Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19 3031070984, 9783031070983

Table of contents :
Foreword
The Story of Children’s Experience, Participation and Rights During COVID-19
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
Background: COVID-19 in the UK and Beyond
Overview
Cross-Cutting Insights
References
Part I: Working Towards Good Childhoods
Chapter 2: i. The Movement for Good Childhoods: How Can We Put Children at the Heart of Our National Life?
Introduction
I. What Do We Know About the Experiences of COVID’s Kids?
Money Matters
Children in the Community
II. What Don’t We Know About the Implications of the Pandemic for COVID’s Kids?
III. What Would a Movement for COVID’s Kids Look Like?
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: ii. Children’s Experiences of the Pandemic Across Europe: Inequalities and the Potential of Participation
Introduction
Challenging Contexts
Children with Experience of Poverty
Children in Care and Care Leavers
Children Experiencing Violence and Abuse
Children in Migration
Children with Disabilities
Roma Children
What Is the Hope of Participatory Responses to These Deepening Inequalities?
Everyday Participation
Shaping Service Responses
Research and Surveys
Consultations and Discussions by and with Governments
Conclusion
References
Part II: Children’s Rights
Chapter 4: iii. Homeless Children’s Rights During the Pandemic
Introduction
The CRC and Homeless Children’s Human Rights
The Impact of COVID-19 on Homeless Children
What Would a Children’s Rights Approach to the COVID-19 Pandemic Look Like?
Conclusions
References
Chapter 5: iv. Young Carers, COVID-19 and Children’s Rights
Introduction
The CRC: Universal Spread or Uneven Distribution?
The Case of Young Carers in the UK During COVID-19
Children’s Rights from Below
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: v. Children’s Rights to Be Heard and to Be Seen: Child Protection in the UK in Response to the Pandemic
Introduction
Methodology
Impact of COVID-19 and the (In)visibility of the Child in Child Protection Responses
Children’s Rights to Protection and Participation during the Pandemic
Child Protection during the Pandemic and New Forms of Intimate Practice
How Might Child Protection Practice Be Envisaged in the Future?
References
Part III: Hungry for Change
Chapter 7: vi. “Hungry for Change”: Why Living in a Pandemic Led Young People to Question Their Food System and its Priorities
Introduction
“Shortchanged”
Living in a Food Desert
A Stark Contrast
The Power of Marketing and Advertising
“Bombarded”
What Do We Know?
References
Chapter 8: vii. ‘Voiceless’ and ‘Vulnerable’: Challenging How Disabled Children and Young People Were Portrayed and Treated During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK and a Call for Action
Who We Are: The RIP:STARS Disabled Young Researcher Collective
Background
The Impact of the Pandemic on Disabled Children and Young People
Feelings of Uncertainty
‘Vulnerability’ and Difference
Loss of Rights
Glimpses of a More Tolerant and Inclusive Society
The Challenge of Being Deemed ‘Voiceless’ and ‘Vulnerable’
References
Chapter 9: viii. Children Heard: Family as Arena for Child Participation
Introduction
The Children Heard Method
Creating the Interview
Negotiating the Analysis
The Children Heard Method: Possibilities and Limitations
A Method that Embraces Diversity
A Method for the Youngest
An Experiential Exercise in Child Participation
Limitations to a Family-Based Approach as a Method for Child Participation
The Family as Arena for Child Participation
Closing Words
References
Index

Citation preview

Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19

Edited by Ruby Turok-Squire

Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19 “This edited collection presents a compelling range of voices that illuminate how children’s lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on cutting-edge methodological and theoretical approaches to present the often-­ unheard voices of students and children themselves as well as researchers and those from civil society organisations. Written in a clear and accessible style, it will be a gripping read for anyone interested in the impact of the pandemic on global childhoods.” —Ann Phoenix, Professor of Psychosocial Studies, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Social Research Institute, UCL Institute of Education, UK “This is an extraordinary, inclusive, multi-layered and multi-actor critical analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rights of children and young people. Its editor’s genuine concern to promote a sustainable debate that effects participatory, positive change on the lives of children is reflected in the choice of authors and perspectives presented. Young people, practitioners, and academics invite readers on a journey of understanding and thinking in manners that will undoubtedly lead them to act for change, and that will encourage further academic, political, and public debates in which childhood is re-positioned and the practice of listening is made central.” —Sofia Leitão, Senior Advisory Board Member at ‘Hope For Children’ CRC Policy Center, Cyprus, and Senior Development Manager at Rinova Ltd., UK

Ruby Turok-Squire Editor

Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19

Editor Ruby Turok-Squire University of Warwick Coventry, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-07098-3    ISBN 978-3-031-07099-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07099-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover pattern © Harvey Loake This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

Catastrophes may be individual, familial, national and regional. They may be due to individual or societal breakdown, inability to cope, loss of control, wars and military destabilisations, national or regional famine or environmental disasters. They are rarely global. But the COVID-19 pandemic was global and it was catastrophic. It marked a sudden shift in the order and ordering of our lives. The pandemic was clearly constituted as a medical emergency, but its impact was and is also manifest as social, psychological, cultural, political, economic and technological. This collection of chapters presents a powerful social document regarding the impact of the pandemic on a single demographic: children and young people. But children and young people do not constitute a unitary and homogeneous group. Rather, they are differentiated by other demographics of social class, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and disability, and by the geographical context and stability of their residence. The impact of the pandemic became differentiated through young people’s access or lack of access to resource and capital. The pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities. The daily struggles due to those inequalities were made more difficult. The words repeated in this volume and beyond about this group of people are that during the pandemic they were invisible, hidden and unheard. But I also hear that this is a group who were struggling before the pandemic, because of being ignored or unheard. This pandemic affects all, regardless of gender, race and ethnicity. But those in care, those with disabilities, those in abusive relationships and situations, those in poverty, those in migration, those who are homeless v

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and those who are Roma are shown to be hit hard. Those most at risk were those already deemed ‘vulnerable’. But as the volume makes clear, ‘vulnerability’ as a label can be a weapon that wounds even deeper, causing further isolation, exclusion and, for example, denial of access to school or college learning and friends. Young people’s rights are formally protected across most jurisdictions through the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), but as many commentators note, rights are always contextualised and protected or not through practice, from below and as living rights. These chapters are snapshots at a moment in time. Other accounts, across the generations, provide documents of the uneven impact of COVID-19, given the systemic inequalities and injustices of race, gender, generation and ablism. The snapshots here are from the West and largely from the UK. They are one response amongst many and they tell one part of the broader story. But they are important because they present children and young people centre stage. As one author states, the mainstream media in the UK was rightly concerned with the working conditions of parents working from home, with hospitality and tourism and with the everyday value of a haircut or a visit to the pub, but the media voiced those concerns at the expense of largely ignoring the deeply harmful impact to children’s learning, friendship, play and mental health. We were often neglectful of the full impact of the pandemic on young people and we have often been ignorant of their constructive agency over this time. This volume begins to set the record straight. The long-term impacts of the pandemic are yet to be properly understood. The extent of the scaring to structural, political and economic national and international relationships, but also the opportunities that arise through the crisis, for example, through the acceleration of remote learning and working, is still playing out. The agency of children and young people in these new contexts and the impact of these changes on them are yet to be fully felt. This volume, one particular response to the global impact of COVID-19, becomes an important piece of the puzzle as we work towards a better understanding. University of London London, UK

David Oswell

 Foreword 

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David Oswell is Professor of Sociology and Pro-Warden for Research, Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He is the author of Television, Childhood and the Home: A History of the Making of the Child Television Audience in Britain (2002), Culture and Society: An Introduction to Cultural Studies (2006) and The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights (2013), and editor of Cultural Theory: Vols 1–4 (2010).

The Story of Children’s Experience, Participation and Rights During COVID-19

It has been my honour to see this collection grow into its current form so organically over the past year. I will describe the story of Children’s Experience, Participation and Rights During COVID-19, before Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín map out a path through the book for readers. In March 2020, as lockdown set in, myself and Li Liu, my colleague from the University of Warwick, began talking about what it might be like for children and young people to be finding their way through the pandemic. As we walked around streets so empty they almost echoed, we began noticing the rainbows springing up in people’s windows, rainbows that children had painted or drawn or stuck together from whatever they could find, some with cotton wool clouds or sequins around their edges. These rainbows were like small signs of children’s voices still sounding. It was as if they were not only reminding us of the presence of children, and of their different and perhaps more hidden perspectives on our situation, but also giving us hope that there were ways to recover from the pandemic that might be even better than we could imagine at that moment. Inspired by what we could see, and intrigued to know more about how children were experiencing the pandemic, Li and I designed an online, interdisciplinary conference entitled ‘Rainbows in Our Windows: Childhood in the Time of Corona’ (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ english/research/conferences/coronachildhood). We invited teachers, students, authors, young people, members of humanitarian organisations, psychologists, academics and policy advisors to come and speak. Around

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30 people agreed and volunteered their time. Over the course of a single very long day, over 250 people from around the world attended 6 different panel sessions. I chaired most of the discussions and watched in amazement as contributors discovered similarities between their approaches that might lead to new collaborations. One young person, an author of a children’s book, gave a presentation and it seemed clear that thinking with children and young people about how to listen to young people was an area in need of further exploration. Spontaneous discussions filled the breaks between presentations. The day ended and it felt like something had just begun. Recordings of the conference (sponsored by the University of Warwick Retired Staff Association) were published by the English Association and are still available online (https://englishassociation.ac.uk/no-15rainbows-in-our-windows-childhood-­in-the-time-of-corona/). I went on to edit a special issue of ‘Issues in English’, which detailed the conference proceedings and contained expanded contributions from various researchers. In one of those inexplicable moments of coincidence, I then contacted an editor at Palgrave Macmillan just as she was about to contact me to ask about developing the conference proceedings into a book. We ended up going one step further: two books have been created, Children’s Experience, Participation and Rights During COVID-19 and COVID-19 and Education in the Global North: Storytelling as Alternative Pedagogies, each containing some chapters by contributors to that original conference and many from new collaborators. From the initial conference onwards, this project has been about encouraging a process of dialogue at a time where disconnections threatened to plunge our communities into silence. It seemed obvious that only through keeping an open mind could we find ways to address a new crisis. While proposing and editing these books, I have remained committed to including new voices and encouraging diversity of tone and subject matter. It was never a question of thinking about how a new chapter might fit with a preconceived idea about how the books would be. Instead, it was about asking what new direction a chapter might take the books in and how an author might best say what they wanted to say. Readers might sense a varying texture to these chapters; there are different styles of writing, different balances of theory and empiricism and moments where observational approaches or practical suggestions for change dominate. This variety forms part of our aim, in that we hope that by appreciating and cultivating a certain roughness amongst authors’ various perspectives, we might reach insights that might otherwise be smoothed away.

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Earlier this summer, while I was on a countryside walk with one of the contributors, we mentioned to each other that these books may end up becoming time capsules. They have the courage to speak of a crisis at that moment of crisis itself. They may be necessarily incomplete, but they are all the more vivid and powerful for it. They demonstrate a collective commitment to learning from a situation that challenges our ability to reflect, act and stay connected. They believe in the value of listening to individual children’s perspectives on their own experiences and to those adults who most closely support them. They seek to understand and even to extrapolate from the experiences of children who are particularly vulnerable during this crisis. They integrate practice and policy with theory. Ideas accumulate within them, perhaps in a sedimentary fashion, without a final goal in mind, the process becoming the goal. That process may encourage ways of thinking with children and young people about their experiences, education and rights to become more holistic, dynamic and sensitive. I hope that many of the authors of these pages see themselves as not only contributors to a book but to an ongoing project of learning, of which this is one concrete realisation. University of Warwick, Coventry, UK City, University of London, London, UK

Ruby Turok-Squire

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín Part I Working Towards Good Childhoods  13 2 i.  The Movement for Good Childhoods: How Can We Put Children at the Heart of Our National Life? 15 Kirsty McNeill 3 ii.  Children’s Experiences of the Pandemic Across Europe: Inequalities and the Potential of Participation 33 Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín Part II Children’s Rights  57 4 iii.  Homeless Children’s Rights During the Pandemic 59 Yvonne Vissing 5 iv.  Young Carers, COVID-19 and Children’s Rights 87 Michael Wyness

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6 v.  Children’s Rights to Be Heard and to Be Seen: Child Protection in the UK in Response to the Pandemic105 Aravinda Kosaraju Part III Hungry for Change 125 7 vi.  “Hungry for Change”: Why Living in a Pandemic Led Young People to Question Their Food System and its Priorities127 James Toop, Christina Adane, Zoe Fryer, and Dev Sharma 8 vii.  ‘Voiceless’ and ‘Vulnerable’: Challenging How Disabled Children and Young People Were Portrayed and Treated During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK and a Call for Action141 Anita Franklin and Geraldine Brady 9 viii.  Children Heard: Family as Arena for Child Participation159 May Lene Karlsen Index179

About the Author

Ruby  Lindiwe  Turok-Squire  completed her LLM in International Development Law and Human Rights from the University of Warwick, UK, in autumn 2021 and is now studying for the Graduate Diploma in Law at City, University of London, UK.  She is an assistant on a new Creativity Accountability research project at the University of Warwick. Recently, Ruby has worked as General Operations Assistant for Action for Child Trauma International and as a research assistant for the Central England Law Centre. She previously taught English as a second language to refugees in Canada and the UK; worked as an editorial assistant for Lacuna Magazine; studied English literature and drama at the University of Warwick; taught Shakespeare at President Kennedy Secondary School, Coventry, UK; and studied English and music composition at Oberlin College and Conservatory, Ohio, USA. Ruby has been awarded a Watson Fellowship to study the music of animals, and a BMI Student Composer Award. Her first book of poems, The Phantom Fundamental, was published in the UK and USA.

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List of Figures

Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 9.6

Norway, age 6—from the Children Heard family interview Illustrated poster Norway, age 9—from the Children Heard family interview India, age 12—from the Children Heard online gallery India, age 8—from the Children Heard online gallery India, age 8—from the Children Heard online gallery

163 165 166 167 168 168

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín

Abstract  Across successive waves of the pandemic, children’s experiences have been overlooked and their concerns not taken sufficiently to heart during decision-making. Recovery from the economic and social consequences of the pandemic will take time, but it will also be an opportunity to think about what in the old normal was not working, and make the relevant changes. By reflecting on the insights in these pages, academics, practitioners, policy makers, and children and young people themselves may find echoes of their own experiences and inspiration as to how children’s rights may more effectively be promoted in the years ahead. In this introduction, for audiences unfamiliar with this context, we provide some background information about COVID-19 in the UK, while suggesting that the book has wider relevance. We then provide an overview of the eight chapters contained in the volume. They all contribute to denouncing the invisibility of children in public debates and budgets related to the pandemic. Some suggest that protection has been given

C. Larkins (*) University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK L. del Moral-Espín University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Turok-Squire (ed.), Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07099-0_1

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priority over participation, according to paternalistic and adult-centric parameters. Some are guided by an explicit or implicit intersectional approach that helps open a debate around resources and children’s meaningful participation in shaping and realising their own rights. We conclude this introduction by drawing together emerging themes across the chapters, that might be explored in further depth with children and their allies when seeking to enhance long-term responses to the pandemic. Keywords  Covid-19 • Children’s experiences • Policy • Invisibility • Intersectional approach • Participation Across successive waves of the pandemic, children’s experiences across the globe have been overlooked and their concerns not taken sufficiently to heart in processes of decision-making. Not enough has been done to respect, protect and promote children’s rights, not only in the present but also in the long term. Effective public health, community and global responses must be developed in collaboration with children, as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has stressed (UN Com RC, 2020). As previous research has shown (Mort et al., 2020), the involvement of children, learning from their experiences and ideas, and shaping communities, services and policy with them, lead to more robust responses to risks and disasters. This book contributes to addressing the failure to fully consider children’s views by foregrounding children’s perspectives and connecting their views and experiences to wider political and economic contexts. It draws on research by and with children and young people, as well as consultations with professionals and theoretically informed critical discussions. Recovery from the economic and social consequences of the pandemic will take time, but it will also be an opportunity to think about what in the ‘old normal’ was not working, and make the relevant changes. By reflecting on the insights in these pages, academics, practitioners, policy makers, and children and young people themselves may find echoes of their own experiences and inspiration as to how children’s rights may more effectively be promoted in the years ahead. In this introduction, we provide some background information about COVID-19  in the UK, while suggesting that the book has wider relevance. We then provide an overview of the chapters contained in this volume. We conclude by drawing together emerging themes across the

1 INTRODUCTION 

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chapters that might be explored in further depth with children and their allies when seeking to enhance long-term responses to the pandemic.

Background: COVID-19 in the UK and Beyond The novel COVID-19 virus, first identified in autumn 2019, reached the UK in early 2020. The risks posed to children were evident immediately, as one of the sources of the virus entry into the UK was reportedly children returning from a skiing trip in Italy (a country already seriously affected by high infection rates). A government advisory group (SAGE) was established and pre-existing emergency response protocols were set in motion to monitor the evolving situation. As the virus spread, the scale of infection and the health impacts on diverse communities became clear and the UK quickly became one of the most affected countries worldwide. On 23 March 2020, the prime minister announced a UK-wide lockdown. Schools were closed for most pupils (except those perceived as the most vulnerable or whose parents were judged as essential workforce) at least until 1 June 2020, and then again from 1 November 2020 until 8 March 2021. Across the four devolved nations of the UK, there were and continue to be divergent responses to the virus, with Wales and Scotland being faster to introduce precautionary measures such as circuit breakers, mask wearing and vaccine passes (Institute for Government, 2021). From October 2020, an inquiry of the UK government Health and Social Care and Science and Technology Committees heard evidence from a wide range of professionals (including senior politicians). The report, published in October 2021, revealed some details of the underlying causes relating to the poor handling of the pandemic. Planning had been too closely based on a Flu model. Rather than adopting the successful and rigorous South Korean track and trace approach, the UK embraced the herd immunity model, fatalistically accepting that it would be impossible to contain the virus. Community testing was halted, leading to a paucity of data. There was a lack of transparency, accountability and internal or international challenge in the relationships and decision-making of senior scientists and elected officials. Economic concerns and beliefs about the importance of maintaining ‘normal’ health and social interactions led to the decision to lockdown coming too late. Track and Trace systems were also established too late to prevent further lockdowns. In line with historic inequalities of status between health and social care, the social care sector was largely  absent from  national

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decision-making until May 2020, and this is judged to have caused unresponsiveness to risks and shortages of PPE. At times, government ministers have ignored scientific advice and prolonged freedoms where lockdown or other restrictions were likely to have limited the spread of infections. Existing health inequalities have been exacerbated. Infections and hospitalisations were higher in communities experiencing industrial decline, low employment levels and a history of lower investment in health services. Too slowly, the fact that people of Black, minority ethnic and Asian heritages were at greater risk of more serious illness was recognised. Some people entering hospitals with learning difficulties were issued ‘Do not attempt CPR’ notices without any consultation with their family members, carers or advocates. These political, emergency response failings arose in the context of longstanding funding shortages in social care services and within health systems that were already struggling to meet demand. Some health services were already running at the limits of their capacity, with no capacity to flex for crisis response (UK Gov, 2021). The consequences of failing to adequately respond to the pandemic are being felt by children across the globe. As the United Nations (UN, 2020: 2) have highlighted: This is a universal crisis and, for some children, the impact will be lifelong. Moreover, the harmful effects of this pandemic will not be distributed equally. They are expected to be most damaging for children in the poorest countries, and in the poorest neighbourhoods, and for those in already disadvantaged or vulnerable situations.’

At the same time, children, alongside adults, have responded as workers and volunteers, formally and informally providing health and social care support, often at great personal cost. In schools, childcare and leisure settings, children, teachers, carers and other professionals have adapted and responded to ever changing conditions, often with creativity and generosity (Larkins et al., 2020). Children and adults are collaborating across the globe to try to ensure that children’s views are listened to, and responded to with actions that will change children’s lives for the better (e.g. see the #CovidUnder19 research: https://www.tdh.ch/en/projects/ covidunder19). As chapters in this volume highlight, the need to look in depth at the differing experiences of children in divergent circumstances is pressing. As we write this chapter (21 December 2021), a further wave of the

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pandemic is emerging and the cumulative death toll in the UK is approaching 150,000 (Coronavirus Dashboard, 2021). We know that some children—for example, those who are politically and economically marginalised, care experienced, young carers and experiencing familial or structural violence—are carrying heavier consequences than others. The overview of the chapters that follows provides some indication of the urgent issues to address and the means by which this might be achieved in collaboration with children.

Overview The eight chapters in this volume (five focused on UK contexts and three taking a broader approach) denounce the invisibility of children in public debates and budgets related to the pandemic. Some suggest that protection has been given priority over participation, according to paternalistic and adult-centric parameters. The explicit or implicit intersectional approaches that guide some chapters help to open a debate around the meaningful participation of children within the shaping and realisation of their own rights. Within the UK context, Kirsty McNeill’s chapter (Chap. 2) addresses three relevant questions: what do we know about some of the main implications of the pandemic for children, what do we still not know and how might a social movement for children be built? Based on the work of Save the Children throughout the crisis, the chapter suggests five points for an emerging research agenda that help to refine interventions supporting children and families with newly established patterns of family life. Considering these five issues and taking a long-term approach, the author calls for mobilising diverse groups in a concerted effort to exert pressure on behalf of (and together with) children. Three principles are suggested as forming at the base of such a movement: at a strategic level, putting the protection of childhood at the heart of the tough economic choices to come; at a narrative level, replacing the current narrow focus on child poverty with a wider story about good childhoods; and at a policy level, building the case for child poverty as primarily an experience of diminished purchasing power and, therefore, exclusion from collective life. Within a UK and European context, in Chap. 3, we (Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín) draw on research conducted from Spring 2020 with professionals from across 20 European countries to provide early evidence of how children’s participation in responding to the pandemic was

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being achieved, and the barriers that still need to be overcome. Our research is discussed, alongside other published policy reports and studies, to reveal deepening inequalities for diverse groups of children across Europe, the variety of participatory responses that have been attempted and the lack of sufficient government action in response to children’s views and recommendations. We suggest that an intersectional lens is vital to understand the differences and commonalities in children’s experiences of COVID-19 and their engagement in participatory responses. In particular, the chapter identifies the challenging circumstances experienced by children in vulnerable family situations, those in and leaving alternative care, exposed to violence, in-migration and with disabilities and young Roma children. We then examine how marginalised children and young people’s energy and ideas might be more effectively taken into account through participative processes. Our conclusions suggest a double challenge: to draw links between children’s perspectives and the underpinning causes of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic and to increase adult competence in recognising and responding to the potential contribution of children’s ideas. In Chap. 4, Yvonne Vissing addresses the specific impacts that the pandemic has had on children who experience housing distress in the USA, the only UN member country that has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Vissing suggests that to understand how the pandemic context has impacted the lives of homeless children from a human rights perspective, it is first helpful to identify the CRC Articles that pertain directly to their lives. Her analysis reveals the invisibility of homeless children during the pandemic and how their rights have not been adequately protected, as most public health recommendations and measures required a level of privilege that homeless and housing-­ distressed people, including children, were not able to access: a home to live in; locked-down environments, bed-rest; access to hygiene supplies; the ability to stay home from work; avoid public transport when travel is necessary; and limiting social contact. The chapter analyses how this placed them at higher risk of exposure to the virus and of secondary disadvantages: lack of resources, support, care and education. She suggests that the CRC could have provided a framework to help homeless (and all) children, aiming to reduce exposures to the coronavirus and to improve healthcare and education. Her conclusions offer a proposition on what a children’s rights approach to the pandemic might look like.

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Chapter 5, by Michael Wyness, continues the discussion around children’s rights and the centrality of the CRC to a global rights agenda. The author critically illustrates the limitations of the CRC and focuses on the uneven distribution of rights between different groups of children. He discusses the situation for young carers in England, revealing how the CRC offers limited support for them as it marginalises their caring responsibilities. He analyses how the pandemic has exacerbated their difficulties within the context of lockdowns and social distancing. Against this, he proposes reframing the concept of children’s rights in line with three themes: the broadening of areas within which children’s participation should be legitimated and thus subject to support and protection from adults and institutions; the accommodation of rights to children’s agency  by  focusing on children’s living rights (Hanson & Niewenhuys, 2013); and a bottom-up approach (children’s rights from below (Larkins et al 2015)) that focuses on agency as being more relational. This reframing, Wyness suggests, could offer greater recognition of the problems many children were confronted with during the pandemic. This alternative conception of children’s rights could be more supportive of young carers, as it recognises a network of formal and informal support and both the material and emotional contributions they make. The relevance of care and the potential of a feminist ethics of care are highlighted in Chap. 6. Aravinda Kosaraju focuses on the impacts of the pandemic on the child protection system in the UK, a system that relies on  initially  seeing and hearing children predominantly through their encounters with school staff and community health practitioners such as health visitors. This system suddenly had to adapt and respond to the COVID-19 imposed social distancing measures. This chapter’s premise is that the ethics of care framework can bridge the normative promise of the legal instruments involving children’s rights and their practical realisation. Employing a rapid review approach to literature, the chapter critically examines UK government emergency legislation and policy directives concerning child protection to explore their implications for both children and child protection practitioners. The global pandemic exacerbated the invisibility of the child in safeguarding responses, while the nature of engagement with children and families in the child protection context necessarily changed significantly. New modes of intimacy were developed through digital communication, alongside practices of ‘improvisation’ and new hybrid practices. Kosaraju reflects on the value and importance of listening to children and seeing children from a feminist ethics of care

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perspective, in terms of ensuring that child protection practice remains child-centred and meaningful for both children and for its practitioners. Bringing attention to young people’s voices even more directly, James Toop and Bite Back Youth Board Members have coauthored Chap. 7 on youth-led actions that, in the framework of the pandemic, question the UK’s food system and call for a redesign that puts child health first. The authors argue that the global pandemic has brutally exposed and sharpened the inequalities and injustices that already existed in the food system. In 2020, during the first lockdown, Bite Back 2030 launched a study on the eating and drinking habits of 1000 young people that revealed a mixed picture: there were stark differences in habits according to socio-economic backgrounds, alongside increasing awareness of food system injustices and willingness to take action. This chapter describes three case studies based on lived experiences of Bite Back 2030’s youth leaders. Zoe called attention to the fact that pupils from her school who were, like her, having free school meals were being shortchanged on their lunches. Christina campaigned for better access to healthy food in deprived areas, like the one where she lives, which she calls food deserts: places where there are an overwhelming number of junk food stores and very few healthy options. Dev led a national campaign against advertising junk food online after noticing that he was seeing more advertisements for junk food than before the pandemic hit. These cases show how young people are demanding changes from decision-makers in government, food companies, local authorities and schools, so that they can develop a healthier and fairer food system. Chapter 8 continues revealing young people’s expertise, direct experiences and proposals for post-pandemic recovery. The chapter is written as a collaboration between RIP:STARS (Research into Practice/Policy: Skilled Team with Ambition, Rights and Strength), a group of young disabled people, and their academic allies. They interlink their own perspectives with data gathered from the small number of reports and papers available on the impact of COVID-19 on disabled children and young people in the UK. Their work, underpinned by two important models—a social model of disability and a rights-based model for decision-making— shows how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted disabled children and analyses the barriers they still face in the rush to catch up to a ‘normal’ that often excluded them. They question the notion of uncertainty as something characteristic of the pandemic, because it felt ‘normal’ and heightened for them previously. They then challenge the framing of

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‘vulnerable’, revealing how it could be detrimental to post-pandemic recovery. Having described lack of attention to their needs and losses of their rights, they conclude by reaffirming their wish to get back to their own work researching and lobbying for change, affirming that as disabled young people, they have much to contribute to policy and practice development if those in power are willing to engage, listen and invest. Exposing the relevance of listening to children from a different angle, Chap. 9 describes the project Children Heard, a family-based interview that reached over 500 children across Europe during the first wave of the pandemic. The chapter, by May Lene Karlsen, draws experiences and insights gained through this process together with participation literature and reflections on therapeutic practice. The project was thought of as a campaign to promote the value of hearing children. Therefore, the interview was not a means to an end. It was in iteslf the entire purpose of the project, that is, creating opportunities for children to share their experiences of the pandemic with a trusted adult, promoting more listening, co-constructing and relating. The author describes how the analysis of data gathered was characterised by a continuous tension and negotiation between summarising the children’s accounts into categories and preserving their diversity and uniqueness. Her conclusions suggest that despite some limitations, this family-based approach to child participation carries unexplored possibilities related to the construction of more inclusive communities and countermeasures to adult-centric parenting.

Cross-Cutting Insights From these chapters, we can see that the pandemic is exacerbating pre-­ existing inequalities for many children, including those who are disabled; who experience homelessness, poor housing, poverty and food shortages; who have experience of child protection and alternative care; and young carers and young Roma in marginalised situations. The chapters also show that children, in all situations, can take action to try to promote their rights and to enhance the wellbeing of themselves and their families and communities. The issue is that children and young people should not be left to carry this role of rights defenders on their own—adults, particularly state party duty bearers, have a responsibility to redirect resources in line with children’s concerns and in support of their activism. We suggest that the cross-cutting themes from this book can be approached as a series of questions for reflection and discussion.

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• How can children and their concerns be made more visible? • How can the disparities between different groups of children be acknowledged in all policy and practice discussions? • How can the underlying (economic and political) causes of inequalities be recognised and addressed? • How can adults and children join together to create social movements to protect, respect and promote children’s rights and concerns? • How might a children’s rights-based approach (from below) improve pandemic responses? • How might the underpinning values of pandemic responses include a stronger ethic of care, recognition of children’s competence and commitment to listening to and taking action alongside children? • How can we hold to account the people with the power of resources that mean they could implement these approaches? We encourage the readers of this book to use these questions as a guide through the volume, and to consider how they might be explored in further depth with children and their allies to promote children’s participation and rights.

References Coronavirus Dashboard. (2021) https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ [last accessed 24.06.2022]. Hanson, K., & Nieuwenhuys, O. (Eds.). (2013). Reconceptualizing children’s rights in international development: living rights, social justice, translations. Cambridge University Press. Institute for Government. (2021). Timeline of UK coronavirus lockdowns, March 2020 to March 2021. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/timeline-­lockdown-­web.pdf Larkins, C., Thomas, N., Carter, B., Farrelly, N., Judd, D., & Lloyd, J. (2015). Support for children’s protagonism: Methodological moves towards critical children rights research framed from below. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 23(2), 332–364. Larkins, et al. (2020). Building on rainbows: Supporting Children’s participation in shaping responses to COVID-19. UCLan. Mort, M., Rodríguez-Giralt, I., & Delicado, A. (2020). Children and young People’s participation in disaster risk reduction agency and resilience. Bristol University Press.

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UK Gov. (2021). Coronavirus dashboard. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ UK Government. (2021). Coronavirus: Lessons learned to date. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/ cmselect/cmsctech/92/9204.htm UN. (2020). Policy brief: The impact of covid-19 on children. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/policy_brief_ on_covid_impact_on_children_16_april_2020.pdf UN Com RC. (2020). Committee on the rights of the child covid statement April 2020 INT_CRC_STA_9095_E (5). Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download. aspx?symbolno=INT/CRC/STA/9095

Cath Larkins  innovates in participation, activism and knowledge exchange with children and young people, and their allies, across the UK and Europe. Cath has conducted collaborative research with children and young people since 1997, focused on challenging discrimination and improving policy and practice. She started work at University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), UK, in 2011, where she now co-directs The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation. This work has been funded by the AHRC, ESRC, the European Union and Council of Europe, UK governments and charitable foundations. With marginalised children and young people, she co-authors empirical work, accessible guidance and events to inspire social change. Her scholarship advances theories and methodologies for participation and citizenship, critiquing dominant understandings of children, childhood and childhood policy and practice. Her work with children has contributed to impact on policy and practice internationally. Lucía del Moral-Espín is a lecturer at the University of Cádiz (UCA, area of sociology), Spain, where she teaches social policy and research methods. Her research is characterised by interdisciplinarity and her interests deal with childhood and feminist studies, wellbeing and the commons. Between 2017 and 2021 she co-coordinated the Research Network 04 ‘Sociology of Children and Childhood’ of the European Sociological Association. She is the UCA-responsible person for Horizon 2020 project ‘Smooth Educational Spaces and Passing Through Enclosures and

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Inequalities. Opening community and knowledge up through educational commons’ and the K02 Erasmus + Project Blended Short-cycle Training Courses on ‘Commoning Practices’. She is part of the Gender Observatory on Economics, Politics & Development (GEP & DO) and the AmericaIberian Research Network on Work, Gender and Daily Life (TRAGEVIC).

PART I

Working Towards Good Childhoods

Building a better future for Covid’s kids will mean people working together across sectoral silos and political divides and doing so for many years to come. (Kirsty McNeill, Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, Save the Children) For collective children’s participation to be more impactful, the first challenge is to draw links between children’s perspectives and the underpinning causes of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on children. The second challenge is to increase adults’ competence, so that they recognise and respond to the potential contributions within children’s ideas. (Cath Larkins, University of Central Lancashire, and Lucía del Moral-Espín, University of Cadiz)

These first two chapters are held together by a commitment to seeking out connections between children’s experiences, in the name of responding to those experiences most effectively. Let’s not shout louder, Young proposes. Instead, let’s reach out further and build ‘an irresistible coalition for change’ based on three principles: putting children at the heart of economic choices to come, replacing the narrative focus on child poverty with a broader view of ‘good childhoods’, and building a case for poverty as an experience of exclusion from community. Larkins and del Moral-Espín begin that work of reaching out themselves, in research that gathers the experiences of children in vulnerable family situations, in and leaving alternative care, exposed to violence, in migration, with disabilities, and young Roma. They suggest that by drawing links between children’s experiences, their full significance can be

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revealed and that this is a way for children’s participation to lead to lasting change. It might be time for an old story about children’s disempowerment and vulnerability to be replaced by one of good childhoods, Young suggests. When new connections between children’s experiences are drawn—connections that make clear where exactly the potential lies for long-term policy responses—perhaps that new story begins to be written.

CHAPTER 2

i. The Movement for Good Childhoods: How Can We Put Children at the Heart of Our National Life? Kirsty McNeill

Abstract  The choices we make about support for children today will have profound implications for what happens tomorrow and yet children— their rights, interests and perspectives—have often appeared to be an afterthought during the coronavirus crisis. This chapter examines what it would take to fix that, by examining three key questions. Firstly, what do we know about some of the main implications of coronavirus for UK children? Secondly, what do we still not know about the impact of the pandemic on children and what issues could a future research agenda consider? And thirdly, how might a social movement for children be built? It concludes that bringing together families, the children’s workforce and children’s volunteers behind a common strategy could help secure political momentum behind children’s rights.

K. McNeill (*) Save the Children, London, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Turok-Squire (ed.), Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07099-0_2

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Keywords  Child participation • Children’s perspectives • Children’s rights • COVID-19 • Good childhoods • Save the Children

Introduction The choices we make about support for children today will have profound implications for what happens tomorrow and yet children—their rights, interests and perspectives—have often appeared to be an afterthought during the coronavirus crisis. We only need to consider three elements of our UK media debate to know that children have not been afforded the centrality they deserve in pandemic planning. School closures have been at times seemed to be lamented primarily because of the difficulties for parents who have been trying to work and home-­school simultaneously. Lockdown and social distancing had enormous implications for the early years and soft play sector, but it was hospitality and tourism that got the headlines. And children’s mental health and protection issues got much less airtime in the House of Commons than whether adults could get a haircut or pop to the pub. In all aspects of our lives—as part of families, communities and organisations and as citizens—we make choices shaped by our sense of what’s important and what’s achievable. Shared stories about priorities and possibilities determine what we do together, but this crisis has shown us that many people who have duties towards children don’t recognise that they do, or don’t prioritise fulfilling those obligations when they compete with other outcomes they want to secure or communities of interest they need to serve. If we’re to fix that—and put children at the heart of our common life— we need to bring together children and families, the children’s workforce and children’s volunteers into a movement that can tell a story about what good childhoods look like and then work together to secure them. This chapter will show how. Over the course of this chapter, I will consider three questions. Firstly, what do we know about some of the main implications of coronavirus for UK children? Secondly, what do we still not know about the impact of the pandemic on children and what issues could a future research agenda consider? And thirdly, how might a social movement for children be built?

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I. What Do We Know About the Experiences of COVID’s Kids? The UK’s lockdowns have had devastating implications for children. None of what follows should be taken as evidence that they were wrong on public health grounds, but it is notable, in my view, that the consequences for children, and what mitigations might be necessary, were simply not as central as the consideration given to other interest groups. Starting at the very beginning of life, the implications of coronavirus restrictions for maternity services have been enormous. According to research (Pregnant Then Screwed, 2020) conducted with 15,000 pregnant women by campaign group Pregnant then Screwed, 90% of expectant mums say that hospital restrictions around partner accompaniment have had a negative impact on their mental health. The ‘But Not Maternity Alliance’ found that 75% of services in England (Birthrights, 2021) prevented partners from attending antenatal services. Once babies came home, many of them did not meet aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbours and family friends who would normally be part of an extended network of support. We know in particular that grandparents can play a very important role in children’s wellbeing (University of Oxford, 2010) but nearly a million UK grandparents have been unable to meet a new arrival (Shaw, 2021). If they are a first-born, children may never have seen another child and the world visible from their pram is one of masked giants who hurry past one another and neither converse nor touch. Policy, long subject to the so-called baby blind-spot, was slow to catch-up, with 78% of survey respondents in First 1001 Days Movement/ Parent-Infant Foundation research saying that the government in their nation had “not taken action to ensure that families with babies under two received the support they needed during lockdown” (Reed & Parish, 2021). The suspension of playgroups and local classes hit new parents particularly hard. Royal Foundation research (Beaver et  al., 2020) found that ‘parental loneliness’ went from 38% pre-pandemic to 63%, with parents in the most deprived areas more than twice as likely as those in the least to say they feel lonely often or always, while research published in the Lancet suggested that “being young, a woman, and living with children, especially preschool age children, have had a particularly strong influence on the extent to which mental distress increased under the conditions of the pandemic” (Pierce et al., 2020). All of this took place as health visitors had an increased caseload and parents, fearful of infection, delayed taking children to routine paediatric

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appointments, leaving some extremely vulnerable children without the usual safeguarding protections. The first few months of lockdown saw a fall of nearly 20% in referrals to children’s social care, while visits to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline website went up by 800% (Local Government Association, 2020). Tragically, Ofsted reported that it had 300 serious incident reports between April and October 2020 and that nearly 40% of them were about babies—an increase of more than a fifth on the same period the previous year (Gaunt, 2020). Nursery-age children have also seen services squeezed. The early years sector has historically operated on extremely tight margins and faced both a drop in income (through enforced closures) and a spike in costs (as providers try to make their settings COVID-safe), while soft play providers said they were ‘forgotten’ as one of the last sectors to be given re-opening guidance (Woods, 2020). Without access to the usual organised activities, too many children’s lives became intensely claustrophobic (Hanley, 2020) with much more time spent indoors and reliant on what was already in the household. As Cassie-Ella, a 9  year old Save the Children works with in Bettws in Newport, South Wales, puts it, “before we could hug our friends and see them and use each other’s colour pencils. But we can’t anymore, we have to use our own” (Thomas, 2021).

Money Matters All of these challenges are exacerbated by living under financial pressure— something that is much more likely in a child’s earliest years (Department for Work and Pensions, 2021) and, according to Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health President Camilla Kingdon, “can leave a lasting psychological mark and is also a contributing factor in increased rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory problems, and poor mental health” (Kingdon, 2021). Before the pandemic, around 4.3  million children in the UK (nearly one in three) were living in poverty (despite at least one parent being in work for three in four of those children) (Hetherington, 2021). COVID accelerated the trends dramatically: families on low incomes have been particularly vulnerable to shocks to their incomes and have seen higher rates of job losses and furlough compared with those on higher incomes (Brewer et al., 2020). This has had a clear impact on their ability to cope financially: Save the Children research conducted with more than 3000

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low-income families found that 70% of parents had cut back on essentials, with 60% taking on debt and 50% going into arrears with rent or other bills (Maddison, 2020). Michelle, a single mum living with a disability that Save the Children works with, explains what small increases in benefits would mean to her: “being able to keep the house warm would help my arthritis and the asthma suffered by my son and I so that it does not flare up in the damp. I could buy equipment for home schooling, or repair the kitchen tap, or not have to rely on hand-me-down clothes from friends and family who have already a shortened life from being worn. I could afford haircuts for all of us” (Save the Children, 2021c). For Rebecca, it’s a question of being able to eat and use the heating simultaneously: “I’m already panicking about buying food. I’m not a frivolous person who spends money on nonsense—I only use the money for food and heating. But when you’re literally counting every penny, even a bit of extra heating is a struggle” (Save the Children, 2021d). DWP figures showed that the number of people on Universal Credit doubled to six million over the course of the pandemic (Bulman, 2021), while the Resolution Foundation has calculated that more than three quarters of a million families are in arrears with housing bills, with more than half of those as a direct result of COVID (Resolution Foundation, 2021). Keira, a single mum Save the Children works with in Edinburgh, described the suddenness of her predicament this way: “It literally felt like you were dropped into a cave and it felt like, that’s it. No support, no help. There’s nothing out there” (Save the Children, 2021a). As it became clear just how many families were going to be pulled into crisis by the pandemic, Save the Children set up and rapidly scaled our Emergency Grants programme, supporting families with household items like tables for schoolwork, food vouchers and toys, games, books and other early learning materials. We supported over 15,000 children across the UK between April 2020 and April 2021. Monitoring and evaluation data from these families shows the wide range of challenges they faced, from children outgrowing prams to delays to benefits because birth registrations slowed to local shops putting up prices during lockdown, all with negative effects on children’s early learning (Save the Children, 2021b). School age children had more public and policymaker attention, but that primarily focussed on whether schools stayed open or closed, rather than the gaps between different groups of children. Evidence from the Sutton Trust suggested (Montacute & Cullinane, 2021) that the

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disparities between private and state schools widened between the different lockdowns, with 86% of private schools providing ‘live’ online lessons and only 50% of state schools doing the same. Their findings also suggested only a quarter of those in working-class households were doing more than 5  hours of schoolwork a day, compared to 40% of those in middle-class homes, driven by a mixture of parental confidence, access to the internet and devices and time pressure. Without decent access to learning at home the effects of prolonged periods out of the classroom likely mirrored the pattern of the so-called summer slide where all children fall back a bit during holidays, but the poorest children fall back further (Observer editorial, 2018). Research from the Education Policy Institute suggests we could already see evidence of that in autumn 2020, with children returning to school after closures having experienced a reading lapse and a much larger dip in maths (Crenna-Jennings et al., 2021). At 14, Finn from Yorkshire was extremely clear with Save the Children that children at neighbouring schools were having it better than him: “my experience of missing school has been challenging. My school wasn’t able to provide a full remote timetable, despite the admirable efforts of teachers who went to great lengths to try and deliver good quality education. Due to the lack of face-to-face contact, our education was reduced to worksheets from textbooks. However, what really shocked me during lockdown was that private school children saw very little change to the way they were taught, thanks to their education going entirely online” (Daya, 2020a).

Children in the Community Schools, of course, perform more than an educational function. As footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaigning on child food poverty so vividly demonstrated, schools are also places where children can be guaranteed support with nutrition and access to sport and exercise. They are places where children can access mental health support—something desperately needed now, when according to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health it is possible to identify pandemic-related mental health effects in children as young as four (Burkey, undated). And they are places where children can develop their full social capabilities as part of a community.

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Anjali, a 15  year old from London Save the Children works with, explained the interaction between formal learning and socialising to Save the Children this way: “We usually thrive off face to face contact with our teachers. However, without any contact, it’s only natural that we felt anxious about going back to school. I felt so behind and didn’t know whether I was going to catch up. The loss of my traditional routine has massively shaken up my day-to-day life. Most of us have also lost some of our social skills whilst being at home” (Daya, 2020b). Part of what is going on for young people is the loss of rites of passage. For many young people, post-exam parties, proms and trips had been long in the planning, but the cancellation of many festivals and formal school events meant that the normal ways of marking life stages have disappeared. While that has been particularly pronounced in adolescence, younger children have also become increasingly accustomed to rituals and ‘graduations’ at earlier stages of their education. While there are undoubtedly some positives for some children from COVID restrictions, any gains are very unevenly distributed. Parents we work with in East Belfast have told us they’ve enjoyed seeing their children’s language and motor skills develop as they spend more time with them during the day, but the increased confidence they enjoy in their parenting skills has been offset by money worries and stress. Some families where parents have been in secure and flexible work and where garden space, digital devices and play equipment have been in plentiful supply will have enjoyed the extra time together to make memories and have meaningful experiences. For most children, however, this period has been one in which their needs and experiences have been mostly missing from the policy decisions made by adults that have such a profound effect on their lives. II. What Don’t We Know About the Implications of the Pandemic for COVID’s Kids? As we have seen in Part One, there is already a lot of evidence about the challenges children have experienced during COVID but there is plenty that we don’t yet know but could usefully explore. Here are just five suggestions for an emerging research agenda:

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• There is some evidence from the Universities of Birmingham and Kent’s study of home working that fathers have increased their share of the caring and chores burden while home working, and this may set long-term patterns in the same way extended paternity leave has a prolonged effect on men’s parenting (Chung et  al., 2020). For some children, however, this period was not at all characterised by a newly present father figure, but instead by seeing a mum moving from the so-called double shift of a day’s work followed by an e­ vening of caring, to a ‘triple shift’ of trying to work, trying to home-­school and trying to care for and entertain children all at once. What are the long-term implications for children’s gender norms and expectations and their understanding of other forms of marginalisation? • Throughout summer 2020, Save the Children convened a number of online ‘salons’, bringing together parents, practitioners, researchers, community workers and partners to document children’s experiences in real time. One of the most striking themes to emerge was just how drastically things in families had changed. Parents reported a big uptick in children doing more ‘grown up’ activities like cooking and gardening while representatives from LEGO talked about more parents taking a ‘child’s eye view’, getting down on the carpet to play with bricks and make toy forts. Heleanor Gilmour of Beano Insights refers to this concept as ‘generational merge’, where the clear boundaries between the generations start to blur, and older and younger siblings turn more to one another for company than playmates of the same age. James Purnell (then at the BBC) reported a similar merging taking place in the content families consumed as more adults turned to BBC Bitesize and Newsround for a clear take on fast moving trends (Save the Children, 2020). There was also some evidence early in the pandemic that as many as 70% of children were going to bed and getting up later (The Sleep Council, 2020) and 75% of parents said their children were spending more time watching TV or playing with a tablet, with particular spikes in screen time for children in families on a low income (University of Oxford, 2020). What will this do to the ability of parents to reset boundaries? What are the long-term implications of a generation being home-schooled and learning the limits of their parents’ knowledge and skills? • The Relationships Project’s ‘observatory’ research captured something of the disruption to children’s rites of passage in their The

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Moment We Noticed report: “we have a traditional red phone box which has organically become a place for swapping and dropping during COVID. … A box of chocolates was donated and then collected by a little girl who was having a rubbish birthday in isolation. People have left books and magazines, as well as tea bags and other essentials for anyone who might be struggling to get out or just needed something nice. One little girl in Year 6 missed the last day before schools shut and didn’t get her shirt signed by her friends. She was so upset. The shirt is hanging in there with some pens and all her friends are signing it on their daily walk to cheer her up” (Robinson, 2020). Will children and young people who have missed ‘rites of passage’ like the last day of school or post-exam celebrations have a prolonged childhood and adolescence to make up for it? Will festivals and clubs see ‘generational merge’ too, with very different cohorts occupying the same space as older children effectively try to ‘repeat a year’ but socially rather than academically? What will happen to the role of ritual in children’s lives if a year of birthday parties, Halloween activities, religious festivals and extended family traditions has been missed? Will patterns be quickly re-established, lose their relevance or be forever changed by the ‘missing’ year in a photo album? Recent research from the Fabian Society indicates there is increasing support for welfare spending on families with very young children and it may be that childcare spending is finally an issue whose time has come (Abey & Harrop, 2021). Professor Ashwin Kumar of Manchester Metropolitan University argues we are seeing popular consent for “a new Bismarkianism”, saying “Under pressure of a once-in-a-century health emergency, the UK has become continental. We have abandoned our traditional approach of bare minimum support for people out of work to a Bismarkian approach more commonly seen in other parts of Europe” (Kumar, 2020). We have certainly already seen substantial support coalesce around the idea of making the £20 a week increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit that was introduced during the pandemic permanent. Support for imbedding it runs at 59% with only 20% opposed (Health Foundation, 2021). Will these changes in attitudes to work and welfare be sustained? Will public attitudes coalesce around support for families in particular or will it be extended to other social security claimants?

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III. What Would a Movement for COVID’s Kids Look Like? We already know from the emerging evidence base that children and young people have had a tough pandemic and will require targeted interventions to help them recover. Answering the five questions above would help everyone who supports children and families refine their interventions even further and ensure they fit with newly established patterns of family life. There is much, of course, that families and communities will be able to do for themselves. We only need to consider how local businesses responded to Marcus Rashford’s appeals on child food poverty (Varley, 2020) to see how much resilience and mutual support already exist in our neighbourhoods. The challenge, however, is that in the end policy and funding have an outsized influence on the extent to which children, families and communities can flourish and it has proven difficult, at least in England, to get children’s rights and perspectives to carry much weight politically. Policy-maker consensus has underpinned some remarkable policy breakthroughs in other nations (including the introduction of upfront grants for childcare costs in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Executive, 2021), the Welsh Well-being of Future Generations Act (The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, 2017) and the incorporation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child into Scots law (The Scottish Parliament, 2021)) but Westminster and Whitehall have downgraded children’s concerns with now no cabinet minister (or even cabinet committee) responsible for children and families (Sodha, 2021). It is perhaps not surprising that reserved matters like defence and immigration have occupied bandwidth in the UK government, leaving devolved governments to focus more on social policy, but the ways in which Treasury and DWP decision-making in particular impact on family finances means there will need to be a concerted effort to elevate children’s concerns and generate political will to resolve them. That in turn will take a long-term approach to building a movement, allowing families, the children’s workforce and child rights champions in the media, parliament and funders to exert pressure on behalf of (and together with) children as a group, in the same way that other interest groups operate as an issue lobby. Thankfully, there is already a mass (albeit latent) children’s constituency in this country that could be mobilised to help the coronavirus generation.

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The first pillar of that constituency is families themselves. We have already seen from issues like climate change how accomplished children and young people are as campaigners. Their parents have extraordinary potential too. Public health practitioners have long looked at ‘life-stage transitions’ as optimal moments for triggering behaviour change (NICE, 2017). The transition to becoming a parent is perhaps the most disruptive of all and it has happened to more than a million people in the UK since the pandemic began. The first moment of holding a new-born is not just, for most people, a moment where a sudden and overwhelming shift in social status takes place, but also one at which they pledge to themselves and their new baby that they will do whatever it takes for their protection and flourishing. When we add on grandparents, aunts, uncles and godparents, the circle of people feeling a particular responsibility to each new-­ born is huge. Unfortunately, Save the Children research using British Election Survey data (Fieldhouse et al., 2021) shows that people with preschool and school age children tend to have much lower turnout than their peers without children, until they hit 35. The turnout rate for parents aged 18–24, with preschool children for example is just 21.7%, compared to 70.7% for their peers without children. For people aged 25–43 with children at school, turnout is just 54.1%, compared to 73.1% for childless peers. Ensuring, therefore, that becoming or staying a voter is one of the behaviours associated with advocating for one’s children will be key to building political pressure for children’s rights. The second pillar is the children’s workforce. To the tens of thousands of child and family social workers (GOV.UK, 2021) across the UK and the more than a million people working in schools across the four nations (GOV.UK, 2020) we can add all the paediatricians, midwives, child psychologists, play workers and youth workers who work exclusively with children and young people, as well as the housing officers and GPs who carry a heavy family caseload. A further group whose lives touch children’s includes everyone in retail, hospitality or entertainment whose sense of self is that they are ‘family friendly’ or in some way oriented towards serving children in their community. The third pillar of a new children’s movement is the children’s volunteering corps. There are 160,000 volunteers in UK Scouting (The Scout Association, undated), more than 100,000  in Girlguiding (Girlguiding, 2016) and countless others volunteering to support children’s sport, drama, arts and crafts, outdoor activities and reading and play. All of them

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are committed to better outcomes for children but don’t currently have a means to give this motivation a policy or political expression. There is, of course, overlap between these groups and the motivations for these millions of people need to be better understood. Even if they agree on an objective (e.g. ending child poverty) they may disagree on the best way to achieve it. There is no doubt, however, that generating some sustained public attention on children’s interests is a necessary pre-­ condition to fixing the long-term asymmetry whereby government feels accountable to people primarily in terms of their economic status (as employers, workers, mortgage-holders or consumers) but not as members of families and communities. The most sustainable way to build political will for children would be mobilising each of these three interest groups into a broad and diverse families’ movement dedicated to putting children’s futures at the heart of the recovery. The absence of just such a grouping was made painfully obvious on the 1st of April 2020. That day was supposed to mark the abolition of child poverty, according to the government target set in the year 2000 (Child Poverty Action Group, 2019). Instead, twenty years on, child poverty is on the rise and political parties no longer vie to say their plans are the best to defeat it. The key to changing that, I suggest, is not to shout louder, but to reach out further. It is building an irresistible coalition for change based on three main principles. The first principle, at a strategic level, is putting the protection of childhood at the heart of the tough economic choices to come. A children’s movement needs to coalesce around one core political goal: making sure families are as present in the Chancellor’s mind for the recovery as businesses and workers were for the rescue. The second principle, at a narrative level, is replacing the current narrow focus of many charities on child poverty with a wider story about good childhoods. A limited campaign about child poverty will not be enough to galvanise political attention post coronavirus any more than it could make the political weather before it. Instead, advocates for children need to be relentless in our focus on universal truths that already command public sympathy, focussing on the notion of a good childhood and everybody having a right to one. Talk of deprivation is too abstract when we could be talking about the tangible things every child needs—a warm coat in the winter, the chance to go on the school trip with the rest of the

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class, a present on their birthday and enough food in the fridge to have a friend over for tea. The most difficult part of work to generate a new narrative (and therefore new consensus) around childhood will be locating responsibility for children’s outcomes appropriately. While much of the evidence points towards a complex interaction between parental behaviour and wider (particularly financial) family circumstances, for many voters, children’s outcomes are primarily a function of parental choices. A movement that seeks to generate and sustain public consent for redistributive action, therefore, will need to engage sensitively and systematically with public concerns around poverty and welfare and neither wish them away nor take a pure myth-busting approach of the sort that simply entrenches preconceptions. In Save the Children’s own (unpublished) insight work on welfare narratives we see two things in particular. Firstly, how families become more sympathetic to parents on lower incomes when they see that they are ‘battling’ poverty and maintaining pride and dignity against the odds, particularly if they are working, living without a wider support system or raising children alone. Living in poverty is extremely hard work and it’s important to convey the energy families expend trying to get by. Secondly, people respond much more positively to the idea that others have fallen on ‘hard times’ and are experiencing something temporary than they do to the idea people are trapped and will never escape. Ensuring wide adoption of new language about childhood will be key to recruiting and retaining mass support. The third principle, at a policy level, is to build the case for poverty as primarily an experience of diminished purchasing power and, therefore, exclusion from the collective life of our communities and country. There are undoubtedly specific issues around access to energy or meals or sanitary products and a whole host of other things, but the basic thing that unites fuel poverty, food poverty or period poverty is poverty. We can’t fix poverty without talking about getting more money into parents’ pockets (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2021).

Conclusion Building a better future for COVID’s kids will mean people working together across sectoral silos and political divides and doing so for many years to come. The effort will be huge but so too is the debt owed to a

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generation who put their lives on hold to keep adults safe. This prize is worth chasing. This coronavirus generation of children may not have been as at risk as our elderly relatives and may not have sacrificed as much as our heroes in the NHS and social care. They have, however, seen a disruption to their childhoods that may well still be showing up in our common life many decades from now. This generation owes it to theirs to limit the damage by building a movement worthy of this moment—one which creates a much more equal future for the young lives currently on pause.

References Abey, J., & Harrop, A. (2021). Going with the grain. The Fabian Society. https:// fabians.org.uk/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2021/05/Going-­w ith-­t he-­g rain-­ Fabian-­Society-­lowres.pdf Beaver, K., Knibbs, S., Hobden, S., & Albone, J. (2020). State of the nation: Understanding public attitudes to the Early Years (Executive summary). Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. https://mk0royalfoundatcnhl0.kinstacdn.com/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2020/11/STRICTLY-­ EMBARGOED-­U NTIL-­0 001-­H RS-­F RIDAY-­2 7-­N OVEMBER-­2 020-­ IPSOS-­MORI-­ROYAL-­FOUNDATION-­EXECUTIVE-­SUMMARY.pdf Birthrights. (2021, April 6). “Visiting restrictions are no longer justified” says Birthrights and partners. https://www.birthrights.org.uk/2021/04/06/ visiting-­restrictions-­are-­no-­longer-­justified-­says-­birthrights-­and-­partners/ Brewer, M., Cominetti, N., Henehan, K., McCurdy C., Sehmi R., & Slaughter, H. (2020). Jobs, jobs, jobs: Evaluating the effects of the current economic crisis on the UK labour market. Resolution Foundation. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2020/10/Jobs-­jobs-­jobs.pdf Bulman, M. (2021, February 24). Number of universal credit claimants doubles since start of pandemic to 6 million, figures show. The Independent. https:// www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-­news/universal-­credit-­claimants-­ covid-­lockdown-­dwp-­b1806012.html Burkey, S. (undated). I Want to do Well: A literature review of existing research on children and young people’s experiences of COVID-19. Achievement for All (3As) Ltd. https://afaeducation.org/media/2326/i-­want-­to-­do-­well.pdf Child Poverty Action Group. (2019, March 12). Recent history of UK child poverty. https://cpag.org.uk/recent-­history-­uk-­child-­poverty Chung, H., Seo, H., Forbes, S., & Birkett, H. (2020). Working from home during the COVID-19 lockdown: Changing preferences and the future of work. University of Kent. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-­social-­sciences/ business/research/wirc/epp-­working-­from-­home-­COVID-­19-­lockdown.pdf

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Crenna-Jennings, W., Perera, N., Sibieta, L. (2021). Education recovery and resilience in England. Education Policy Institute. https://epi.org.uk/wp-­content/ uploads/2021/05/Education-­Recovery_EPI.pdf Daya, R. (2020a, October 9). Finn, 14, asks to protect his generation from more inequality. Save the Children UK. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/ blogs/2020/save-­our-­education-­finn Daya, R. (2020b, October 16). Anjali, 15, meets ministers at the #SaveourEducation hangout. Save the Children UK. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/ blogs/2020/global-­hangout-­anjali Department for Work and Pensions. (2021, April 15). Households below average income: An analysis of the income distribution FYE 1995 to FYE 2020. GOV. UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-­below-­average-­ income-­f or-­f inancial-­y ears-­e nding-­1 995-­t o-­2 020/households-­b elow-­ average-­income-­an-­analysis-­of-­the-­income-­distribution-­fye-­1995-­to-­fye-­2020 Fieldhouse, E., Green, J., Evans, G., Mellon, J., Prosser, C., de Geus, R., & Bailey, J. (2021). 2019 BES post-election random probability survey v.1.1.1 [Data set]. British Election Study. https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-­object/ 2019-­british-­election-­study-­post-­election-­random-­probability-­survey/ Gaunt, C. (2020, November 6). Ofsted chief highlights ‘Covid pressure cooker’ on vulnerable families. Nursery World. https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/ article/ofsted-­chief-­highlights-­covid-­pressure-­cooker-­on-­vulnerable-­families Girlguiding. (2016, September 8). Our impact. https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/ about-­us/our-­impact/ GOV.UK. (2020). School workforce in England, reporting year 2019. https:// explore-­education-­statistics.service.gov.uk/find-­statistics/school-­workforce­in-­england GOV.UK. (2021). Children’s social work workforce, reporting year 2020. https:// explore-­education-­statistics.service.gov.uk/find-­statistics/children-­s-­social-­ work-­workforce Hanley, L. (2020, July 1). Lockdown has laid bare Britain’s class divide. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/ lockdown-­britain-­victorian-­class-­divide Health Foundation. (2021). Public perceptions of health and social care in light of COVID-19. https://www.health.org.uk/publications/public-­perceptions-­of­health-­and-­social-­care-­in-­light-­of-­covid-­19-­november-­2020 Hetherington, G. (2021, March 25). Rising poverty among children and pensioners shows why Covid inquiry must consider its impact. Joseph Rowntree Foundation. https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/rising-­child-­and-­pensioner-­poverty-­shows-­ why-­covid-­inquiry-­must-­consider-­its-­impact Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (2021, January 13). What is poverty?. https:// www.jrf.org.uk/our-­work/what-­is-­poverty

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Kingdon, C. (2021, August 17). Cuts to Universal Credit will leave children hungry. BMJ. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/08/17/camilla-­kingdon-­cuts­to-­universal-­credit-­will-­leave-­children-­hungry/ Kumar, A. (2020, May) Whither welfare: Building a stronger safety net for us all after the crisis. Our Other National Debt. https://www.ourothernationaldebt. com/welfare Local Government Association. (2020, September 10). A child-centred recovery. https://www.local.gov.uk/publications/child-­centred-­recovery Maddison, F. (2020, June). A lifeline for our children: Strengthening the social security system for families with children during this pandemic. Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/coronahub/stc-­jrf-­joint-­briefing-­lifeline-­for-­children.pdf Montacute, M., & Cullinane, C. (2021). Learning in lockdown. The Sutton Trust. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-­content/uploads/2021/01/Learning-­in-­ Lockdown.pdf NICE. (2017). Public health need and practice. Behaviour change: General approaches. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ph6/chapter/1-­public­health-­need-­and-­practice Northern Ireland Executive. (2021, May 21). Minister Hargey paves the way for upfront childcare costs [Press release]. https://www.northernireland.gov.uk/ news/minister-­hargey-­paves-­way-­upfront-­childcare-­costs. Observer editorial. (2018, August 29). The Observer view on ending long summer holidays. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2018/aug/26/long-­school-­summer-­holidays-­inequality-­poorer­families Pierce, M., Hope, H., Ford, T., Hatch, S., Hotopf, M., & John, A. (2020). Mental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal probability sample survey of the UK population. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7, 883–892. https://www.thelancet.com/jour nals/lanpsy/ar ticle/PIIS2215-­ 0366(20)30308-­4/fulltext Pregnant Then Screwed & Birth Rights. (2020, November 19). But not maternity. Pregnant Then Screwed. https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/but-­not­maternity/ Reed, J., & Parish, N. (2021). Working for Babies: Lockdown lessons from local systems. Parent-Infant Foundation. https://parentinfantfoundation.org.uk/ wp-­content/uploads/2021/01/210121-­F1001D_Working_for_Babies_v1.2-­ FINAL-­compressed_2.pdf Resolution Foundation. (2021, February 16). Covid-19 crisis has seen 450,000 additional families fall behind on their housing payments [Press release] https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-­releases/covid-­19-­crisis-­has-­ seen-­450000-­additional-­families-­fall-­behind-­on-­their-­housing-­payments/

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Robinson, D. (2020). The moment we noticed: The relationships observatory and our learning from 100 days of lockdown. The Relationships Project. https://relationshipsproject.org/content/uploads/2020/07/The-­M oment-­We-­ Noticed_RelationshipsProject_202.pdf Save the Children. (2020). Life under lockdown: Children’s experience of the pandemic and lockdown in the UK. Save the Children UK. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/gb/reports/life_under_lockdown_report.pdf Save the Children. (2021a). “Dropped into a Cave”: How families with young children experienced lockdown. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/content/ dam/gb/reports/dropped-­into-­a-­cave-­compressed.pdf Save the Children. (2021b). Supporting Children and Families Through Covid: What we’ve learned from our UK Emergency Response grants. https://www. savethechildren.org.uk/content/dam/gb/reports/supporting_families_ through_covid.pdf Save the Children. (2021c, February 15). The £20 a week uplift is the foundation of hope for children. Save the Children UK. https://www.savethechildren.org. uk/blogs/2021/twenty-­a-­week-­uplift-­is-­the-­foundation-­of-­hope-­for-­children Save the Children. (2021d, February 23). 620,000 more families claiming Universal Credit [Press release]. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-­ centre/press-­releases/620-­000-­more-­families-­claiming-­universal-­credit Shaw, N. (2021, March 25). Million grandparents will see new baby for the first time next week. Cambridgeshire Live. https://www.cambridge-­news.co.uk/news/ uk-­world-­news/million-­grandparents-­see-­new-­baby-­20254030 Sodha, S. (2021, March 27). The kids aren’t all right—And the government has stopped caring. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/ mar/27/the-­kids-­arent-­all-­right-­and-­government-­has-­stopped-­caring The Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. (2017). Well-being of future generations (Wales) act 2015. https://www.futuregenerations.wales/about­us/future-­generations-­act/ The Scottish Parliament. (2021). United Nations convention on the rights of the child incorporation Scotland bill. https://www.parliament.scot/bills-­and-­laws/ bills/united-­nations-­convention-­on-­the-­rights-­of-­the-­child-­incorporation-­ scotland-­bill The Scout Association. (undated). Scouts—Volunteering with scouts. https://www. scouts.org.uk/volunteer/volunteering-­with-­scouts/ The Sleep Council. (2020, May 12). New survey reveals covid-19’s impact on kids’ bedtimes and time on devices [Press release]. https://sleepcouncil.org.uk/ latest-­news/new-­survey-­reveals-­covid-­19s-­impact-­on-­kids-­bedtimes-­and-­time-­ on-­devices/ Thomas, R. (2021, March 31). One year on: Lockdown life on the Bettws Estate. Save the Children UK. https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/blogs/2021/ one-­year-­on-­lockdown-­life-­bettws-­estate

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University of Oxford. (2010, July 6). Grandparents contribute to children’s wellbeing. https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-­impact/grandparents-­contribute­childrens-­wellbeing University of Oxford. (2020, October 27). UK lockdown linked to widening disadvantage gap for babies and toddlers. University of Oxford. https://www. ox.ac.uk/news/2020-­10-­27-­uk-­lockdown-­linked-­widening-­disadvantage-­ gap-­babies-­and-­toddlers Varley, C. (2020, December 19). Marcus Rashford: Feeding Britain’s children— Inside his campaign to tackle child hunger. BBC Sport. https://www.bbc.co. uk/sport/football/55338104 Woods, B. R. (2020, July 26). Coronavirus: “Soft play is heading for a cliff edge.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­england-­53502760 Kirsty McNeill  is Save the Children’s Executive Director for Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, leading teams to galvanise the public and influence policymakers on humanitarian action, global development and help for children here in the UK. Previously, she founded a consultancy advising some of the world’s leading social purpose organisations and spent three years as a special adviser in Number 10. She came to Downing Street having led the policy and influencing work of DATA, Bono and Bob Geldof’s advocacy organisation in Britain, Germany, France, Italy and the EU institutions. Before joining DATA she was on the board of Make Poverty History and managed the Stop AIDS Campaign, successfully negotiating a commitment to universal access to AIDS treatment from the 2005 G8. Today she chairs Larger Us, the Civic Power Fund and the Aid Alliance and is on the boards of the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Coalition for Global Prosperity, IPPR and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. She tweets at @ kirstyjmcneill.

CHAPTER 3

ii. Children’s Experiences of the Pandemic Across Europe: Inequalities and the Potential of Participation Cath Larkins and Lucía del Moral-Espín

Abstract  The COVID-19 pandemic has increased inequalities experienced by many children across Europe. In 2020, we conducted a snapshot survey across the UK and elsewhere in Europe to provide early evidence of the contexts children were experiencing, responses to COVID-19 and the possibilities for children’s participation. Our research revealed that rather than recognising the hardships experienced and celebrating the contributions being made by children and young people, some have experienced an increased lack of income, food, medication and access to formal education; some families did  not have access to adequate sanitation or electricity;  some have been subjected to discriminatory comments;

C. Larkins (*) University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK L. del Moral-Espín University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Turok-Squire (ed.), Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07099-0_3

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children as a group, and marginalised communities, such as Roma and refugees, have been seen as a problem. Structured dialogue to enable policy makers and children and marginalised communities to collaborate to shape solutions, was rarely supported. The underlying causes of deepening inequalities were not addressed. This chapter examines practical insight from our research alongside subsequent publications to provide an intersectional analysis of the contexts that children were experiencing, the pre-existing causes of some of the challenges and examples  of children providing evidence about their experiences and insights into how policy and services could better respond to the pandemic. We suggest that a potent combination of young and old minds is needed to generate any social settlement that will stand the test of time to secure us through any future challenges. This would require a reversal of dominant thinking and action, not only about childhood, but also about governance. Digital solutions have shown some promise, but these risks being purely decorative or exacerbating exclusions. We recommend strategies to ensure that the evidence and inspiration from children actually result in improvements in policy, practice and lives. Keywords  Children’s participation • COVID-19 • Inequalities • Marginalised communities • Policy

Introduction From late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted societies worldwide. Although some children may not contract COVID-19 or fall as seriously ill as some adults (Lee & Raszka, 2020; Sinha et al., 2020), as in previous crises, children and young people in the most vulnerable situations are deeply affected by the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic. The Council of Europe (2021) has raised concerns that a year and a half into the pandemic, keeping children’s rights high on the agenda and in public budgets has been a challenge. In April 2020, we conducted research, through an in-depth online qualitative questionnaire, with 95 professionals from across 20 European countries to provide early evidence of examples of children’s participation in responding to the pandemic and subsequent public health crisis. Subsequently, 19 professionals from a

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further four countries have provided us with reflections on their practice experiences and the views that children shared with them. Their reflections, and subsequent reports, have revealed deepening inequalities for groups of children across Europe, a variety of participatory responses and a lack of government action relating to children’s views and recommendations. As inequalities are deepening for some children, an intersectional lens (Crenshaw, 1989; Konstantoni & Emejulu, 2017) is vital to understand the differences and commonalities in children’s experiences of COVID-19 and their engagement in participatory responses. This approach recognises that children’s experiences are an outcome of the simultaneous and interacting effects of diverse categories of difference: generation, gender, race, class, sexual orientation and national origin (and others) shape children’s lives. We suggest that it is necessary to also take an approach of “working back to the future” (Larkins et  al., 2020). That is, trying to identify the underlying historical causes of the increasing inequalities reported in our study, so that these might be addressed in future collaborative action with children. In this chapter, we therefore explore the findings from our own research with professionals working with children across Europe1 alongside other published policy reports and studies. We identify the challenging circumstances and conditions experienced by children with particular identities and experiences (some children in vulnerable family situations, in and leaving alternative care, exposed to violence, in migration, with disabilities and young Roma) and the possible antecedent underlying causes of these inequalities. We then explore the examples of children’s participation reported in our research, examining when and where marginalised children and young people were able to contribute energy and ideas and raise their concerns through these processes and identifying whether these processes addressed symptoms or causes of inequalities. We conclude that for collective children’s participation to be more impactful, the first challenge is to draw links between children’s perspectives and the underpinning causes of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on some children.

1  This was a snapshot survey in one week in April 2020, drawing on the extensive international networks of Eurochild and The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation. It remained open for further examples, which continue to be reported occasionally. This chapter draws on the bulk of the data, received prior to 16 May 2020. 

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The second challenge is to increase adults’ competence, so that they recognise, respond to and act upon children’s ideas.

Challenging Contexts The consequences of COVID-19 described in our study across Europe included children and young people experiencing increased mental health support needs, digital exclusion, bereavement, increased exposure to domestic violence, lack of income, hunger, lack of basic health care, lack of water and electricity, increased dependence on food banks, poorer job opportunities, reliance on home education and lack of effective school outreach. As one respondent2 noted: In fact, poor families were more affected in the pandemic. Invisible children have become even more invisible. The measures taken were not realistic for poor families and their children. This group, with limited access to rights, remained well outside. While those working in public institutions and non-governmental organizations tried to protect themselves, their needs became unmet for a long time … children under protection, children in prison, children using drugs, child workers, children living on the streets, unaccompanied children, children dragged into crime … these children are invisible.

A subsequent study (Eurochild, 2020) analysed the reported impact of the pandemic on children in 25 European countries. Their findings showed how these issues were distributed across countries. The increase in unemployment put more families at risk of poverty (see country reports of Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Slovenia, among others) and food poverty problems became more acute. In Latvia, health services for children were not available during lockdown, not even in the most serious situations. The Eurochild Italy report described desperation on the part of families, seen for example in increases in the number of robberies at local supermarkets in some districts, by people whose children were seriously at risk of starving. Anxiety and mental health problems have also increased due to the combination of financial stress, uncertainty and home confinement during the lockdown (see Eurochild reports from Bulgaria, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Romania, Slovenia and Portugal). In 2  Indented italicised quotes are used to convey these perspectives. Note that we do not use the country or profession of individuals who responded to the survey, in order to protect their identities.

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parallel, many country reports highlighted the increase in domestic violence (see Eurochild reports from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal and Slovenia). Across Europe, school closures posed additional challenges. The Romania reports mentioned that 32% of children had no access to online learning, while Slovenia and Spain reported similar problems. Much attention has been paid to education as the “hidden victim of COVID-19 pandemic” (Save the Children, 2021). The children in most marginalised positions were also the most vulnerable to educational disruption and digital exclusion, and the longer schools were closed, the greater the risks to their well-being, not only to their education (Sheikh et al., 2020): risk of hunger from missing free or reduced school meals, risk of poverty from parents being unable to work because of daytime caring responsibilities, difficulties caching up the loss of learning, dropping out or even never returning to school. In fact, the reduction in teaching time particularly affects pupils from migrant backgrounds or from more socio-economic disadvantaged environments. The difficulties experienced by some children and families were exacerbated by the challenges experienced by civil society organisations supporting children in vulnerable situations. Our study revealed that in some circumstances, there were effective responses from government and from third sector and governmental organisations. For example, one respondent said: Social kitchens are organized in such a way that food is delivered to poor families or one family member comes for a meal, taking into account social distance. Children who do not have tablets or laptops have been given tablets by the Ministry of Science and Local Communities so that they can participate smoothly in teaching. The most vulnerable children and their families are supported by distance education, civil society organizations, children’s disease clinics and the like providing psychosocial support

But our survey also showed that in other countries, food, water and health service were not accessible; space and resources to support education were not available; and some professionals lacked protective clothing and equipment that were sometimes mandatory, or some workers were deployed away from facilitating children’s participation towards crisis interventions. This meant some children in vulnerable situations did not have access to individual support. The Eurochild (2020) report showed

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that lockdowns hindered the continuity of the work with children in the most vulnerable situations and the detection of new issues. Moreover, in a context of increasing need, many organisations experience fund reductions and cuts. Countries such as Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, France, Italy and Spain mentioned this problem. Our study indicated that the hardest hit children included young Roma and Travellers, children in care and care leavers, unaccompanied minors, children with mental health problems and children with experience of vulnerable family situations, poverty, disability, migration and exposure to violence, child sexual exploitation and trafficking. In the following subsections, we therefore outline examples of the challenging circumstances that were reported for six social categories of children, and we reflect on the underlying causes of these challenges.

Children with Experience of Poverty In our research, one respondent summed up vulnerable family situations by drawing attention to poverty: Most parents had to stay at home, many were fired, and life itself became much more difficult.

As already noted, some professionals described how, in some circumstances, families in poverty experienced a greater lack of food, water, energy and space. Pre-existing inequalities in housing and other social determinants of health were exacerbated. For example, in the Spanish context, where children were not allowed to leave their homes for six weeks, children living in family contexts with financial difficulties and low education levels tended to live in poor housing conditions (lacking outdoor spaces such as balconies, terraces, patios or gardens, lacking natural light and experiencing humidity). They were more exposed to noise and tobacco smoke, did less physical exercise, had a poorer diet, spent more time in front of screens and had less social contact (González-Rábago et al., 2021). Some of the root causes of the negative impact on children experiencing poverty were parental job insecurity and poor housing. Protecting children’s rights in this context would therefore mean redressing social disparities in employment conditions and housing.

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Children in Care and Care Leavers Many respondents in our study drew attention to the situation of care experienced children and young people. This included: not having adequate safeguarding procedures being adhered to. For instance, … young people are not being invited to participate in virtual meetings.

Young people in care were described as feeling “isolated, scared, lonely”. Contact with birth families was reduced or ended for some children and this led to increased incidences of running away. Contact with anyone outside of some residential units was ended. Similarly, the 2020  Eurochild report suggested that the immediate consequences of lockdown included: being confined within the residential setting, children missing outside contact and contact with their own families and lacking access to school, sports and other outside facilities. In addition, the social consequences of the pandemic were described as potentially causing a growth by as much as 30% in the number of children entering alternative care in some countries (such as Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia). In parallel, some countries such as Poland showed a tendency towards re-institutionalisation and significant delay to further transition from institutional to community- and family-based care. At one point, in Portugal, children entering alternative care had to enter the institutions alone without the accompaniment and help of their case managers and were kept in isolation for 14 days even after having a negative COVID-19 test result. All of this generated additional strains for children and young people, for staff who experienced an important increase in their work and for organisations (particularly reported in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia and France). Authorities did not meet the need for extra staff. Whilst some countries (such as France) ensured there was an obligation to support care leavers, many countries lacked any special services or measures and, using the pandemic as an excuse, the UK government attempted to remove some protections (Willow, 2020). The absence of adequate support for children in care is not, however, a new phenomenon (Montgomery et  al., 2006; Liu et  al., 2019; Gunawardena & Stich, 2021). The reasons for the particularly negative impact of the crisis on children in alternative care may include the increasing numbers of children being referred into social care systems (Bilson & Martin, 2017), a lack of investment in community-based services, the

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ongoing reductions in spending on social care and excessive workloads that some staff are experiencing (Munro et al., 2021), children’s feelings of unsafety in residential care and a lack of respect for children and for their wishes in care situations (Bulter et al., 2021). Protecting care experienced children from these financial decisions and interpersonal behaviours might therefore be interpreted as necessitating resistance to a neoliberal approach to alternative care (Garrett, 2009).

Children Experiencing Violence and Abuse Study respondents linked increased risk of violence against children, gender-­based violence or home/institution violence to a reduction in responsiveness of services: [C]hild welfare system professionals are currently undertaking tasks in home office, not visiting the addressees of the child protection system. … With the restrictive measures imposed due to the COVID-19, children who have been confronted with the child protection system in the past are now “lost” and alone at home with the violent perpetrator, with no supervision from the child welfare protection system.

Another respondent echoed this: We stopped work such as family interviews, investigations, field studies, court proceedings.

Other reports confirm that the risk of both online and offline violence has increased while reporting and identification mechanisms and child and youth protection services have experienced operational difficulties linked to isolation measures (Plataforma de la Infancia, 2020; Council of Europe, 2021). Despite this, in Spain, figures from the Directorate General of Police indicate that during the lockdown of spring 2020, almost 65% fewer cases of sexual violence against children were reported. A similar evolution was demonstrated within reports of gender violence against children (73.1% less). The fact that the number of reports decreases when the contact of the family nucleus with the outside world becomes more difficult should be read with concern, as it is likely to reflect the difficulties children experienced in  seeking help during lockdowns (Unicef 2021; Pardo de Vera, 2020; Plataforma de la Infancia, 2020).

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The underlying factors which contribute to a risk of familial violence are  related to social and economic pressures that impact upon family dynamics, including overcrowded housing, stress caused by uncertainty or loss of employment, and which may restrict the capacity of some minoritised women face in leaving violent relationships (Burman & Chantler, 2005). Again, these are challenges that predate the pandemic, but which were exacerbated by it, as described above.

Children in Migration The pandemic caused difficulties for children in migration particularly for unaccompanied children. As one respondent in our study indicated, this includes: Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and those who are victims of trafficking [due to] lack of secure place of residence or sustained care-related support. Anxieties around COVID-19 are compounded by uncertainty regarding their immigration status and by lack of knowledge of whereabouts or wellbeing of family members

As with children experiencing poverty and some children in alternative care, unaccompanied minors also faced digital exclusion and reception facilities did not always provide individual bedrooms in which to isolate. Eurochild (2020) also reports that access to asylum procedures was significantly restricted as many administrative procedures were paralysed or slowed down. In Spain there was overcrowding in reception centres and a disruption of evaluation and referral processes. In Greece, there was no centralised service to tackle the issues related to unaccompanied children. In Bulgaria, no central standard for the legal representation of unaccompanied minors, which remains largely a formality. The COVID-19-related restrictions have also hindered the EU countries’ solidarity in relocating unaccompanied children. In 2020 only 573 children were relocated from Greece to other EU countries despite the EU have launched a voluntary initiative aiming at relocating 1600 children. Once again, the pandemic aggravated existing challenges. A lack of solidarity in relocating and caring for unaccompanied children has been ongoing, and inadequate reception conditions, in terms of accommodation, education and health services, were already evident (e.g. in Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Spain) (FRA, 2021).

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Again, these suggest there are longstanding cultural and economic contexts which need to be changed if the rights of children in migration are to be adequately protected.

Children with Disabilities The challenging circumstances experienced by disabled children and young people during the pandemic were described extensively by one respondent: Discourses/policies/guidance … are devaluing the lives of this group: blanket use of do not resuscitate forms for those with autism/learning disabilities, prioritisation mechanisms for hospital treatment which deny them access to care, [being] returned to families from residential settings with no support in place. New government laws [have been] introduced which reduce statutory duties to provide education, health and social care provision for this group even post-­ corona. Loss of all social care support in the home. … Increased push for them to go online [for] education [and] socialising; increased risks of abuse and exploitation. Potential for some higher risk groups of disabled children to be in isolation for considerably long periods of time—even after lockdown for other children. Families of disabled children report feeling abandoned, and that their children’s lives are deemed not worthy.

These consequences of the pandemic were also noted elsewhere (Eurochild 2020; Plataforma de la Infancia, 2020). Disabled children faced the closure or restricted access to community support centres as well as schools and centres providing rehabilitation and specialised therapies. For some young people, who faced anxiety and discrimination in these places, this closure may have been experienced positively. This had important implications: some children who remained in institutions could not be visited by their parents, some children felt unsupported and isolated, some parents felt unable to provide adequate care and entertainment for children alone at home, and all of these have possible long-term mental and physical health consequences. The lack of focus on the implications of the pandemic for disabled children highlights the underlying issue of disablism which is pervasive across Europe and beyond (Schiariti, 2020). For example, prior to the pandemic, many digital platforms were costly and disabling, which led to digital

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exclusion for some disabled children. The significance of this was increased when more activities became virtual (Moreno-Rodríguez et al., 2020).

Roma Children Inequity affecting Roma populations was already alarming before COVID-19 and has been increasing over the last year. Many respondents wrote about Roma children, as we targeted information-gathering from these networks. In addition to being disadvantaged Roma children being affected by many of the challenges already mentioned in relation to other marginalised groups (digital exclusion, lack of information, lack of income, food and health care), some Roma children shared their specific experiences of being in alternative care, migration, experiencing violence or being disabled. Due to lower levels of employment in the formal economy, which itself is a result of centuries of antigypsyism, many families did not receive the state financial supports that were available through benefits and tax transfers and the informal economy shrank significantly. This brought some families into poverty who had previously had secure incomes. These perspectives were summarised in a co-created policy paper, which also highlighted the additional difficulties caused by antigypsyism (Milkova & Larkins, 2020, p. 5): Restrictions on movement are disproportionately enforced on some Roma communities and there are some reports of negative public and police attitudes. For example, police are stopping Roma people to leave the premises and go shopping in the city. Roma people are blamed for not respecting the rules of social distancing, while their very crowded homes, with no running water and sanitation, do not allow for keeping families inside. In one country, professionals reported that some Roma families were being forced to leave their home at a time when legislation was in place to confine people to their homes. There has also been a report of police violence against children. … discriminatory attitudes of some health professionals towards ethnic minorities.

Within the Eurochild report, the situation of Roma children is addressed in only in a few specific countries, becoming invisible in most of them. In Ireland, inequalities experienced by Traveller and Roma were seen to have increased. In Slovenia the majority of Roma children “did not have access

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to adequate housing or even water”. In Spain, national protection systems lacked “measures to address the needs of vulnerable groups (such as Roma and migrant children)”. Educational inequalities, noted in our study, were also quantified in Spain, where only one third of Roma children had access to a computer at home. Almost a third could not carry out the learning tasks being set by their school due to a lack of the necessary equipment (58.8%), lack of access to educational materials (48.7%) or because they did not understand the subject matter (49%) (Fundacion  Secretariado Gitano, 2020). Once more, the financial, material and attitudinal causes of these challenges predate the pandemic, and can be traced back to long-term social, cultural and economic structures (Fundación Secretariado Gitano, 2020).

What Is the Hope of Participatory Responses to These Deepening Inequalities? Given the long-term and sometimes hidden attitudinal, economic and cultural causes of the deepening inequalities that some children have experienced during the pandemic, the question of how these might be redressed is pressing. Our initial study, published in April 2020 (Larkins et  al., 2020), showed that 70% of respondents could not identify examples of children’s concerns being listened to or acted upon to bring about change in their lives and communities. This was surprising, as the survey was distributed through networks that aim to promote children’s participation. Thankfully, as we kept the survey open over the weeks that followed, more examples of children’s participation were supplied. A total of 38/119 respondents from 14 European countries (UK (all four nations), Portugal, Albania, Netherlands, Croatia, Switzerland, Kosovo, Norway, Ireland, Estonia and Spain) provided examples of children’s participation. Some of these respondents worked in international organisations and were able to provide perspectives across multiple other countries not named here. The participatory responses were varied (Larkins et al., 2020). At times, NGOs, Children’s Commissioners and government bodies themselves created participatory processes (Larkins et  al., 2020). But children and young people involved in children’s participatory structures were influential in initiating many of these. For example, young people have described the #COVIDUnder19 survey as self-initiated. Collective participation structures or groups were important vehicles, as they provided ways of

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children connecting to allies—organisations and individuals who would lend their support. Some of these participation activities were inclusive of the populations of children identified above as experiencing current and longstanding inequity. Examples of the sorts of participatory activities reported included everyday participation, shaping service responses, research and consultative discussions by and with governments. In the subsections below we outline how there was a diversity of children who led or took part in each of these initiatives  and reflect on the extent to which they addressed the intersecting underlying causes of inequalities.

Everyday Participation By contributing to social good by caring for their family members, friends and communities, children and young people from diverse backgrounds engaged in what can be described as everyday actions of active citizenship (Larkins, 2014). This can be described as material participation (Wyness, 2013). They had an influence on the well-being of others through self-­ organised tasks and organised activities, for example, shopping for themselves and their families, doing housework, looking after siblings or helping them with homework or home schooling and providing medical care. It was rare for these everyday tasks to be reported in our survey, but they remain a central aspect of what should be seen as children’s participation. Indeed, the drawing of rainbows may be seen in this way, as it was (disputedly) initiated by a parent with their child, and then grew through media attention to become an everyday activity of generating hope and expressing gratitude. In some countries, this was further reinforced by media attention. The local newspaper has a daily page called ‘Corona-post’ where children of all ages can send pictures of creative work they do in these times, those who are published shows a lot of things that are made at home—related to corona, beyond the rainbow drawings and ‘everything is going to be good’ message.

As this respondent comments, when this self-expression by children extended beyond drawing rainbows, to use Lundy’s (2007) terms, it might also be considered a “voice” activity taking place in the “space” of a local newspaper. Two professionals gave examples of other everyday material actions which were also expressions of views:

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Children are adding teenager tips to a weekly bulletin from school. At school my children were encouraged to wash hands regularly throughout the day under the guidance of the staff and teachers. This is something they have carried on at home as part of their ‘response ownership’.

This may be seen as instrumentalisation of children, in public health messaging. But, in line with the respondent’s view, engaging in this taught strategy may also be seen as a choice in which children are agentic. These material and voice activities appear to address the immediate risks and symptoms of the pandemic, while recognising that children engaged in material participation may also help challenge some of the underlying attitudinal causes of inequality, by promoting greater respect towards younger generations.

Shaping Service Responses In education, early years, youth, health and social care settings there were examples of some professionals consulting children on their needs and suggestions. This started by ensuring efforts were made to stay in touch with children when face to face contact was not possible. In some instances, this progressed to requesting input into plans for redesigning service delivery in the context of the changing possibilities and needs related to the pandemic: Feedback has been asked [for] but limited [feedback] gained from students Collection of [children’s ideas about their] needs through organized talks with professionals and caregivers I’m aware of some youth work organisations consulting on how to [make] their provision [digital].

As a result of discussions of needs and plans, there were reports of some children taking direct action in these service settings to bring about the necessary changes, including the creation of information: Unaccompanied minors wrote out messages about protective measures in all of their languages.

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There were reports of Roma and Traveller children being consulted by professionals and engaged in creating information posters and videos that promote safety and well-being. Children are taking part in a poster designing competition, to create information for … Roma and Traveller communities, about how to stay safe during the pandemic. Children and families have helped raised money for health provision, sometimes thousands of pounds. And children have created education and cookery guides, shared on websites and social media.

A number of reported initiatives were targeted at children with experience of alternative care. These included surveys, apps and online forums: Creation of a safe regional youth group (‘Youth from Care’) in an online platform where one of the subjects is discussion about COVID, aiming to collect their need[s] and ideas for how to address [them]

Children with experience of alternative care and disabled children were also involved in redesigning their services: Disabled young people and the children in care council have been instrumental in moving the participation service online, we consulted with them about how they would like the service to continue in the absence of face to face and they chose [that] they would like to continue meetings and having their voice heard via an online platform.

Where the consultation activities were more formal, there were also reports of using the ideas collected being reported to service managers and government in the hope of improving their response: Yes. Our organisation has been facilitating online meetings with young people across the country over the past number of weeks. Last week over 60 youth representatives aged 14-18 years from around [the country] were involved in online calls over 3 days discussing the effects of COVID-19 on young people and recommendations for how our organisation can support them now and into the future. A report of this has been circulated to governments departments and officials

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As these activities were focused on immediate service improvements, they tended to shape immediate responses to the symptoms of the pandemic, rather than addressing underlying causes.

Research and Surveys Some local and international surveys were undertaken. For example, the #COVIDUnder19 study was a collaboration between children involved in international advisory groups (with Terre des Hommes and Eurochild) and additional partners recruited to the study (World Vision, Queen’s University Belfast and others). It collected the views of more than 28,000 children across the world (see Terre des Hommes, 2020) using a survey and activities with targeted focus groups seeking to increase the inclusivity of the research. As part of this initiative, recommendations were made for how governments should respond to discriminatory attitudes towards children and the inequalities in basic standards of living and digital access. There were examples of looked after and disabled young people initiating and being engaged in research: The disabled young researchers have been involved in the development of a research funding proposal which has been submitted to UKRI under their COVID-19 call. The research, if funded, would look at the impact of government policy and practice responses, and discourses to the pandemic, and their effects on disabled children and young people, and their families.

Children’s Commissioners and Ombudsmen in some countries (reported in the UK, Croatia Netherlands, Serbia) or regions (Catalonia) have also undertaken surveys, some of which was inclusive of diverse groups of children.3 Other General Ombudsmen have included specific sections on the situation of children in their reports (Serbia). At times this was accompanied by Ombudsmen making a commitment to use the findings to advocate for change in the immediate issues that children raised. For example, as part of the ENOC work, the European Network of Young Advisor (ENYA) participated in the project, “Let’s Talk Young, Let’s Talk About the Impact of COVID-19 on Children’s Rights”, aiming to provide a space for children and young people to voice how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their rights and to develop common 3

 Examples of this kind of work can be seen online: http://enoc.eu/?page_id=3385

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recommendations on the ENOC annual theme of “COVID-19: learning for the future” (see ENOC, 2021; ENYA, 2021). This included, for example, recommendations about income transfers and discrimination against Roma. In these examples of research, discussions with groups of children about the results of surveys led to demands that could be made of governments to act on broad issues. This helped move their participation closer to addressing underlying causes of the deepening inequalities. However, these activities tended to rely heavily on digital access, which created a barrier to participation for many marginalised children.

Consultations and Discussions by and with Governments In the early days of the pandemic, in some countries, there were examples of children taking part in press conferences and discussions with government ministers, some of which were televised. These initiatives, driven by media, NGOs and by children’s representative structures, gradually became more widespread throughout 2020 and 2021. But children in some countries continued to ask for such opportunities and they were not forthcoming. In the UK, for example, the daily prime minister’s press briefing would only take questions from over 18 s. In some instance, Children’s Commissioners/Ombudsmen used their existing consultative structures (often boards of young advisors) to help make recommendations to government: [M]ade a recommendation to the Ministry of Science and Education to provide a contact address for children so they could ask questions and leave their comments.

In some places, where there was a strong culture of children’s participation, governments themselves initiated requests for children’s views. In Wales, for example, this started with children being “encouraged by the Welsh Government to share their ideas for home-schooling activities”. It continued, particularly after our report was published, with government committees considering how they might hear children’s views, and open invitations for submissions from children were issued, such as: The Interim Youth Work Board is leading on strategic attempts to ensure that young peoples’ participation is fundamental to current and future practice.

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In Estonia, the young people’s council promoted an online Hackathon for young people. “HackthecrisisYouth” was developed in April 2020, with the support of the Estonian Ministry of Education, to collect ideas about how to fight the coronavirus crisis. More than 200 young people took part in it, sharing their own ideas and how to make them come real. The videos of the TOP13 teams were available online (see: https:// markalast.ee/hackthecrisisyouth/). Direct dialogue with ministers and parliaments also occurred. For example, in the Netherlands, a National Student Action Committee conducted “research into students and corona, especially in regards to school exams” and held meetings with the minister of Education. Youth parties of the largest political parties collaborated and “wrote a joint letter to minister of Education … with a call for compensation for students during the corona crisis”. In Scotland, to take a second example, the Children’s Parliament undertook a survey with children nationally “to find out how they are coping with the current situation” and other youth organisations were doing the same. Responses were collated and shared with members of the adult Scottish Parliament on a weekly basis. At the local level, there were also dialogues. For example, “Estimat diari”, developed by Barcelona City Council, open between 30 March and 3 July 2020, gave a voice to the children of the city and provided a space for them to express and share their moods, concerns and experiences during the period of confinement, through drawings, writings, videos or photographs. This material was then transferred to a platform where it is possible to see all of the creations that the children shared during this project. It became part of the “Memories of confinement” deposited in the Municipal Archive, and a travelling exhibition that visited the different neighbourhoods of the city and served as a pedagogical material for primary schools (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2021). There were reports of barriers to marginalised children’s inclusion in these processes, when they operated through existing structures which did not represent a diversity of children. As one survey respondent noted: Structured dialogue between policy makers and these groups, to enable them to help shape solutions, has often not been supported.

In some spaces however, attempts were being made to overcome such barriers:

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Our longer term aim if we can get funding in place will be to support children and young people locally to have a forum in which to articulate their needs to local and national decision makers.

These processes of dialogue provided a range of spaces in which children could voice their views and where these were heard by governmental audiences who had some power to address the underlying causes as well as the immediate symptoms of the pandemic. But we suggest that many of these activities were consultative, rather than influencing government action in response to children’s concerns. A lack of funding, diversity and commitment to action appear to be barriers to impactful and inclusive participatory processes.

Conclusion Our study and subsequent reports indicate that inequalities between children deepened during the pandemic. The hardest hit include children in care and care leavers, disadvantaged young Roma and Travellers, migrant children and children with experiences of vulnerable family situations, poverty, disability, and exposure to violence, child sexual exploitation and trafficking. Underpinning these current inequalities are longer term, intersecting, patterns of disadvantage related to poor housing, poor employment opportunities and discriminatory attitudes towards particular groups of children. During the pandemic, children with diverse experiences were contributing their ideas and energy to enact and propose short and longer term strategies for responding to the pandemic. Many of these activities remained focussed on immediate service responses, rather than addressing the underlying causes of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on some children and communities. Whilst this focus on immediate need may be vital at a time of crisis, a long-term response focussed on underlying causes of inequalities is needed in order to ensure that future pandemics, and responses to COVID-19, do not deepen inequalities further. Mechanisms for ensuring that evidence and inspiration from children actually result in improvements in practice remain largely absent. They strongly depend on local traditions of child participation or on the specific political cultures and openness of policy makers. Digital solutions have shown some promise, but these risks being purely decorative or even exacerbating exclusions  as many children and young people do not have

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secure access to digital devices or the internet. In response to this, we suggest that intergenerational dialogue is needed, to discuss, deliberate and generate any social settlement that will stand the test of time to secure us through any future challenges. This would require a reversal of dominant thinking and action, not only about childhood, but also about governance and the legitimacy of existing inequalities. Strategies to ensure that the evidence and inspiration from children actually result in improvements in policy, practice and lives must therefore include drawing links between children’s perspectives and the underpinning causes of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic, increasing adult decision-makers’ competence so that they recognise and respond to the potential contribution of children’s ideas, providing long-term funding for participatory processes that engage with children, and redressing digital exclusion.

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Lundy, L. (2007). ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942. Milkova, R. & Larkins, C. (2020). Roma Children’s Participation: Shaping Responses to Covid-19 in the EU and Bulgaria. Discussion Paper. http://clok. uclan.ac.uk/33616/ Montgomery, P., Donkoh, C., & Underhill, K. (2006). Independent living programs for young people leaving the care system: The state of the evidence. Children and Youth Services Review, 28(12), 1435–1448. https://doi. org/10.1016/J.CHILDYOUTH.2006.03.002 Moreno-Rodríguez, R., Tejada, A., & Díaz-Vega, M. (2020). Covid-19. Educación inclusiva y personas con discapacidad: fortalezas y debilidades de la teleeducación. La Ciudad Accesible. https://drive.google.com/ file/d/1x0_ZYXueE45sd3XO9XwMS2hOxqVTMAbG/edit Munro, E., Skouteris, H., Newlands, F., & Walker, S. (2021). Guest editorial: Innovation in children’s social care: From conceptualisation to improved outcomes? Journal of Children’s Services, 16(3), 177–183. Pardo de Vera, A. (2020, May 25). ‘Mi papá me viola’, Público. https://www. publico.es/sociedad/menores-­mi-­papa-­me-­viola.html. Plataforma de la Infancia. (2020). Por Una Reconstrucción Con Enfoque de Infancia Principales Recomendaciones. https://plataformadeinfancia.org/wp-­ content/uploads/2020/06/reconstruccion-­con-­enfoque-­de-­infancia.pdf Save the Children. (2021). Save our education now. Save the children. https:// www.savethechildren.org/content/dam/usa/reports/ed-­c p/save-­o ur-­ education-­report.pdf Schiariti, V. (2020). The human rights of children with disabilities during health emergencies: The challenge of COVID-19. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (DMCN), 62, 661–661. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.14526 Secretariado gitano (2020). Impact of the COVID crisis on the Roma population. h t t p s : / / w w w. g i t a n o s . o r g / u p l o a d / 0 5 / 3 7 / E N _ _ E N C U E S TA _ PARTICIPANTES_FINAL.pdf Sheikh, A., Sheikh, A., Sheikh, Z., & Dhami, S. (2020). Reopening schools after the COVID-19 lockdown. Journal of global health, 10(1). Sinha, I. P., Harwood, R., Semple, M., Hawcutt, D., Thursfield, R., Narayan, O., Kenny, S. E., Viner, R., Hewer, S. L., & Southern, K. W. (2020). COVID-19 infection in children. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 8, 446–447. Medline:32224304. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-­2600(20)30152-­1 Terre des Hommes. (2020). #COVIDUnder19: Life under coronavirus. Children’s Rights during Coronavirus: Children’s Views and Experiences. https://www. tdh.ch/en/media-­library/documents/COVIDunder19-­results UNICEF. (2021). La infancia vulnerable en España: riesgos y respuestas políticas ante la crisis... explica-que-durante-el-confinamiento-aumenta-la-violenciahacia-los-menores-­­de-edad/.

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Willow, C. (2020, April 8). Social protection and the coronavirus act. Social Work 2020–21 under Covid-19 Magazine. https://sw2020COVID19.group.shef. ac.uk/category/first-­edition-­article/carolyne-­willow/ Wyness, M. (2013). Children’s participation and intergenerational dialogue: Bringing adults back into the analysis. Childhood, 20(4), 429–442.

Cath Larkins  innovates in participation, activism and knowledge exchange with children and young people, and their allies, across the UK and Europe. Cath has conducted collaborative research with children and young people since 1997, focused on challenging discrimination and improving policy and practice. She started work at University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), UK, in 2011, where she now codirects The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation. This work has been funded by the AHRC, ESRC, the European Union and Council of Europe, UK governments and charitable foundations. With marginalised children and young people, she co-authors empirical work, accessible guidance and events to inspire social change. Her scholarship advances theories and methodologies for participation and citizenship, critiquing dominant understandings of children, childhood and childhood policy and practice. Her work with children has contributed to impact on policy and practice internationally. Lucía del Moral-Espín  is a lecturer at the University of Cádiz (UCA, area of sociology) where she teaches social policy and research methods. Her research is characterised by interdisciplinarity and her interests deal with childhood and feminist studies, well-being and the commons. Between 2017 and 2021 she co-coordinated the Research Network 04 ‘Sociology of Children and Childhood’ of the European Sociological Association. She is the UCA-responsible person for Horizon 2020 project “Smooth Educational Spaces and Passing Through Enclosures and Inequalities. Opening community and knowledge up through educational commons” and the K02 Erasmus  +  Project Blended Short-cycle Training Courses on “Commoning Practices”. She is part of the Gender Observatory on Economics, Politics & Development (GEP & DO) and the AmericaIberian Research Network on Work, Gender and Daily life (TRAGEVIC).

PART II

Children’s Rights

The rights to health and education for children are supposed to be “inclusive” rights. While they theoretically may be entitled to the same rights as other children, the qualitative and quantitative data available indicate that homeless children have a harder time realising those rights in their everyday lives. (Dr. Yvonne Vissing, Salem State University) I offer an alternative conception of children’s rights, which is more supportive of young carers, incorporating a network of formal and informal support and thereby recognising the material and emotional contributions made by carers within their families. (Dr. Michael Wyness, University of Warwick) For children to be heard, practice needs to move further than a recognition of children as having their own capacity to act, towards an acknowledgement that their capabilities to express their voices are determined by the relations of power both within and without the micro-worlds of children. (Dr. Aravinda Kosaraju, University of Kent)

Each of these chapters acts as a stepping-stone to the next—and step by step, problems and potential solutions to conceptions of children’s rights are revealed. Vissing begins by advocating for the potential effectiveness of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in relation to homeless children, who have been subjected to particular invisibility and precarity during the pandemic. Wyness then questions the CRC, noting its political and cultural limits and exploring how its approach may marginalise many children, with a

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particular focus on young carers. He offers another conception of children’s rights, ‘living’ rights, which recognises children for what they are now rather than what they might become in the future, and which sees them as acting interdependently within their communities of support. Kosaraju advances that line of thinking in a child protection context, acknowledging the interrelatedness of children as being part of their agency and picturing their interrelatedness with the help of a feminist ethics of care. In working to see and hear children more fully, these chapters lead towards a conception of children’s rights that is based firmly in the present and is sensitive to the complex connections formed within it.

CHAPTER 4

iii. Homeless Children’s Rights During the Pandemic Yvonne Vissing

Abstract  The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted disparity in who gets the illness and resources to combat it. This chapter explores the invisibility of homeless children in the United States during the pandemic. It utilizes a human rights framework treaty, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). This treaty focuses on the best interests of the child in guiding all decisions pertaining to children, especially in the areas of safety, health, education, and well-being. The United States is the only UN member country not to ratify the treaty. This human rights framework indicates that homeless children’s rights have not been adequately protected in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations for how to better protect the rights of homeless children are provided. Keywords  COVID-19 • Disparity • Homeless children’s rights • Invisibility • UNCRC

Y. Vissing (*) Salem State University, Salem, MA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 R. Turok-Squire (ed.), Children’s Experience, Participation, and Rights During COVID-19, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07099-0_4

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Introduction The spread of the coronavirus may well be impacting the physical, emotional, social, and educational lives of all children, but its impact has arguably been even more severe on homeless children. Research shows that homeless children are experiencing health and education problems that are disproportionately higher compared to stably housed children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Children who live in poverty and housing-­ distressed conditions do not have the resources and supports that housed children have to ameliorate the impact of the pandemic. The presence and impact of COVID-19 in homeless children, according to physicians, are a preventable “looming crisis” that could result in many long-term negative consequences if unaddressed (Coughlin et  al., 2020; Leggiadro, 2020). COVID-19 is affecting homeless children’s physical health, mental health, and social health (Belluck 2020; Kornfield 2020; Wu 2020) but it also adversely impacts their human rights (OHCHR 2020a, b, c). This chapter utilises a human rights framework to examine central articles of the United Nation’s (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and applies them to children who are homeless. My argument is that much of the pandemic-related trauma and distress inflicted upon homeless children could be reduced if the CRC’s Articles were implemented and enforced. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations for how individuals and social systems could help homeless children to live healthier lives that are in accordance with the benefits and protections of their human rights as defined in the CRC.

The CRC and Homeless Children’s Human Rights The CRC provides a systematic framework for showing communities what they need to put in place to address the well-being of children. It is one of the most widely implemented human rights treaties in the world. It provides a framework of 54 Articles for how children’s best interests could guide government and community decisions, policies, practices, and processes (OHCHR, 1989). Its Articles emphasise elements of provision, protection, participation, and policy attempts to bring together a unifying, comprehensive way of addressing the needs of the whole child. All of the UN member countries have ratified the CRC except for one—the United States (US) (Mehta, 2015).

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The CRC has been applauded by paediatricians and the health community because it provides a framework for improving children’s lives around the world (Invernizzi & Williams, 2011; Todres & Diaz, 2017). It covers both individual child health practice and public health and provides a unique and child-centred approach to paediatric problems (Waterston & Goldhagen, 2007). All children are to be afforded the same human rights, according to the CRC. There are no distinctions to be made by gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, or social class. This means that a child who is homeless or impoverished should be entitled to the same rights as a housed or affluent child. The CRC Articles are designed to guide leaders in states and nations to make decisions and take actions that ensure all children are protected from harm, provided with the resources that are essential for them to develop healthy and successful lives, and given opportunities to participate in matters that pertain to their lives (Woodhouse, 2008). In order to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of homeless children from a human rights perspective, it is first useful to identify some of the Articles that pertain directly to their lives. The Articles listed next are excerpted from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child treaty from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1989). Article 2 indicates that States Parties shall respect and ensure that the rights set forth in the CRC apply to every child without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth, or other status. States Parties are required to take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of these statuses. This Article implies that children should not be penalised in any way because their parents may be poor or homeless. The third Article states that in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public, governmental, or private social welfare institutions, the best interests of the child shall always be a primary consideration. This includes not just children from affluent homes but poor and homeless children as well. States Parties are to undertake any and all actions to ensure that all children receive the protection and care necessary for their well-being. It holds that States Parties shall ensure that institutions and facilities responsible for the care or protection of children conform with standards established by competent authorities, particularly in the areas of safety and health. This means that shelters, schools, medical facilities, and

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social service agencies should be sensitive to the challenges that children who are homeless face: challenges that may require special action. Article 4 addresses children’s economic, social, and cultural rights. It holds that States parties undertake maximum measures to give children resources where needed. While the terms “economic and social needs” are broad, they imply that the state has an obligation to make sure that homeless and poor children’s economic needs are met. Article 26 states that States Parties shall recognise for every child the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance, and take necessary measures to achieve the benefits be granted to them. Article 27 recognises the right of every child to a standard of living adequate to meet the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development. These three articles reinforce the mandate that the State shall take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement these rights, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing, and housing. It implies that homeless children should be tested to see if they have the coronavirus, receive vaccinations, have access to the resources necessary for remote learning, as well as food and social support from school personnel or counsellors. Article 12 protects children’s rights to form their own views and the right to express those views, in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. Children have a right to have their opinions heard and respected by authorities. This means that they have a right to have input over decisions that may impact their health or well-being. Article 13 gives children the right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds. COVID-19’s impact on children’s health, the health of their families, and the impact of the virus on their parent’s ability to work and afford housing have been found to be substantially greater for homeless children compared to those who are stably housed. Therefore, organisations that serve them are encouraged to take considerations and actions that make sure homeless children have a right to ask for help on their own behalf and receive it (National Homeless Law Center, 2021; School House Connection, 2021). Article 15 recognises the rights of the child to freedom of association and to freedom of peaceful assembly. Article 16 protects children’s privacy, honour, and reputation while Article 17 recognises that children have a right to access information and material from a diversity of sources, especially those aimed at the promotion of his or her social, spiritual, and moral well-being and physical and mental health. While remote learning dominates, it is important that schools—which are a lifeline for homeless

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children—take actions to make sure students have computers and WiFi so they can access academic resources as well as support from peers, teachers, and school counsellors. The educational rights of all children are protected in CRC Articles 19, 28, and 29. These include making certain that children, including homeless children, have access to education and are provided with equal opportunities that help them develop their personality, talents, mental, and physical abilities. Education should be designed to protect children from physical or mental abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or exploitation, and to put in place measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and reduce drop-out rates (Addis, 2021; World Health Organization, 2019). Education is seen by the UN as essential to creating upward mobility and the sustainability of a safe, secure, healthy, and productive life (UN, 2021). Schools have the power to take actions that will make it possible for housing-distressed students to obtain education, social support, food, and peer relationships, which may otherwise be difficult for them to obtain (School House Connection, 2021). School personnel may become gatekeepers who can identify when homeless students need certain kinds of assistance and help them to obtain it. Article 23 recognises that a child suffering from mental or physical disability should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance, and facilitate the child’s active participation in the community. Disabilities can be physical, mental, cognitive, developmental, or other forms (Disabled World, 2019). It is challenging enough for homeless children with disabilities to normally obtain care they need, and the pandemic has made it much harder for them to have the transportation and access to services that will help them to enjoy the dignity, self-­ reliance, and participation they require. States Parties recognise the right of the disabled child to special care and shall encourage that care. Children are to be protected from getting sick in the first place, but if they do become ill, the CRC requires that States work to help them to restore good health. Article 24 states that States Parties recognise the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services. In particular, organisations are to diminish infant and child mortality; ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to all children with emphasis on the development of primary health care; combat disease and malnutrition,

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including health education, primary and preventive healthcare, treatment, and rehabilitation. Article 39 requires that States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery that shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect, and dignity of the child. Children’s best interests in general have not been a priority during COVID-19, regarding virus testing, vaccination, schooling, or mental health assistance, and homeless children have been almost invisible in such discussions or actions (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2020a, b; Van Ness, 2021). Understanding that children may work at paid or unpaid jobs, Article 32 holds that States Parties should recognise that children have a right to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with their education. Older, poor, and housing-distressed children may be hired in positions of food service, sales clerks, healthcare, or positions that do not pay well and put them at risk of exposure to coronavirus contamination. Moreover, their parents could also be employed in jobs where they are exposed to the virus, whereupon they may accidentally expose their children to it. The CRC states that children have a right to play, rest, and enjoy happiness and recreation. In Article 31, States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts and encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational, and leisure activity. But during the pandemic, most children have experienced lockdowns and do not have access to friends, playgrounds, or recreation spots. Homeless children who may rely on these locations for support have lost access to them. In summary, the CRC is a framework that guides organisations and communities to ensure that the best interests of all children should be met in order for children, families, and communities to thrive. There is no distinction made between homeless and housed children in the CRC.  Failure to provide education, healthcare, dignity, respect, and opportunities for homeless children to develop their highest potentials would be regarded as a violation of what the CRC requires (Reinbold, 2019).

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Homeless Children Homelessness is not a singular type and consists of a variety of “housing” situations. At the extreme, children may live on the street, in the woods, or on the beach, with absolutely no shelter at all. They may be exposed to all types of weather as they scramble to find a safe place to sleep or something to eat. People in this type of situation have absolutely no control over their environment. But homelessness takes many other forms. It includes staying in shelters, motels, campgrounds, vehicles, tent-­ communities, doubling-up with friends, relatives, or acquaintances, or staying in places unfit for human habitation (Vissing, 1997; Vissing and Nilan 2020a, b, c; Vissing et al. 2020; Young 2021) 2020. Homeless children may spend their time in congregate settings where there is significant contact with others and they cannot control the comings and goings of other people or who they may have been exposed to. Housing is essential to ensuring that children receive fundamental health components such as sleep, food, sanitation and hygiene, safety, stability, and a sense of security and predictability. As the Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB, 2021) states, health includes “a wide range of rights and freedoms that are determinate to children’s health, such the rights to non-discrimination, access to health-related education and information, and freedom from harmful practices. The realisation of a child’s right to health also requires access to underlying conditions for health, such as safe water and adequate sanitation, adequate nutritious food and housing, [and] healthy occupational and environmental conditions” (FXB, 2021). Children who are homeless may not have their own clean place to sleep; an uncontaminated place to store or cook food; or sanitised toileting or bathing areas. Their insecure housing arrangements make it challenging for homeless children to take the public health measures necessary to prevent exposure to the virus, to recover from it if infected, or limit the spread of the disease to others (Leggiadro, 2020). With this context in mind, let us now focus on specific impacts that the coronavirus has had on children who experience housing distress. In 2019, the first signs of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID-19) were identified, and by spring 2020, transmission of the virus resulted in a global pandemic (Liu et al., 2020). In an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, millions of people were ordered to shelter in one place and keep social/physical distance between themselves and others. If people were feeling ill, they were asked to stay home, not go to work, and to

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get tested to see if they had the virus. These measures all require a level of privilege: a home to live in; bed-rest; access to hygiene supplies; the ability to stay home from work; avoid public transportation when travel is necessary; and to limit who is allowed to come into the home. Many stores and businesses shut. People who had resources to purchase items and space to keep them stocked up on products, leaving those who couldn’t without. When day care centres closed, parents could not go to work and were forced to stay home or scramble to find alternative care arrangements for their young children. As schools became virtual, children were to stay at home and use computers to link into classrooms and do online homework. This meant that they had to have parents or caregivers who could stay at home too and that they have access to computers and WiFi. Homeless and housing-distressed people, including children, were not able to access these types of privileges. This placed them at higher risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus if they could not be in locked-­ down environments and socially distance. It also put homeless children at increased risk of adverse secondary disadvantages when they could not get resources, support, care, or education (Leggiadro, 2020). In short, the family, economic, health, education, and social systems that normally exist to support children were simultaneously compromised during the pandemic  (Children’s Defense Fund 2021). While all children’s lives were impacted, homeless children had theirs more adversely effected. Homelessness has increased during the pandemic. COVID-19 led to greater numbers of families and children becoming homeless as a result of exacerbated housing insecurity, job loss, cut hours, and lowered wages (Community Solutions, 2020). Columbia University predicted a 45% increase in homelessness during 2020. Families living on the margin, struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic, found it harder to do so due to the increased challenges posed by the social and interpersonal responses to the pandemic (King, 2021). Unintended consequences of the pandemic have been disproportionately experienced by homeless children. For instance, with loss of jobs and incomes came loss of insurance, higher medical costs, and increased costs of basic necessities. All of these economic pressures weighed down on families who experienced dwindling financial resources and reserves. Any unexpected situation, like losing your job or having to stay home to care for children when daycare centres or schools closed, could thrust a barely

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treading-water family into financial chaos that could lead to homelessness (Leggiadro, 2020; Nilan, 2020; Vissing et al., 2020). Homelessness is not predicted to be a short-term outcome of the pandemic. It is anticipated that 10 million people will become homeless as a result of the pandemic when stimulus packages and supports end (Jedeed, 2021). Experts predicted that the coronavirus crisis would lead to catastrophic hunger (Chotiner, 2020), which has become apparent through huge demands for food donations by families (Peck, 2020). In this respect, homelessness is here to stay unless there are major social interventions (Chotiner, 2020; Friedrich, 2021; Morgan, 2020; Peck, 2020). Homelessness has frequently made homeless children’s health conditions worse. Prior to the pandemic, data confirmed that homeless children experience higher morbidity and mortality rates that are directly associated with poverty and their insecure housing situations. Children who are homeless are at higher risk of health problems than housed children, including respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, asthma, developmental delays, obesity, dental, hearing and vision problems, mental health problems, and accidental and nonaccidental injuries (Bassuk Center, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Begun et al 2018; Belluck, 2021a, b; Homeless Policy and Research Institute 2019;  Leggiadro, 2020). Chronic health conditions escalate and acute conditions become more severe because preventive care is unaffordable or unavailable for homeless children (Bassuk et al., 2015a,b; Weinreb et al., 1998). During the pandemic, it has been even harder to access or afford care for homeless children. Many healthcare facilities were closed, it was hard to get appointments, and transportation became more challenging. These factors resulted in the likelihood of even greater health problems for homeless children than before (Gajewski, 2020; Sisson, 2020). The relationship between housing and children’s health is considered to be significant and bidirectional, as health problems can be both a cause and a consequence of homelessness (Almendrala, 2018; Bassuk Center, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Dickrell, 2016; Leggiadro, 2020; Patterson, 2014). COVID-19 is associated with some health disorders found in homeless children, making their conditions even worse and resulting in higher morbidity rates in the population of homeless children than in those who are stably housed (Golden, 2021). For instance, the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) targets organs that are under higher stress for homeless children, particularly their lungs and gastrointestinal tract (Centers for Disease Control, 2021). When exposed to the virus, studies indicate that up to 80% of children may be asymptomatic from it and may

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suffer long-term health problems because of it (Ainsley et  al., 2021; Bullock, 2021). Since many homeless children may have such underlying conditions as diabetes and asthma, their underlying health conditions could mask the presence of the virus and could put them at higher risk of long-term severe illness associated with it (Golden, 2021). Longitudinal data from COVID-19 exposure in children is not yet available, but concerns from the paediatric community about potential negative long-term impacts are significant (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020; Capatides, 2020; Chotiner, 2020; Cormier, 2020; Fernandes, 2020; Gavi, 2020; Kim, 2020; Leigh, 2020; McCarthy, 2020; Milstone, 2020; Parshley, 2020; Peck, 2020; Preston, 2020; Saplakoglu, 2020; Van Ness, 2021). COVID-19 tests and vaccines have been even less available for homeless children than for other populations (Children’s Hospital, 2020; Cleveland Clinic 2021;  Coughlin et  al., 2020; Curley 2020;  Kliff and Sanger-Katz 2020; Klass and Ratner 2021 (Moyer 2021; New  York University (NYU) 2020). While everyone is supposed to be considered of equal importance in the fight against the coronavirus, with regards to vaccinations, US government policies do not reflect that policy in practice (Stanley-Becker & Sun, 2020). At least 20 states in the US did not include people living in homeless shelters in their vaccine distribution plans according to the National Academy for State Health Policy, a nonpartisan research organisation (Van Ness, 2021). While homeless shelter staff may be considered as frontline essential workers, which allows them to get the vaccine earlier, people living in shelters have not been considered a priority group to get tested or the vaccine. Few states have plans that even mention how to help homeless people who do not live in shelters (Van Ness, 2021). As this pertains to homeless children, most of them will not be found in shelters, and their invisibility makes it even less likely that they will be vaccinated against the virus unless someone actively advocates for them. Even for places that have made some attempt to test or vaccinate homeless people for COVID-19, the obstacles have been tremendous and barriers have often been used as justification for why homeless people have not received either tests or vaccinations at the same rate as for housed or affluent individuals. Barriers include lack of identification of children who are homeless, homeless parents not having the information about where or how to access vaccinations or tests, not having the transportation to get

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to health clinics, and not having the money to pay for them (CDC, 2021; Dreisbach, 2021; Noguchi, 2021). Homeless children’s education has been adversely impacted due to COVID-19. In order to achieve good health, societies must eliminate barriers to education—this means making homeless children’s access to school, classrooms, information, caring teachers, attentive counsellors, peers, hot meals, access to school nurses and counsellors, and having a regular routine very important (School House Connection, 2021). COVID-19 has made access to all of those things hard for all students, but homeless students arguably feel the hardship more acutely. Without a quiet place to study, resources available, a computer and printer to use, and a steady WiFi connection, it is very hard for housing-distressed students to compete with classmates who have houses with their own rooms, good electronic systems, beds, bathrooms, kitchens, and parents who have the luxury of working from home. Homeless children experienced compromised mental health during the pandemic. When social institutions locked down, children’s access to their normal support systems outside of the home evaporated (Kristof, 2021). Schools are a lifeline for homeless children (Tamiz-Robledo, 2021). They provide a warm, safe place for them to spend many hours of their day. There is a predictable routine in schools, with classmates and school personnel who come to know the children and identify when they are distressed. Resources and services can then be made available to support all children, but especially homeless children, who are vulnerable and at-risk for major challenges (Nilan, 2020; Schoolhouse Connection, 2021). But when schools were forced to close, that lifeline was severed. Remote education may work for children with homes, a computer, a place to study, and a good WiFi connection—but for homeless students, those requirements may be impossible for them to obtain (Kristof, 2021; Wiltz, 2019). Social isolation due to the mandate to social distance or being in locked-­ down situations has resulted in a rise of emotional and social stressors for children, and a rise in mental illness among children, including depression and anxiety (Howley, 2021; Leeb et  al., 2020; Singh et  al., 2020). Emotional distress and mental illness have increased for many children in the US in recent years (Collishaw, 2015; Mostafeva, 2019; Renfrow, 2019), with homeless children experiencing disproportionately more than housed children (Bassuk et  al., 2015a, b; Bhugra, 1996; Coates & McKenzie-Mohr, 2010; Vostanis et  al., 1998). With families being together in close-quarters and with little outside contact with others, there

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has been a rise of child abuse and domestic violence (Evans et al., 2020; Pereda & Díaz-Faes, 2020). Data differentiating the amount of mental illness and family violence between children who are housed or homeless is not readily available, but informal reports indicate that child abuse and domestic violence have increased for all children during the pandemic (Abramson, 2020; Evans et al., 2020; SAMHSA, 2021). It seems logical that homeless children who have fewer resources and supports may experience higher rates of situationally related emotional distress and maltreatment (Abramson, 2020; Overlien, 2020; Usher et al., 2020).

What Would a Children’s Rights Approach to the COVID-19 Pandemic Look Like? It is this author’s expert opinion that the CRC would provide a framework that would have helped homeless (and all) children to help to (a) reduce exposures to the coronavirus in the first instance; (b) improve healthcare; and (c) increase education. The CRC Articles mandating provision of housing, food, healthcare, education, and family stability provide a framework that can be used to improve the well-being of all children, and it is particularly designed to assist children who have been marginalised like those who are homeless. In an assessment of the CRC after 25 years of implementation around the world, scholars have found that it has dramatically improved the well-being of children (Liefaard & Sloth-Nielsen, 2017). The United States refusal to ratify the CRC can be seen as foundational to the disparity the homeless children experience with respect to health, education, safety, and security (Dorscheidt & Doek, 2018). Compared with CRC-ratifying nations, the US has some of the highest child poverty rates, highest infant mortality rates, lowest child well-being factors, including health, safety, education, material well-being, and housing (Adamson, 2013; Bloom, 2020; Edmond, 2020; Haider, 2021; Rapaport, 2018). CRC ratification and implementation have been shown to be very effective in improving the health and well-being of children (UNICEF, 2021; Waterston & Goldhagen, 2007). The CRC calls for illness prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation for children with physical, emotional, and ability challenges. In an international study of 64 nations, data conclusively found that CRC implemented areas had lower child mortality rates and higher vaccination rates (Reinbold, 2019). Child rights endeavours save poor and homeless children’s lives.

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The Borgen Project (2015) has found that implementation of children’s rights through the CRC yields substantial demonstrable benefits. It finds that the CRC has changed the way that institutions and governments view children. Passage of the CRC gives aid agencies more power and possibility to secure and distribute resource, especially in the areas of children’s health, safety, and well-being. The report reminds us that poor children have the same inherent rights as those who come from wealthy families and societies. It explicitly states that children have the right to go to school. This is of utmost importance because education has become increasingly powerful as a means for empowerment, leading to knowledge, employment, and potential income, which makes intergenerational homelessness and poverty less likely. The FXB Center for Health and Human Rights (2021) reminds us that in order to help homeless children we must help their parents. This means giving them resources to have a stable place to live and work, income, healthcare, transportation, and the opportunity for sustainability. Having a home is fundamental to assisting homeless children to have the rest, support, quiet, and resources necessary to succeed in school, as identified in Article 27 of the CRC and in Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Report #21 the Right to Adequate Housing (2020). Homeless children may not be legally, financially, or logistically able to obtain mental health care as easily as affluent, housed children who have transportation. Part of the CRC indicates that children have a right to make their own healthcare decisions. Homeless children, especially those who are unaccompanied or residing with someone else, may not have a guardian or parent who can legally sign for them to receive care. The CRC’s position on child participation would empower unaccompanied and homeless children to request healthcare and assistance on their own accord without having to have parental or guardian authorisation. This would also protect organisations to give children the care that they need in an efficient manner. Having the ability to secure necessary care is important to ensure their ability to be healthy (FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, 2021). The US government has not created a systematic national comprehensive strategy to prevent homeless children and adults from contracting COVID-19 or assisting them if they do (Patrick, 2020). Instead, the government’s approach to dealing with the chaos and catastrophe associated with COVID-19 has been haphazard at best. Elderly persons were deemed the priority for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations and have had their

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health needs addressed first, followed by parents and worker populations, and then older youth and young children, with homeless children at the bottom (Savulescu & Danchin, 2020). Children and poor people  have been the last groups to receive vaccines, and even now, there is no national strategy to deal with the coronavirus for very young children, even though many of them are getting terribly sick or dying (Collins and Holder 2021; Goldhill 2021; Goodnough and Hoffman 2021; Grainger 2021; Hassan, 2021; Hoffower 2021;  Holcolme, 2021; Lubrano, 2021; Miao 2021; Riess, 2021); Taylor 2021). Families have fallen into financial destitution, schooling has been disrupted, health expenses have skyrocketed, juggling work and family obligations have been extraordinarily stressful for everyone, mental illness and distress have increased, as has family violence, and people have gotten sick or died, with most of this being preventable if there had been a comprehensive, transparent national plan (Garfield & Chidambaram 2020; Nicola et al., 2020; Stracqualursi, 2021). The CRC advocates for a good standard of living for children, a reduction of poverty, access to stable housing, access to social services, and healthcare. Children become homeless when there is poverty or a lack of money to afford housing; poverty and homelessness create more contact with others when children live in congregate housing or are doubled-up with others. More contact with others increases exposure to the virus. Having a home of one’s own is necessary for an individual child, for family, and for public health. If someone is not feeling well, being able to isolate in one’s own home and not spread the virus would be important. When at home, one can sleep, have access to food, sanitise, and keep clean, all which curb the spread of the disease. A home is a public health asset; the CRC also holds that it is an entitled right for all children. Articles 23–27 of the CRC hold that disease should be prevented whenever possible, and when it occurs, children should receive immediate treatment and be given all opportunities for recovery. In the US, healthcare is still regarded as a privilege, not a right, and millions of children have no or inadequate healthcare insurance. This means that they are not able to have regular access to healthcare—which is their right under the CRC. Healthcare delivery may require parental consent, which may not be possible for many homeless children. The CRC empowers children to have the right to participate in decisions that impact their health and well-­ being; honouring the participatory rights of children to advocate for their own healthcare would increase healthcare access for homeless and unaccompanied children.

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The CRC Article 3 mandates that the best interests of the child be considered in every decision made by governments and organisations as duty-­ bearers. This was not done. Articles 23–27 address the importance of preventing illness for all children and to take appropriate measure to restore them to good health when illness occurs. If the best medical interests of children had been a priority, children would have been better tested to see if they had the virus even if they were asymptomatic, vaccines suitable for use in children could have been developed. Child-friendly masks would have been created. Schools would have been given more resources and supports so that students could be safely instructed in schools. Hospitals were not prepared for an influx of paediatric COVID-19 patients and many lacked child-sized equipment, ventilators, and other machines and supplies that would be more appropriate for helping provide medical care for small bodies. Children generally have challenges accessing mental health care and this problem has been exacerbated during the pandemic when mental health services were cut back for children (as well as adults) even though stress, isolation, anxiety, grief, and depression increased (McMorrow, 2020; Physicians for a National Health Program, 2021). The mental health and emotional well-being of children is a priority of many of the CRC articles (3, 12, 16, 23–27), as they pertain to defending the best interests of the child and helping them to have the skills and abilities to develop a good life in every way. Children have a right to education, including academic information, arts, sciences, humanities, human rights education, and other information designed to help their development, identity, self-esteem, creativity, vocational, social, and intellectual growth. During the pandemic, many schools closed and students were not able to obtain their education. Reasons for this included: lack of computers; lack of WiFi or broadband; parents who were put in positions of being their children’s instructors without the time, skills, or ability to do so; and teachers who were not trained in the pedagogy or skills for quality remote education instruction, to name a few. Daycare centres were closed and children of all ages were kept at home in lock-down situations which made learning challenging. Lack of school lunch availability made hunger an especially big problem for children who could not go to school (Boling, 2021; Food Research and Action Center, 2021). When students were to return to their schools, physical distancing was recommended; classrooms designed for 30 students now could only accommodate 15. If classrooms were designed in the beginning to have

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physical distancing, this would normally reduce the spread of not just the virus but of the common cold and other childhood illnesses. Schools were unprepared and lacked resources on how to sanitise the classrooms, desks, and all the equipment students and teachers require. The CRC notes that children need access to outdoor spaces as well as inside buildings; good ventilation in schools is something that is needed anyway for children’s health. If the best interests of the child had been a priority—instead of making children’s health an after-thought, since adults assumed they would not get sick—the current illnesses of children could have been reduced (Schorr 1989). More data needs to be collected to determine the long-term impact of the virus on children. This we cannot know for years to come, so collection of data beginning today on children would also be in their best interests (Caplan & Hotez, 2018; Cha, 2021; Gaeta, 2020; Human Rights Watch, 2021; Leggiadro, 2020; Lieberman, 2020).

Conclusions I have argued that COVID-19 has illuminated children’s lowly positions as rights holders (Boyle, 2020; Smith, 2021), and the lack of rights for homeless children. The rights to health and education for children are supposed to be “inclusive” rights. While they theoretically may be entitled to the same rights as other children, the qualitative and quantitative data available indicate that homeless children have a harder time realising those rights in their everyday lives. They struggle to secure resources necessary for their well-being, and these challenges are even harder in the time of the pandemic. As Walker (2020) observes, homeless children are “lost in the masked shuffle: the pandemic shields the real number [and how it impacts the lives] of homeless children.” Human rights depend upon a healthy civic infrastructure that ensures the well-being of all residents (Moore-­ Vissing, 2021). The adverse impacts of COVID-19 on children have been so great that the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has developed specific guidelines and statements as an addition to the CRC that outlines how to protect children during COVID-19 (Office of the High Commissioner, 2020a, 2020b). These are important documents for anyone working with children to consider, but especially important for those who care about poor and homeless children. From a children’s human rights perspective, the UNCRC provides a framework that parents,

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teachers, schools, organisations, and governments can all use to guide how they serve children. Defending the rights of homeless children should have the same priority as defending the rights of any other person of any other age. All children are vulnerable and all are at risk of homelessness if misfortune unexpectedly occurs. But the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations like homeless children could be greatly lessened with a greater equity and justice human rights lens (Vissing, 2019, 2020a, 2020b).

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Centers for Disease Control. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine for people experiencing homelessness. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-­ncov/community/ homeless-­shelters/vaccine-­faqs.html Cha, A. (2021). Child hospitalizations for covid rise. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/13/childrenhospitalizations-­covid-­delta/ Children’s Defense Fund. (2021). State of America’s children 2021. https://www. childrensdefense.org/state-­of-­americas-­children/ Children’s Hospital. (2020). Exploring the link between homelessness and COVID-19. https://www.childrenshospitals.org/Newsroom/Childrens-­ Hospitals-­Today/Ar ticles/2020/08/Exploring-­t he-­L ink-­B etweenHomelessness-­and-­COVID-­19 Chotiner, I. (2020). The coronavirus crisis will lead to catastrophic hunger. The New  Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-­and-­a/the-­coronaviruscrisis-­will-­lead-­to-­catastrophic-­hunger Cleveland Clinic. (2021). Why a COVID-19 vaccine for children may take a while. h t t p s : / / h e a l t h . c l e v e l a n d c l i n i c . o rg / w h y -­a -­c o v i d -­1 9 -­v a c c i n e -­f o rchildren-­may-­take-­awhile/ Coates, J., & McKenzie-Mohr, S. (2010). Out of the frying pan, into the fire: Trauma in the lives of homeless youth prior to and during homelessness. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 37(1), 65–96. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jrlsasw37 & id=651 & collection=journals & index=. Collins, K., & Holder, J. (2021). See how rich countries got to the front of the vaccine line. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/31/world/global-­vaccine-­supply-­inequity.html Collishaw, S. (2015). Annual research review: Secular trends in child and adolescent mental health. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 56, 370–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12372pmid:25496340 Community Solutions. (2020). Analysis on unemployment projects a 40–45% increase in homelessness. https://community.solutions/analysis-­on-­unemploymentprojects-­40-­45-­increase-­in-­homelessness-­this-­year/ Cormier, Z. (2020). How COVID-19 can damage the brain. BBC. https://www. b b c . c o m / f u t u r e / a r t i c l e / 2 0 2 0 0 6 2 2 -­t h e -­l o n g -­t e r m -­e f f e c t s -­o f -­ covid-­19-­infection Coughlin, C., Sandel, M., & Stewart, A. (2020). Homelessness, children and COVID-19: A looming crisis. Pediatrics, 46(2). https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/146/2/e20201408 Curley, C. (2020). What a lack of COVID-19 testing means for children. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health-­n ews/lack-­o f-­c ovid-­1 9-­t estingchildren-­returning-­to-­school#Early-­testing-­shortages-­set-­the-­tone

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