Coronavirus (COVID-19): impact on children, young people and families - evidence summary July 2020

New and forthcoming studies

New children and young people COVID-19 surveys (general)

Public Health Scotland launched its COVID-19 Early Years Resilience and Impact Survey on 22 June. The survey asks parents and carers of children aged 2-7 about their experiences of life at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this may have affected the health and wellbeing of their family. The survey closes 6 July.

The Children's Parliament re-ran its survey for the third time in June. The survey looks at changes in wellbeing across a number of domains including learning and activities; access to information, expressing opinions and experiencing rights; health; and family and friends. Findings are anticipated mid-late July.

There are a number of UK studies and research activities focusing on primary-age children which will hopefully report soon. These include:

• Barnardo's Big Conversation COVID-19 survey for children aged 8-15 (now closed)
• Edge Hill's University COVID-19 survey for children aged 7-12 and parents which is focusing on information and messaging for children. (now closed)
• Primary School Network Wales HAPPEN at home survey for children aged 8-11 (now closed).

New research with children and families with vulnerabilities

CELCIS in partnership with the CYCJ (University of Strathclyde) is running an online survey for young people (aged 12-17) and adults (18+) to understand the views and experiences of people who have participated in, or wanted to participate in, a Children's Hearing in Scotland during COVID-19. They would like to hear from young people, families, panel members, social workers, safeguarders, reporters, solicitors, advocacy workers, and anyone else involved.

Inclusion is running a survey for disabled people who are shielding. Whilst not specific to children and families, it may provide some useful context on how shielding households are responding to the easing of lockdown measures. The survey closes 29 June.

Research in Practice and TACT (The Adolescent and Children's Trust) is running three linked surveys for young people in care, carers and birth families to explore their experiences of life at home during lockdown. The surveys aim to explore how people have spent their time, experiences of home schooling and relationships with social care over the lockdown period. The surveys are running 9 – 21 June.

REACH (Resilience, Ethnicity and AdolesCent mental Health) (King's College London) is an ongoing 5 year study of adolescent mental health in inner-city London schools which aims to understand the extent and nature of mental health problems among diverse groups, what factors increase and decrease the risk of problems, and why. The next wave of data collection is being tailored to examine the impact of the pandemic on young people from diverse backgrounds, with plans to repeat in 6 and 18 months' time.

There are a number of ongoing studies investigating the COVID-19 experience of children and young people with cancer and other serious and long-term health conditions:

• University of Southampton and University of York's SHARE Study. It involves a survey for parents with children with cancer and young people aged 12-25 with cancer. This survey is also being targeted at parents of children with hydrocephalus (SHARE Hydrocephalus Study) and parents of children with chronic kidney disease and congenital heart disease (both surveys now closed).
• CLIC Sargent coronavirus survey – this is a short survey (now closed) aimed at young people with cancer and parents, looking at the impact of coronavirus on issues like food, finances and wellbeing.