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

New and forthcoming studies

New early years COVID-19 surveys

Home-Start, The Parent Infant Foundation, Best Beginnings, and the Maternal Mental Health Alliance launched a survey for parents with infants and pregnant women on 6 May.  They intend to release top line findings in Infant Mental Health Awareness Week in June.

New young people COVID-19 surveys

The University of Edinburgh launched its TeenCovidLife Survey (age 12-17) in May.  This survey aims to find out how COVID-19 measures are affecting young people's wellbeing, schooling and family life.  It will identify where children are living someone in the C-19 shield group, children with a disability of long term physical or mental health condition, children of key workers, as well as other socio-demographics such as ethnicity and gender.  Further surveys will be run over the summer.   The response rate to the adult CovidLife survey for adults is over 14,000 and it is anticipated that this survey will be a key source of data on the experiences of older children and young people in Scotland. 

The Nuffield Foundation's Growing up under COVID-19 will run over 18 months. Researchers will document the lived experiences of young people aged 14-18 in seven countries: the four nations of the UK, Italy, Singapore and Lebanon, at different stages of the pandemic to explore how differing social, political and economic contexts affect young people's experiences. Seventy young people will take part in interviews and focus groups, combined with analysis of their social media and blog data. It is intended that this evidence-base will ensure policy responses consider impacts on children and young people.

New research on the impact of COVID-19 on children and families with vulnerabilities

The Chief Scientist Office is funding Scottish-led rapid COVID-19 studies that will report within the next 3-6 months.  Of the 17 studies funded there are several which explicitly focus on the vulnerable children and families and the health and social care workforce.  A selection of those directly including children and families is listed below; other studies may also include some insight on the wider experiences of households with children.  These studies are listed in Annex A.

• Protecting the safety and wellbeing of Vulnerable Children and Young People in Scotland during the Covid-19 Pandemic (University of Stirling) – this study, now named the FACE19 study (Families and Children Experiencing Covid-19), aims to understand how vulnerable children, young people and families have experienced social distancing and economic constraints during the pandemic.  The study will target looked after children, children experiencing poverty, young people experiencing learning disabilities and children experiencing domestic abuse and family violence.  The study will also consider how social care organisations, particularly in the voluntary sector, have adapted their services to meet the needs of children, young people and parents/carers through the pandemic, and evaluate what has worked well.  It will include online surveys (a keyworker and parent survey went live 21 May) and interviews with professionals, parents and children and young people.  The partner organisations in the project include Aberlour Child Care Trust, Scottish Women's Aid, Adoption and Fostering Alliance, and Parenting Across Scotland.  
• In isolation, instead of school (INISS) (University of Edinburgh/ Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF) – this study aims to explore the impact of C-19 restrictions on the mental health of young people and any additional impacts on the mental health of vulnerable young people.  It will contextualise children's experience of C-19 within data on C-19 prevalence, health patterns and trends and educational achievement outcomes data to inform interventions and policymaking, with potential to track long-term trends.  It will include an online survey for young people over the summer with follow-up interviews and focus groups.  
• Impact of pandemic response upon public mental health and disparities (University of Strathclyde) – the study will examine how the pandemic response is affecting the mental health and wellbeing of the Scottish population and includes three vulnerable groups: adults with physical and/or mental health conditions, low income single parent families and those with particularly disruptive changes in circumstances.  

The Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice (CYCJ) is undertaking various activities to inform practice for children and young people in contact with the Justice system e.g. CYCJ's report on the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act, Youth Justice Voices' participation project for care and justice-experienced young people, and CYCJ and CELCIS' rapid consultation on parents' and children's experience of remote children's hearings. CYCJ is also running a research project on how COVID-19 is affecting young people (18+) who are in contact with youth justice services or have previous experience of the youth justice system.  This will involve video or telephone interviews and seeks to explore young people's views and experiences of COVID-19 and lockdown, what has helped and how support could be improved.

Other relevant surveys underway – 

• Association for Change (ARC) is running a parent survey until 29 May to find out how COVID-19 is impacting transition planning for young people aged 14 and over with additional support needs in Scotland.  Findings are expected to be available on 9 June.
• The Disabled Children's Partnership has recently run a UK-wide survey from 30 April – 18 May which has received over 4000 responses.  The findings are due to be published soon.
• Intercultural Youth Scotland is currently facilitating a youth-led report to hear the voices of BME young people in Scotland with a particular focus on education and positive destinations during COVID-19. The project is ongoing and findings are expected in the summer.
• Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) is running a survey to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and consequential closures of education establishments, on young people (12-24) in Scotland.  This project is specifically concerned with emotional wellbeing, the availability of online services, and instances of online bullying behaviours and rates of prejudice (harmful opinions or attitudes against groups of people).  The survey went live on 15 April and will run for 6 weeks.

Other new COVID-19 research in Scotland 

Inspiring Children's Futures (University of Strathclyde) is undertaking a series of international projects to inform policy and practice that promote children's wellbeing during and after the pandemic.  This includes a rapid review of evidence of learning from past pandemics (publication pending) and developing an App to gather, collate and analyse real-time information of policy makers' and professionals' experiences in the current pandemic.  They have also published a report on how to combat the impact of COVID-19 on children.

Parenting Across Scotland is running a short survey for parents to understand the nature of the challenges that children, young people and families are facing in their homes and communities at this time.