before the pandemic. That wasn't the case in 2020. But it was the case in 2021. So I think this is quite encouraging, because it looks as though at least for that cohort, their initial labour market transition wasn't significantly impacted.

Catherine McDonald 22:46

Sure, you know, what's coming out loud and clear here is that almost whatever stage you're at whether you, you know, you've you've just entering the employment market, whether your primary school, secondary school, you're going to have been affected in some way and you won't be alone in that. If we could now just sort of look at the difference between primary and secondary. So Alice, I know you're a secondary school teacher, but from your sort of teaching networks, would you say the experiences that you've had have been echoed in primary schools? Or are there significant differences?

Alice Brighty-Glover 23:14

I'm currently undertaking a leadership course whereby I'm actually paired in a trio with two fantastic primary school colleagues, from the local borough. And our shared experiences of catch-up, adaptive learning, most specifically, some of the things I spoke about the anxiety, mental health, school routines associated with the COVID pandemic, are shared. What I would say is the transition from primary to secondary school is a major life event for any 11 year old child in the UK. But what I would say, following the outbreak of COVID-19, we had students in year eight who didn't have that transition. And I would say, with the children that have perhaps faced the biggest gap or biggest change are those in our year seven and eight cohorts who have had that transition in an era of great uncertainty. So speaking for my primary colleagues, in short, Catherine - Yes, the issues we face in terms of curriculum, in terms of catch-up, in terms of the school routines and behaviours are mirrored, but I would even zoom in further into that transitional zone from primary to secondary school.

Catherine McDonald 24:21

I feel so much more positive in having this conversation than I expected to feel. And I think a turning point was when it was flipped to sort of look at what this generation might have gained in, in their skill set as opposed to loss. Also, I guess another major advantage is, I mean, I know that the schools that my children are at are now up and running with Google Classroom and so we're able to just pitch in and carry on the learning at home. That's a huge advantage, isn't it, Jennifer? That we didn't have before?

Jennifer Symonds 24:48

Yes, absolutely and with my colleagues at University College Dublin, we run the children's school lives nationally representative longitudinal study of children in primary schools in Ireland. And during the first school closure in Ireland in 2020, we did a survey of our sample of parents and children and school principals. And we looked at the difference across schools in the amount that schools were using digital technologies for learning. And we found that in our primary school age sample, that only about 20% of children actually had video lessons, and that the majority of children when workbooks and worksheets to go home with at the start of the school closures. And that some schools, the children didn't have any contact with their classroom teachers in others they did. And when you look at the difference between that period and now. So we've recently done another wave of data collection, in fact, we've done two since that period of time. The percentage of children who use video technologies is much greater. And I think that, as you say, Catherine, it's about being resilient to further shocks. Because the issue with the first lockdown was that it was unexpected. And we found in our survey, also that school principals were experiencing the highest levels of stress compared to parents and teachers, and indeed, compared to children, because of course, they were faced with this completely unexpected organisational change. It was this complete disruption in the system of their schools that they had to pick up and keep running in a completely different way, with absolutely no break and no warning. But now we've got these systems in place. So presuming that we do have these continued threats to public health, I'm hoping that we won't. But if we do, and even if there are other issues that may make for future school closures, we are going to be so much more prepared. So I think that the resilience is within us as communities, it's within schools. And it's definitely within us as a society to be able to pick ourselves back up and to be more resilient to future school closures should they happen.

Catherine McDonald 27:06

And Adam, do you see a level of positivity coming through in terms of resilience and sort of agility to maneuver and cope with shocks in the future?

Adam Salisbury 27:15

Yeah, I think definitely. I was actually speaking with a teacher a few weeks ago, and she said that snow days won't be a thing anymore. And it kind of just surprised me, because obviously snow days were something that in the UK, we'd have maybe once or twice a year. But now that this sort of apparatus is set up for distance learning, then they will no longer be necessary. This is perhaps a kind of trivial example. But I think it reflects the broader point that both Alice and Jennifer have mentioned that if there is any shock of education, like a period of illness, etc, then the systems in place to support that child is so much stronger now than they were before.

Catherine McDonald 27:46

Absolutely. Alice, if I could kind of you know, start to wrap it up now by coming to you and just saying. How worried are you for your year 11s, who are about to take their exams, having lost the time at school in the classroom that they have?

Alice Brighty-Glover 28:02

Are they as well prepared as years before? No, they're better. And that is because the pandemic has, I think made this current generation of students be really emotionally aware of learning. And coming from someone that gave up part of their Easter holiday to hold a revision session. Because they wanted it, they needed it. They were so grateful for this learning experience. And that has been the major shift. So am I worried? No. But maybe come back to me when I get my exam results back in August. Catherine, I might retract that.

Catherine McDonald 28:40

I think one last thing to sort of touch on is is there a possibility that there's a swathe of children that might fall between two stools here, with extra help being provided for those who maybe come from more disadvantage, and sort of lower socioeconomic backgrounds? And then more children who come from more affluent backgrounds could obviously you know, they can pay for the extra help? What about the children in the middle, are the children in the middle at risk of falling through the gaps?

Adam Salisbury 29:07

So when we interviewed parents in early 2021, we asked whether their child had been provided with any catch-up provisions. And we actually found a pattern exactly like the one you're describing. So children in the poorest 20% of households, and children in the richest 20% of households were the most likely to have been offered some kind of catch-up tuition, with children and the sort of middle 60% being the least likely, which kind of chimes with the sort of forgotten middle story that you were describing. I want to caveat this by saying two things. The first kind of obviously, is that this was the pattern in early 2021. And we don't have the data to say whether this has continued throughout the pandemic. But the second thing is that even though the poorest 20% of kids were more likely to have been offered these catch up resources, they were actually less likely to have voluntarily taken them up. So when we look at the children who are actually accessing these services, we no longer see this U shaped relationship anymore. So in this case, we just see that the richest kids - sort of kids in the richest 20% of households - were the most likely to have access to catch-up tuition. And those in the bottom 20% and middle 60% were about equally likely to have access to them.

Catherine McDonald 30:11

Sure, sure. So I think, Alice, I'd like to give you the final word here. What would you say to any parent listening to this fretting about the amount of learning their child may have lost as a result of this pandemic? What would be your message to them?

Alice Brighty-Glover 30:28

I think I would have two messages. I think one the most important thing to have come from this pandemic is the shift from obsessing over academic performance to focusing on the emotional and social experience of children has been key. And I've noted that in my role, not just as a teacher of geography, but as a form tutor. The focus really on child wellbeing, I think, has been key. But secondly, what I would say to parents is we as a teaching profession, have looked deep into our curriculums, look deep into our teaching methods, look deep and reflected on what we are providing your children in order to stop the negative language, the negative dialogue about loss, and we are in front of your children everyday, helping to remind them what they know, and helping to prepare them for the future.

Catherine McDonald 31:21

My thanks to Adam Salisbury, Dr. Jennifer Symonds and Alice Brighty-Glover. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcast production. Thank-you for listening and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In episode two of the Generation Pandemic Podcast we compare the social policy responses to the pandemic in the UK and Ireland. We look at the significance of the policy landscapoe pre-COVID-19, what was implemented, and the impact of the different schemes on individuals, families and children. We discuss the longer term policy legacy of the pandemic response and how this might inform our reaction to further crises such as climate change. Joining podcast host, Catherine McDonald, are Dr Rod Hick from the University of Cardiff and Professor Mary Murphy from the University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Here is a link to the research discussed.

Transcript

Catherine McDonald 00:05

Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald and today we're comparing the social policy responses of the UK and Ireland to the pandemic. Joining me are Dr. Rod Hick from the University of Cardiff, and Professor Mary Murphy from the National University of Ireland Maynooth. I began by asking Rod about the policy landscape pre-COVID-19 and why that was significant.

Rod Hick 00:39

It was significant in the first instance, because minds were focused elsewhere. So as we note in the paper, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the UK, came on the very day that the UK was, was leaving the European Union. So the attention of policymakers was very much on Brexit in the lead up to those initial cases. But it's also relevant, I think, because Brexit as a period was one where the relationship between the UK and Ireland was very much brought to the fore, not an easy aspect of those negotiations. But I think that lends itself to, I guess, the comparison that we made in the paper between the UK and Ireland.

Catherine McDonald 01:24

And Mary so as Rod has, has said there the work that you've done, compared to the UK and Ireland, why was that?

Mary Murphy 01:31

Well, I suppose there's a logic for comparing the UK and Ireland in terms of the historical connections between the two welfare states. And the, the similar kind of liberal structure of the two welfare states. But it also gives a very interesting opportunity to look at path dependency in action, if you like in that we did, although they're similar, we started the pandemic with quite different basic welfare systems in the capacity of the two countries to respond. And that, that meant for an interesting, almost natural experiment, in terms of how the configuration of income support sort of enabled the responses or configured to the responses that happened. So it was an interesting case in that sense as well.

Catherine McDonald 02:15

And what time period did your research look at? And again, why?

Mary Murphy 02:19

Well, to be honest, it was it was a moving clock in that we started this research very much at the start, you know around May where we had a chance to look at what had happened since March 2020. And I think we thought we might stop it in the end of the first wave. But things kept moving, as we know. So we ended up luckily, I think, for the work that we did being able to observe some of the ongoing responses as the second wave emerged. So we were able to kind of, kind of capture almost a year really, in terms of their responses. And so we were very much capturing a moving picture as was the world at the time, because nobody knew quite when things were going to start and stop.

Catherine McDonald 02:56

Absolutely. So let's look at the initial policy responses. Rod, can you talk us through what the UK did, first of all?

Rod Hick 03:04

Sure. So the UK had two main planks to its policy response. There were initial changes in terms of the waiting days for sickness benefits, but those were pretty small. But the the two real changes were the introduction of furlough, on the one hand for people who weren't able to continue working but hadn't lost their job they were formally retained. And changes made to Universal Credit for those who were either unemployed at the time of the onset of the pandemic or who became unemployed. And those policy changes were really quite different. Furlough was perhaps the one that grabbed most attention of, for obvious reasons, on the grounds that it was a wholly new instrument rolled out incredibly quickly really. And paid a very generous or level, at least for for higher earners, paid up to 80% of earnings up to two and a half thousand pounds for retained workers. So really, a new instrument and a really generous level of paying for higher middle income earners. And then in for Universal Credit, this was increased from around £74 a week to £94 a week, this was the £20 uplift that there's been a significant amount of discussion about.

Catherine McDonald 04:14

And Mary, what about Ireland? What were the initial policy responses in the Republic of Ireland?

Mary Murphy 04:19

Well, I suppose for people who are in employment still the same policy response was there as the furlough in terms of what was called the temporary wage subsidy scheme, and which was broadly similar in design in terms of the thresholds and the intention to keep people connected to their employment. What I suppose the biggest contrast between the UK and the Irish responses, more lay in the income support system. So Rod has described the Universal Credit being the main mechanism for supporting people who weren't connected to employment, or who are marginally connected to employment in the UK and described how that was just a £20 uplift. In Ireland, there was a completely different response. In that they chose not to use an existing welfare payment, or to innovate a new pandemic unemployment payment, which was much more generous and much more administratively easy to get and keep than the the other types of welfare payments that were available. So this pandemic unemployment payment, instead of being paid as a 203 euro rate per week, which was the normal unemployment payment, this was paid at 350 euro per week on an individualised basis. It was given ex ante. So it was given to everybody who applied with a retrospective check on eligibility and means testing. So, in a way, it was a completely new departure for the Irish welfare system to have a payment that was very accessible, very generous, very individualised. And that was only tested for eligibility after the event. So this was a very different type of approach to the more low key approach, maybe in the UK, which was a much more less generous approach where, where people only got £94, the Irish equivalent was 350 euro. And so that those two were, they gave us an opportunity, I suppose to look at that issue of past dependency, whereas the UK already had Universal Credit, and decided to use that as the main mechanism. Ireland felt it had no real welfare payments that they could quickly respond to the crisis with, and therefore innovated this very quick response - pandemic unemployment payment.

Catherine McDonald 06:31

That was pretty incredible that they were able to do that then if they were coming from a base that had less.

Mary Murphy 06:36

It was administratively incredible. And it was politically quite interesting to see how quickly the political system could choose to respond to a need, you know, and ditch a lot of their previous concerns about you know, what was necessary in a welfare design system.

Catherine McDonald 06:45

And Rod can I come to you on that as well? How do you feel the two compared? So the two meaning the UK and the Republic of Ireland? And so moving on, what were the implications of these policies? Mary, can I come to you first.

Rod Hick 07:01

Sure. I mean one similarity that I think is is important is that policymakers in both countries realise they needed new policy instruments to deal with this crisis. So one of the things we see if we pan out and consider, what some other European countries did is they essentially lent much more on existing instruments. So sometimes those social security schemes might have been tweaked to make them a little more generous. But essentially, policy rested on existing social security instruments. In both the UK and Ireland, you have the recognition that existing schemes weren't going to function and there needed to be a major supplement. In the UK that came via the furlough scheme in Ireland, both of the two schemes that were relied upon were novel. So I think that's an important similarity. A key difference, I think, was that in the UK, the reliance on furlough was really much greater. It was more generous payment, then potentially, you know, for higher earners than either of the Irish schemes. And then there was a huge difference down to the level of payments provided via Universal Credit. And as Mary said, you know, that's a that's a product of a long standing, emphasis on rate restraint in relation to social security payments in the UK. So the uplift was only £20 a week, much, much more modest than the increase in payments to the pandemic unemployment payment in Ireland. And yet in the UK, that was viewed as a really major change and is argued by many people to be a success. And no doubt it was in terms of making a difference to family incomes, but the fact that that increase was only £20 also kind of shows us the, the somewhat limited horizons of social security policy in the UK.

Mary Murphy 08:52

If you look at it from the perspective of families or gender and child poverty, I think one of the implications in Ireland from the pandemic unemployment payment was it was a new focus on on inequalities. At first glance, it looks like a really strong and positive response in that each adult who found themselves unemployed had access to a much more generous pandemic unemployment payment. But in reality, a lot of families would have been traditional male breadwinner families, where the adult dependent or the qualified adult, largely the woman wasn't working in the open labour market or wasn't working in a recognised way. And they didn't have access to the new pandemic unemployment payment. That family were really left reliant on the old welfare system, which was much less generous. It was 203 for the main payment and then a proportionate amount for the second adults and the child dependents. So I think from the perspective of child poverty, this wasn't such a good solution really, and while we find it probably worked very well for a lot of younger people, for example, single younger people in the labour force, who have found themselves with a quite generous welfare payment. A lot of families who more traditionally had low paid work, and had only one worker in that family, they found themselves struggling to survive on the old welfare system, and with very little political attention on their situation, because everybody was focused on the pandemic, on unemployment and the pandemic subsidy payments. So the old welfare system trundled on with the same people in it at very inadequate levels. And I think that type of inequality entrenched in the context of, you know, just reinforcing an existing level of child poverty that was already there. And that is still there. So child poverty didn't really get a look into some degree during this period.

Catherine McDonald 10:43

And Rod, what would you say about the UK? What what do you feel? Or what did your paper find were the implications of the policies in the UK?

Rod Hick 10:50

I think a key implication was the extent to which Universal Credit got a shot in the arm, if you like, as as a policy instrument. So this is obviously a policy that has been legislated for many years ago and rolled out over a number of years, and there has been significant delays in relation to. And you know, at the moment, pandemic hits, you have a lot of workers who became unemployed would have had reasonably complete national insurance records and and might have had entitlement to one of the remaining contributory Social Security payments that are available in the UK. But the government really emphasised Universal Credit as being the response for people who lost work. And indeed, the uplift only applied to Universal Credit, or this new means tested payment rather than the older contributory payments. So a key implication, I think, was that, you know, at the moment where the remaining contributory social security payments in the UK might have seen a resurgence in terms of caseload, the policy emphasis yet again, is placed on Universal Credit. And that gets solidified politically as a result.

Catherine McDonald 12:06

And so if we move on to look at what happened when the second wave of infections hit in October 2020, Mary, what did that do to what the Republic of Ireland had put in place?

Mary Murphy 12:18

Well, I suppose the hope had been originally and maybe the generosity attached to the hope was that these were always going to be very short term policy responses that the, you know, the first wave would be the only wave. So it became a gradual realisation that both of the temporary wage subsidy scheme, and the pandemic unemployment would be around for longer than was originally anticipated. So both of them were nuanced, if you'd like they were sort of squeezed down and reformulated slightly, to make them less generous, and to make them maybe a more longer term type of payment. And they continued on until very, very recently, as the two primary policy responses. I suppose what what the longer term policy legacy now, because of the longevity of those payments is whether or not the presence of something like the pandemic unemployment payment, as a more generous and less means tested type approach, has opened up a new type of demand in Ireland now for maybe more social insurance based payments, more wage related or pay related benefits. And there's certainly political discourse about that now. It's also revived an interest, I think, in reforming the welfare system towards basic income type payments. And there's certainly demand for more innovative approaches to supporting key industries, like for example, the arts and culture industry, there is a demand that a basic income be used through the welfare system to support workers in that reemerging industry. So it's quite interesting I think that because the payments didn't get shut down very quickly, and they settled into a maybe a, you know, almost a two year life pattern, they have now been a little bit embedded in the policy system as well. And they're giving rise to more, more challenging and more innovative types of policy discussion about potential income supports than we might have had prior to the pandemic. I'm not saying necessarily they will result in any of those policy outcomes. But I think we've had strong political indicators, for example, around pay related benefits. And that's interesting to see. And likewise with some of the new innovations and new forms of basic incomes.

Catherine McDonald 14:31

And Rod, what about the UK? What happens here when the second wave of infections hit in October 2020, obviously, with the furlough scheme, I imagine it was the same thing. We all thought that that that first wave would be it, and it wasn't, what would you say about the UK situation?

Rod Hick 14:47

That's it - we thought it would only last a few months and realised that it wouldn't. I mean, what happened was that policymakers tried to reverse the generosity of the furlough scheme, in particular. And took steps to amend the structure of that scheme in a variety of ways to essentially make it less generous over time to impose a greater degree of burden sharing or cost sharing with employers, which in a sense, was an attempt to also test that these jobs really were viable at all in the sense that employers would be willing to pay put something forward for these workers who were being retained at significant public expense, and essentially had an attempt to reduce the generosity of these payments. But government had to perform a pretty sharp, well certainly a total u-turn in the end, in order to impose that second lockdown. It became very clear that, you know, the political support that the feasibility of imposing a second lockdown was going to be dependent on workers receiving very significant levels of support.

Catherine McDonald 15:54

So with the benefit of hindsight, how would you both rate those policies now? Mary, can I come to you first on that?

Mary Murphy 16:02

I think with the benefit of hindsight, I mean, I don't I'm not sure we have hindsight yet. Becasue we're still in it for a start. And I suppose that's a form of hindsight to begin with, is we can learn a lot from governing through a crisis in the context of the types of assumptions that were made about how long something would be, and what the needs are. I think, you know, one of the things that people often talk about in the context of the pandemic more generally, is that it reinforced existing inequalities. And we talk in our paper quite a bit about, you know, some of the gaps, some of the people who slip through the net. If we look at gender, if we look at ethnic minorities, we can look at a variety of people who weren't captured through either the temporary wage subsidy schemes or furloughs or or the types of income support responses that there were. I mentioned earlier, as an example families with children possibly being a gap in Ireland in that respect. But I think as well, we began to appreciate better, I think, the degree to which people are dependent not only on income supports, but on the variety of public services around the income support that really make up the entire welfare state. So for example, we found in Ireland that housing was it was a very significant issue, and that it couldn't really be addressed through income support, as in the primary payments, but a lot had to be done on moratoriums and rent increases and eviction notices, for example. So we would have found some policy responses that banned evictions that banned rent increases, and we saw a very significant decrease in homelessness and child homelessness over that period. And we see now as those kinds of restrictions are being taken back out of the system, and rent increases are allowed and evictions are allowed, we see, you know, an almost exact correlation with the increase in family homelessness and child homelessness again. So I think we have a lot of lessons to draw on with the benefit of hindsight about things that worked during the pandemic, and that maybe needs to stay in place after the pandemic, regardless of pandemic conditions, because they're good in their own right, as policy, you know, decisions and policy frameworks to tackle major societal issues.

Catherine McDonald 18:13

And I guess that's the thing, isn't it, that when we talk about inequalities, children are often at the sharp end of those inequalities, aren't they?

Mary Murphy 18:21

They are I mean, you know, I mean, if we look in both countries, I think, you know, the degree to which lone parents experienced the highest risk of relative poverty, consistent poverty, deprivation indicators, and the children of those lone parents are particularly at risk. And if you look at things like the intersectional inequalities, and you look at sort of migrant lone parents and their children experiencing a very significant risk of poverty, then we're able to see where the targeting needs to be, but where the targeting often wasn't in the context of the pandemic responses. So I hope with the benefit hindsight, we can learn some of the policy omissions that were made, as well as maybe some of the policy successes that we had, and, you know, learn from learning from both because I suppose one thing we we need to be mindful of is this pandemic gave us a glimmer of what it might be like to be in a permanent crisis. And we are likely to be in relatively permanent crisis in the context of climate change, and, and other types of very significant transitions that we know are coming our way very quickly.

Catherine McDonald 19:22

Absolutely. Rod, would you agree with that?

Rod Hick 19:25

I would, my thoughts or my take on the policy response is that what was really remarkable was the responsiveness of policymakers. You know, the fact that we erected these new schemes within days is is really the success perhaps, of the crisis and also showed us that that things can change and things can be different and we can actually, you know, be pretty nimble and make huge changes when the right moment arises. But I guess there's one point perhaps where I'm maybe less optimistic than Mary is and it relates to the rather different political contexts between Ireland and the UK. So Mary spoke about how the pandemic had led to new political discourses for improved provision in a variety of areas. And to some extent, we see that in the UK as well, there's certainly more discussion around basic income than there was a few years ago. Indeed, there's a basic income pilot that's about to be, that's about to commence in Wales. So you know, that's got people excited, and the Scottish Government are going to increase their Scottish child payment. So there is areas of innovation. But I think we have to also note, just the degree to which the increase to the £20 uplift to Universal Credit that the government in Westminster were able to reverse that. We've just had a budget where at least some commentators were expecting some improvement in the rate of Universal Credit that which didn't materialise. So there's real inertia. And I think that inertia is of great concern, not, not least, because and thinking about children, you know, one of one of the real issues at the moment in the UK, is that poverty rates for large families in particular, so for families with three or more children, are increasing and they're diverging from child poverty rates for smaller families. So for families with one or two kids. And the key reason for this is the cut to universal credit payments that was made a few years back to larger families. So there we have an instance of a very regressive policy change which is having a quite a direct impact on poverty rates of some families with children. But in the context in which, you know, policymakers are slow to reverse the policy that they've implemented or to listen to evidence to the contrary, I think that's a real concern for those of us who are concerned about child poverty in particular.

Catherine McDonald 21:57

And so, Mary, building on that, what should policymakers be focusing on now, would you say? You mentioned earlier that, you know, we could be in a in a sort of semi permanent crisis for a few years ahead. And also, this could all happen again, we could have a new pandemic, who knows? So what would you say about what we need to do to move forward and protect for the future?

Mary Murphy 22:19

Rod has suggested I was more optimistic than him a little while ago, and I suppose it is, it is almost a political position that I maintain is to try to be hopeful. We've been doing some work in the context of the island of Ireland and welfare imagination, and looking at devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, in the context of some of the experimentation that's happened about alleviating some of the impacts of welfare reform in Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular, and whether there may be some lessons there. Not so much to give us room for optimism, but more that gave us room for hope, I think, which is a different thing. To my mind, there are some interesting debates about welfare, including around child poverty, that look at what where the welfare state itself needs to be reconfigured, to enable it to be a more fluid mechanism to enable us to get through what will be decades and centuries of potential crisis. So it's looking at the role of public services in a different way, it's looking at income support in a different way. And looking at how the two need to work together much more clearly to try and provide the stability and the security that people will need to be very flexible and agile themselves in the context of the types of crisis they're likely to have to be dealing with. So I think, you know, some of the work that's done on universal public services gives us some sense of what we need to be doing. There's some interesting work on configuring income support, not to universal basic income, but to different types of income guarantees and minimum income standards and basic incomes, that give us some sense of how we might look at the welfare system in a different way. And I think the importance of strong institutions, particularly at a local level, that really support families that really support children, and support communities, in the types of transitions that they need to make. So I think there are glimmers of what a welfare system needs to look like that's capable of providing that kind of the, the underbelly of support for people to cope with the level of transition that they're going to experience in their family lives, in their work lives in their lives as citizens, as we look at the decades ahead.

Catherine McDonald 24:24

Rod, would you like to add anything to that?

Rod Hick 24:27

During the pandemic, I felt a lot of the discussion was reasonably narrow. You know, there's a lot of focus on the £20 uplift, for example, in the UK. There was a very good reason for that on the grounds that it was a critical period, a lot of academics and civil society actors felt like they could influence policy potentially or could try to press for change, and were perhaps relatively pragmatic in terms of their demands. But there's really I think, a need for creating a whole variety of proposals in the space between those two visions if you like. But you know between the sort of highly pragmatic, incremental change of, of a small increase to universal credit, and a totally universal basic income on the other hand. And I think that space in in the middle has to engage with proposals that will provide a greater degree of economic security for individuals, for families that will, you know, we need to think about trying to reinvigorate a commitment to eliminating child poverty, for example. But it's, it's in that space that's perhaps most needed that that actually, there's perhaps not as much work being done. And I think that's a real area where greater consideration scrutiny is, is needed. And it's hard, you know, coming up with proposals that can be effective and that radically change things is not necessarily easy, but that's certainly the territory if you like where I think new ideas are needed.

Catherine McDonald 25:52

My thanks to Dr. Rod Hick and Professor Mary Murphy. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcast production. Thank-you for listening and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.

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In the first episode of the Generation Pandemic series, we discuss the experiences of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the experience of home-schooling, the isolation and what it took to keep our children on track - and we look at what the recovery needs to prioritise. Joining host Catherine McDonald are Dr. Jennifer McMahon from the Co-SPACE study, Dr. Hope Christie from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Claudia Hupkau from the CUNEF University and the London School of Economics and Laura, a mum of two.

Transcript:

Catherine McDonald 0:05

Hello and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine McDonald and today we're looking at the experiences of parents during the pandemic. Joining me are Dr. Jennifer McMahon from the Co-SPACE study, Dr. Hope Christie from the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Claudia Hupkau from the CUNEF University and the London School of Economics. Before we dive into the research, we're going to hear from Laura, a mum of two about her experiences of parenting through the pandemic, and how she felt when we first went into lockdown.

Laura 0:47

The first thing was how I would occupy my children stuck in my own house with very limited resources to keep them entertained. And as a small business owner with it having to close down how would I provide for my family? And how would I juggle my business and my role as a mother going forwards?

Catherine McDonald 1:06

And talk us through those first few weeks - how did it unfold for you?

Laura 1:11

I had to relocate all of my patients. I work as a, as a physiotherapist. So I was trying to reassure them that it wouldn't be going on for very long, as well as trying to reassure my children, the fact that I wasn't getting them up and getting them out to go to school in the morning, that it was okay, and that everybody was doing the same thing. And it wasn't us being unusual.

Catherine McDonald 1:30

And what types of things were the children saying at this point? What questions did they have? Can you remember?

Laura 1:36

My little boy was three. So for him, nothing really changed because he was always at home with me anyway. He wasn't in full-time childcare for my daughter, she had literally just started reception at primary school. So for her, she felt I was denying her seeing her friends. I mean she kept saying that mummy can't I see my friends? Why are you not allowing me to see my friends? I just want to go to school. And I want, want to go and have fun.

Catherine McDonald 2:04

And how did you respond to that? I mean, that's such a, such a tough call. It's such a tough position for you to be in.

Laura 2:09

I think I just embraced being at home and tried to make it as fun as I could, and try to devise a plan each day. So there was some form of routine that like she would be getting at school. So we'd have we'd get up at the same time and we'd have breakfast at the same time, then we would have some maybe some messy play in the kitchen, we would do Joe Wicks because I thought that's at least we're getting some exercise and it filled half an hour of our morning and then we'd have lunch and just tried to instil a sense of routine for the children really.

Catherine McDonald 2:45

And as the lockdown went on and then obviously, some children were allowed back to school, I'm guessing yours were. Oh, no, yours would have been because reception was one of the years. And so how did that go?

Laura 2:57

I think, I think I had to run on to the school with my daughter, she was so excited about the possibility of going back into school, which was very different to how she had remembered her schooling life. Whereas before, it was all free play and free flow around the classroom. All of a sudden, they were expected to sit in twos, in desks spaced two metres apart, all facing the front, and no free movement across the classroom at all. So having gone from this sort of play environment to a very structured learning environment was different. But for her, I think it was just a change of scenery. She was pleased that she wasn't in the house anymore, and that she was seeing her friends and felt a little bit like she'd got her life back. I know she was only five but she'd started on this really exciting educational journey in reception, making friends and learning to read and write to all of a sudden having that ripped away from her. And she struggled with that so she sort of embraced going back even with the changes.

Catherine McDonald 3:58

And what about your other child who obviously was still preschool age when your daughter was able to go back to school? How did that affect him?

Laura 4:07

He didn't have anyone to play with apart from me. He was only I think doing one or two days a week at preschool during the first lockdown because he'd only really just started on sort of socialising. But again, we walked my daughter to school, we would come home and then there was just interactions with me all day. There was no interactions with other children. There was no ability to socialise, learn skills, friendship, turn taking not snatching toys, and actually, you know, he got everything when he wanted which now with him starting school is tricky learning to take turns and there are 20 other children in the class that he has to wait his turn. It's not everything now.

Catherine McDonald 4:49

And so when we then went back into lockdown how did firstly your daughter who was at school, how did she react to that?

Laura 4:58

She was devastated and I can remember it really clearly because it was Christmas, we had a lovely Christmas holiday. And there was umming and ahhing of are the schools gonna go back? Are they not gonna go back? Or we were planning on the schools going back. And then everything started on social media, and I put my daughter to bed, and it all unfolded. And she woke up the next morning with me saying, we're not going to school today, the schools aren't going to reopen, and she just was so upset. And again, it was that feeling that I bore the brunt of that she thought I was not sending her in, and that I was the one that was stopping her from going to school. And that first week of home-schooling was horrendous. She didn't want to engage with any other home working. And then when the Google Classroom started, and she could see all of her friends were on the Zoom meeting and the calls and going actually, it's not just me at home, we're all at home, she settled in a little bit better, but still was very, very upset that she couldn't go and see her friends.

Catherine McDonald 5:55

What's coming through loud and clear is how and I think it's something that every parent, it will resonate with that how you became the centre of everything, the energy that was required to home school, and to keep them amused, to keep them happy, to make sure they weren't getting too anxious. It was all on the parents, can you tell me a bit about the effect that had on you?

Laura 6:17

I think for me, it was a case of head down, keep going and, and plough through to be honest. And I didn't really take a huge amount of time to think about what we were doing. And just going right, this is what I've got to do. This is the home-schooling and we just attacked it basically together and threw ourselves into it. But that's all we could do. Because there was nothing else to do. There was no other external influence at that point. We just had to embrace it.

Catherine McDonald 6:44

So obviously, it sounds like you were in a fortunate position in that you were able to take the time to be with the children. What difference do you think that made to you, and presumably, you know, other people whose circumstances were different?

Laura 6:57

I think during the first lockdown, I wasn't working, because my business had been shut due to the restrictions. In the second lockdown, I was able to work. So I was juggling, childcare, home-schooling, and my business at the same time. And we live next door to my parents, and we took the decision that we would bubble together just for us to all be able to cope, really. The children to be able to have an extra support network, as well as being able for me to facilitate going back to work to provide for the family. To actually keep, like you said before my mental health in a reasonable state, because I could step out of that home-schooling, oppressive environment really of being stuck in your house 24/7 and engage with my patients, but I had other parents who have only children. And they were really worried about the impact that no socialising with other children was having on their children. And the fact that their only child was engaging in adult conversation all the time, there was no silliness, you know that you would get between five-year olds having a conversation, it was all grown up conversations and discussions all the time.

Catherine McDonald 8:07

And so when you look back at the various lockdowns and the various periods of time in between what is your overriding sense of the effect that it's had on both you and the children?

Laura 8:19

I feel at the moment, we're just starting on our journey of recovery, both my daughter and my son and myself. My daughter is finally starting to find her confidence again. She suffers quite a bit with what we call worry tummy, which we had a lot during the pandemic and it does rear its head every now and again now, but it certainly isn't as frequent as it was. We never co-slept as we were bringing my daughter up but during the pandemic, we had a lot of co-sleeping because she couldn't cope with me not being in the room with her, those things have started to change. She will now spend a little bit of time on her own doing things without me needing to be there 24/7. But my son who I thought maybe naively was unaffected by the pandemic, being so little and being at preschool and not having a greater awareness of what was going on. He has started school now and we are having some quite difficult behavioural issues within the class. He's very overwhelmed in class, if there's a lot of things going on and too much stimulus going on, he will snatch or he might push another child, which he knows is not the right thing to do. He's very remorseful about it but at that point in time, can't cope. And actually he's sort of withdrawing a little bit from his class to spend some time on his own to try I suppose because that's what he's used to having had been at home during the pandemic. So I think we've got a bit of a journey over the next the next six to nine months to try and help him with those emotions and with those behavioural issues that we're having in class, with the school and with potentially other maybe therapist involvement just try and help him manage those behavioural issues.

Catherine McDonald 10:05

So Jennifer, if I can bring you in here, Co-SPACE track the mental health of children, young people and their parents during the pandemic, what did you find? Is Laura's story resonating with you?

Jennifer McMahon 10:16

Absolutely the findings of the research aligned very much to what Laura has been saying that parents really were at the forefront of buffering children and putting their own mental health at risk in their efforts to do that.

Catherine McDonald 10:28

And what where the main findings?

Jennifer McMahon 10:30

So in the UK study, they have found that young people were more distressed during the peak times and these tended to lessen once the schools opened up and children were able to return to school. And that over time, the symptoms of mental health have stabilised. However, there has been disparity between types of groups. So really, when we're talking about the findings from the Co-SPACE study, both Ireland and the UK, it's really not about a kind of a big overall picture as such, it's really about the different groups that we have within that because the pandemic was experienced so differently by various different types of people. So for example, children with special education needs really did not do very well during the pandemic, a lot of their resources were pulled their supports that they really depend on, kind of came to a standstill, particularly in the first phase of the pandemic. And we're still seeing difficulties associated with that now well into the final phases of the pandemic. So again, young people from backgrounds of socio-economic disadvantage, have had greater disparity in their mental health status as well. In the UK study, they've consistently found that children from one parent families have had significantly more difficulties than typical children from other kind of living situations.

Catherine McDonald 11:35

And Hope you were part of a team that produced a rapid evidence review on mitigating impacts of the pandemic on parents and carers during the school closures. Again, what were the main findings of that?

Hope Christie 11:46

A lot of what Jennifer was saying your high levels of psychological distress, anxiety and depression in parents, especially, we found that parents that were maybe on a lower income or lower socioeconomic status background, parents from different ethnic minority backgrounds, and being female, were also kind of groups that were further at risk for psychological distress during the pandemic. We also found reports of depression and domestic abuse was, interestingly, a lot of charity websites like Women's Aid had reported a massive increase in their usage on their websites and advice lines or phone-in lines. But that wasn't really reflected in the police and hospital reports. So we perhaps think that that's attributable to people being stuck at home with their, their abuser, so unable to report that to the formal services. But that was obviously also something important to note. And yeah, actually, just as well, to say what Jennifer was saying about parents with children with special educational needs. I'm involved in another study called the Road to Recovery Project. And we found that actually, despite their lockdown restrictions easing, those parents with children with special educational needs are still really struggling mentally, they're still reported really high levels of anxiety and stress. And it's a lot to do with the fact that even though restrictions are using those services for their children have not come back.

Catherine McDonald 13:09

So it sounds to me like the issues are twofold in that there's what we all experienced. And then there's, if you like the hangover from that, as everything tries to gear up again. Hope, Jennifer, what would you say to that?

Jennifer McMahon 13:21

Katherine, I think there's a lot of services that have been disrupted throughout the pandemic, that are really trying to find new ways of working with parents trying to find ways of coming back and supporting the kind of caseloads that they've had, which are quite significant now that they've had this backlog of work throughout the pandemic that's not been attended to. So children with special education needs when their services are disrupted, not only do they miss out on the existing services, but in some cases, children might regress, and they need additional support to kind of get back on track again. And then schools have been since the pandemic and it's only very recently in Ireland that we have kind of come to a phase of removal of the masks, removal of the kind of pod system. And so up until now schools really have been firefighting and dealing with a lot of staff absences and support absences. So you know, even though it's two years, since the initial stages of the pandemic, it really has taken this length of time for services to kind of even kind of resume any form of normality. So it's not surprising that children with special education needs are still struggling, there has been a backlog, the services are not resourced well enough to pick up the slack in terms of what has gone on. Unfortunately, the problem that we may be seeing now is that there isn't the same focus on these issues that there may have been over the past two years in terms of the media spotlight, new crisis, new issues coming on, and hopefully, you know that these children won't fall through the cracks. It's really important to keep advocating for services to kind of be well resourced to pick up the issues that have arisen during this pandemic.

Catherine McDonald 14:47

And Hope do you have anything to add to that? Or do you feel that Jennifer's covered it?

Hope Christie 14:50

Yeah, just also important to note that again, we've done some interviews with parents with children with special educational needs and maybe additional health needs as well. So there, you know, even if masks are coming off in school, now that might still bring about some additional anxieties for parents, with children that have additional health needs, because they still are probably quite vulnerable. And I know as well, from conversations we've had with parents, that routines are still being disrupted. With schools, you know, if a SEND teacher phones in sick, there isn't the same resources to get a substitute in just quite as quickly as you would in a mainstream school. So school is generally just cancelled for the day, again, it's super disruptive for parents that are trying to return to work and trying to get a bit more normality, in the sense that they've got to be home with the children if they have to stay home from school. So yeah, I think Jennifer's right, I think we've not not quite seen the full fall out yet. And I think it'll be quite some time before we do. But it is really important that we keep talking about these things, because you know like Jennifer says, the news cycles move on. But it's really important that these things are still, are still super important. And these groups and services need to be well funded and well resourced, so they can go back to providing that respite and that support.

Laura 16:04

Can I just say that it's, obviously the SEN aspect is incredibly important, but it's not just the disruption to SEN children with regards to the the availability of staff, because and the impact of staffing going off with COVID is quite significant here as well. And it's not just we've got children with SEN needs in our schools who are affected. So are the other children. I mean, my son's teacher went off, and he walked in, and he just clung to my leg because it wasn't his teacher that he was expecting to be there. And it really threw him off his stride along with other children in the class. So it's like you said it's still a disruption, whether you're SEN needs or not really.

Hope Christie 16:46

Oh, absolutely. Laura. Yeah, I didn't mean to make it sound like it was only an issue for SEN children and parents.

Laura 16:53

Oh, no, no, no, not at all. I just wanted to highlight that, you know, it goes across the spectrum of primary to secondary to SEN to non-SEN needs, and, and that impact.

Hope Christie 17:04

Oh, absolutely. And it's still out with what the you know, you're trying to get that normal normality back and that routine back for kids, and it just keeps getting changed at the last minute.

Catherine McDonald 17:12

Just to come in there I was just gonna say uncertainty as well is not good for mental health is it? And when you think about the fact that it's well documented that mental health of parents has a very strong correlation with the mental health of our children. And so when you put the uncertainty into that, it's not good, is it?

Jennifer McMahon 17:31

It's not Catherine and I think Laura's point is just so pertinent, because when things go wrong for children in schools context or any other support service context, it's parents that have to take on board the tasks normally associated with and what we found in the Co-SPACE studies, for example, and Laura touched on this earlier on the schoolwork piece, the juggling the schoolwork, that we found that a lot of parents during the pandemic found that they didn't feel that they could support with schoolwork. And this was for a couple of reasons. But the primary reason was, if they were working, it was more difficult to support the schoolwork. And then there was parents who just didn't feel that they had the capacity to support schoolwork, particularly if your children were maybe in, you know, the older years, maybe 10, 11 and 12 where the schoolwork gets more difficult. And I suppose what we saw was that schools were really unprepared for supporting parents to support children. And in our study, we found that that did have a detrimental effect on young people's mental health. So you know, not being able to support your child makes the parent feel more distressed, and then does in turn have a knock on effect on the children. So you know, if we could take anything from a pandemic is that like parents are this pivotal link between school context and other support contexts and the child and that really, we've not paid enough attention to making sure that parents are have the capacity to actually step into those roles when needed. And as Laura has rightly pointed out, this hasn't gone away. And I'm not sure that we have picked up on this enough in the services, that again, this could happen to us again, at some stage and really have we actually learned from this experience?

Laura 18:58

With my experience of home-schooling, thank goodness, my daughter was only in year one and year two, she's taught maths completely different to how I was taught maths. So actually, I felt a bit of a failure because she was asking me how to do something. And I'm going, I can't tell you because if I tell you how I would do it, but I'm also creating more problems further down the line for the teaching staff, because they'd have to undo how I was teaching her. And you're absolutely right. There was no resources there from the schools, from the teachers because they couldn't to teach us parents how we should be home-schooling them and teaching them the correct way. And that was very demoralising, because you're sending children back into a school environment where they can be very behind and this comes back to my point that I say to everybody my daughter is in year two so in her third year of education, she has yet to complete a full year of her schooling life. She has never completed a whole year which is just scary to think.

Catherine McDonald 19:14

It is, it is Claudia if I could bring you in here. So the research that you did found that employment and income shocks parents had an immediate intergenerational effect. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Claudia Hupkau 20:05

Yeah. So in our study, what we looked at was indeed, the interplay between these parental income or employment shocks, and child outcomes and also investments, if you want, in children. So we looked at this at the very beginning of the pandemic, basically, in April 2020, using data from that period. And what we found was that children of fathers whose earnings dropped to zero, either maybe because they lost their jobs, or because they were self-employed and lost all their sources of income, they were much less likely to receive additional paid learning resources, like paid for tutors, learning applications that are paid for etc, compared to children who have not suffered such a negative income or employment shocks. Why am I focusing here on fathers, we actually find consistently when women are affected by these negative employment or income shocks, that doesn't seem to spill over to children. So women translate those shocks less into what goes into the resources they invest in their children, either time or money, let's say. What's the spill over here, because we obviously had a massive economic impact of this crisis, which were fortunately cushioned a lot by government intervention, but but we do see this initial negative impact on the ability to spend money on these additional learning resources. And it helped parents support their children with home-schooling, as we were just hearing from Laura, how challenging that was.

Catherine McDonald 21:30

And so if reduced hours or loss of work meant that those parents then had more time to provide the hands on support to the children. What effect did that have?

Claudia Hupkau 21:41

Yeah, we sort of see that families seem to have been compensating for lower levels of resources or paid for resources. So those same fathers who lost their jobs or all their earnings, we also see that they spend about 30 minutes more per day, helping their children with homework. And this is, again, compared to fathers who did not suffer such shock, similar fathers in terms of educational level, etc, but simply had not the we're not unlucky that they lost their jobs. So this additional time at hand was used for investment and time in children. And what we also see at the beginning, at least of the pandemic, is that these same fathers that were spending more time with their children, they also seem to have quarrelled less with their children, so sort of negative interactions between children and these fathers were reduced. And it looks like at least at the beginning of the pandemic, this was this additional time spent with children was really quality time. However, the pandemic went on for much longer than many of us thought and the UK and England had several school closures over time. And we looked again, at the same question nearly one year into the pandemic. And actually those relationships that were sort of in a way positive, not that I was just mentioning, by January 21, the same children whose fathers had lost their all their earnings, they were receiving half an hour less help per day. And we also see that translated and overall, less schoolwork being done by these children. Why is it that these relationships turn? What's flipped around? So while at the beginning, maybe you could question that at the beginning of the pandemic, if that's sustained, and prolonged, then these financial difficulties increased. And these also relate to mental health. We talked about that before. And we see that these fathers by January 21, they had also suffered much more in terms of mental health, compared to fathers who did not suffer the shocks. But also when we look at, you know, women, we know that women suffered bigger mental health deterioration in general. But if you look at the subgroup of women who lost their jobs or their earnings, then compared to women or mothers who did not, they did not suffer more. But fathers seem to be more affected. This is sort of very consistent with what we know already about the literature on job loss, that fathers are more affected, and they translate this more into their interactions with their children, and their time investment and from mothers, we just don't find this sort of relationship as consistently.

Catherine McDonald 24:12

So what's striking me listening to all of you is that this is such a hugely varied situation, depending on your circumstances, whether you were furloughed, whether you lost your job, whether you were had the flexibility to work from home, whether you were a parent of a special needs child, what your socio economic status was, whether there was two of you, one of you, how on earth do we go about prioritising elements for a recovery here? Jennifer, can I come to you on that first?

Jennifer McMahon 24:42

So Katherine, I think just building on what Claudia said it is very important to recognise that some parents did do very well during the pandemic in terms of their own stress levels and supporting their children due to those kind of various different factors that Claudia has discussed in that, you know, financial factors and work factors. And some of our parents reported that as having, you know, access to nature and having reduced pressures and being together closely was really important for them during the pandemic and gave them a sense of bonding with their children and lovely time to do arts and crafts and music activities. So there are a cohort of parents and children who did well during the pandemic and we're buffered from some of the negative effects. So I think we need to look to the parents who really struggled the most during the pandemic. And I think, you know, Hope has talked about the various different factors and Claudia, that have impacted parents the most around financial circumstances, the home context. So going forward, we really need to think about where are the supports of these parents. You know, school, I think, is a very important context where we could provide those kinds of supports around practical ways of managing schoolwork and maybe providing direct links to accessible materials for parents to support their young people, and giving maybe, kind of, you know, thinking about wellness plans for particular quarter children are indeed universal wellness plans to make sure that you know that we are not missing any children. In this exit from the pandemic, I suppose there is a worry that we may assume that some young people have done well. And actually, this is what some principals have anecdotally related to me that some families that they thought and this made assumptions about actually were struggling. So universal wellbeing plans, I think we could improve on going forward. And I think particularly think school is a very important context for that support. It'd be interesting to hear what, you know, Laura, and Hope and Claudia, think about how we could position those supports.

Catherine McDonald 26:28

Absolutely Hope. Let me come to you. What would you say?

Hope Christie 26:31

Well, I mean, I'm glad you asked Jennifer first, and not me. But yeah, that was she, she provided a really fantastic answer. And I think I am always mindful about putting, I suppose more pressure on schools, because I know that they've been firefighting throughout this entire pandemic. And they've, they've really tried their best. And I think we ask a lot of teachers generally. So asking them to do more is always a difficult challenge. But I do agree that providing some sort of wellbeing plan is really important. And I think generally as well, actually just being able to provide some reassurance to parents that their child's - I think learning loss is a term that sometimes used - is going to be made up. You know Laura talked a little bit about her younger child and and try to do maths at home, be mindful that it's probably not the same way that the teacher would teach her daughter. So it's a bit difficult. And I think parents of children who are a bit older about exam stage, I know a lot of parents, we found that in the rapid review, but also in our other work and the Road to Recovery Project parents are, are really worried about the learning loss with their children at that exam stage in terms of how that might affect their, their broader futures I suppose. So actually, if schools are able to provide just general reassurance that this will be made up, and that the importance has just been placed on trying to get that routine back, and really just getting kids in through the door and bums on seats, and providing that reassurance, even you know, Laura touched on it there about a different teacher, and that can sometimes be a bit of a shock to the system. And so just trying to provide reassurance generally for children, and once they're in the door, and that routine has been established, then providing that general reassurance to parents as well that you know, this learning loss will be made up and that hopefully the children's futures will not be as affected by by this whole pandemic experience.

Catherine McDonald 26:54

Sort of small steps in the right direction.

Hope Christie 28:16

Yes, ahuh and then just last, my last point would be again, just to kind of a plug for for more support and more resources to be funnelled towards those support services, funding and resources. Because I think whether it's services for children that have special educational needs, or additional needs, or more neurotypical children, I think it's important that those services are well resourced and well-funded. So children are supported. But as we've all talked about, you know, that parents are supported. They're the key and integral part of this. And they've been doing so much over the pandemic, just to kind of make sure that they were getting by and life kept going on. So I think they need to be as supported as we could possibly give them.

Catherine McDonald 28:56

And Claudia what would you say?

Claudia Hupkau 28:58

Yeah. So I totally agree with what what was said before the services that needs to be made accessible and continue to function even in a pandemic. But I think maybe I would go a little bit further, one future scenario of another pandemic one really would have to sort of weigh against the costs of school closures with their positive effects that I think we have learned a lot. And maybe in the future, the school closures have to be reconsidered whether this is a policy that can be implemented to such an extent. On the one hand, we have this massive negative impact on children's learning, which is likely to affect even their lifetime earnings in the future, I think we need to consider like how can we avoid that? How can we provide a safe environment and continue to have children in school? And then the second thing is the spill over, the one that I was talking about, you have this interaction between parents that are most affected by this pandemic or were most affected, also financially and economically. Also are the ones that are less likely to be able to have the resources to help their children so we have this double effect that really disadvantaged kids will suffer most of this learning loss and consequences. So I think in future politicians will have to make tough choices. But if this situation happens again, and you not only have the school closures, but you have parents being affected negatively, in an economic sense through their earnings or losses, and this further spills over on to children and their learning because of financial difficulties or mental health. So yeah, overall, I think policymakers will have to consider in the future if such a pandemic should happen, again, to what extent school closures should be used, and to what length of time.

Catherine McDonald 29:11

And, Laura, last word from you. How would you react to what you've heard?

Laura 30:42

I think I was just going to finish by saying with what Hope was saying about providing more resources to the schools. I mean, the schools are so dramatically underfunded in this area with regards to children's mental health. And it's a really good way of tapping into children on a, on a mass scale, rather than trying to access individual children. And I think there needs to be a discussion between various different organisations, as to how we facilitate the children's learning and mental wellbeing, but to utilise it through the school system would be logical to me.

Catherine McDonald 31:19

Absolutely. And as we've said, it's clearly something that it's going to take years for us to fully understand the implications, isn't it?

Laura 31:29

Absolutely. And I am worried about her gaps in learning and knowledge. And I'm sure she will catch up at a point in time. But at what point in time does that come? Is that in the next year, is that in the next two years? And how do we address those gaps in learning, and it's not just educational learning - it's the ability to make friendships, its ability to interact with other children, its all of those social interactions, as well as the educational interactions that are vitally important at an educational level.

Jennifer McMahon 31:59

Now, it's about finding the political will to, to set up the conditions to heal the scars that have been caused throughout the pandemic for children and young people. And just making sure that this isn't the generation that gets lost to the pandemic, and that there are some children who are, who fall through those cracks and never really catch up and offset some of the harm that's been done. I think there's an opportunity here in the coming years to really set the stage for really collective healing, and targeted healing. If we can find the resources and the funding to make that happen.

Claudia Hupkau 32:32

There needs to be the will, the political will to spend the money and the resources. And I totally agree that this has to be done because there is a real risk of a very long term negative effects on these children. And this doesn't seem a fair thing to let happen.

Hope Christie 32:48

So I think it is just about pleading now with the government to provide those solutions to the evidence that we've, we've all talked about.

Catherine McDonald 32:56

My thanks to doctors Jennifer McMahon, Hope Christie, Claudia Hupkau and to Laura. You can find out more about the work of the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network via their website and Twitter @ICWBN. The work of the network is funded by the UK Research and Innovation Economic and Social Research Council and the Irish Research Council under the ESRC-IRC UK Ireland networking grants. This was a Research Podcast production. Thank-you for listening and remember to subscribe to receive all future episodes.