Childcare and Wellbeing in Times of Covid-19: Developing crisis-resilient care solutions

Lead Research Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Social and Political Science

Abstract

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) and afterschool-care (ASC) services are crucial for children's equal opportunities, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are also crucial for supporting parents' ability to work and families' financial security. The closure of schools and childcare facilities and other social distancing measures in the wake of Covid-19, while important policies to reduce the spread of the virus and its burden on healthcare systems, created a national 'childcare crisis' with potentially severe effects on families' livelihoods and wellbeing, particularly for families in vulnerable circumstances. Since Covid-19 and its impacts are likely to be persistent, there is an urgent need for crisis-resilient solutions of high-quality childcare provision reaching all families beyond key workers.

We know that community-based co-production can lead to more sustainable and effective local solutions than top-down policy-implementation, particularly for hard-to-reach groups. This project has two objectives: firstly, it will collate an evidence-base providing the most comprehensive picture on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected families' childcare
arrangements and wellbeing in the short and longer term. This will include collection of rich new data (in-depth interviews with parents and stakeholders) identifying the specific childcare needs and challenges of families in different circumstances (including socio-economic background, protected characteristics and geographical area), and its triangulation with secondary analysis of a wide range of data-sources on Covid-19 impact (including nationally representative surveys and convenience samples). Secondly, in partnership with local and national stakeholders and policymakers, the project will develop a co-produced policy-toolkit providing community-based implementation and practice pathways to support Local Councils' crisis responses and local communities in developing effective and sustainable childcare solutions during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. This childcare-toolkit will draw lessons from two local co-production labs (in a rural and an urban setting), from mapping exercises of diverse childcare contexts, and the collation of evidence on specific access problems and needs of different groups of families, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances.

The innovative project-design combining a comprehensive array of data analysis with a collaborative co-production strategy for local service solutions will be pioneering in designing resilient childcare provision that protects family wellbeing during this pandemic and beyond.

Our extensive analysis of a wide range of data will allow us to identify gaps in the existing data on experiences of families with young children during the Covid-19 pandemic and to make recommendations to policy-makers and data-collectors on what further data is required and what questions should be included in future data-collection.

Our close collaboration with a wide range of project-partners in policy-making and civil society (e.g. Scottish Government, The Improvement Service and advocacy organisations such as Child Poverty Action Group, Close the Gap, One Parent Families Scotland, and Children in Scotland) helps ensure that our policy-toolkit is useful and applicable for a wide range of ongoing national and regional Covid-19 activities (e.g. 'CHANGE: Childcare and Nurture'; 'Access to Childcare Fund'-projects; 'Caring Community'- and 'Resilient Community'-projects; 'Critical childcare for vulnerable children'-programmes), and secondly, that it is widely disseminated by our partners across the country and different sectors

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description The Covid-pandemic and the public health measures aimed at containing the virus, such as lockdowns, physical distancing and self-isolating, radically changed family life and daily routines. The pandemic has had particularly dramatic effects on households with dependent children due to the closure of schools and childcare settings. This project had two key objectives: firstly, it set out to collate a comprehensive evidence-base on how the Covid-pandemic affected families' wellbeing and childcare arrangements in the short and longer term - this included the collection of rich new qualitative data (50 interviews with parents with children aged 0-12) and secondary analysis of survey data (including nationally representative longitudinal surveys and convenience samples). Secondly, we aimed to co-produce recommendations for crisis-resilient childcare solutions with a specific focus on remote rural areas and economically deprived urban areas in Scotland, and in collaboration with families, local community groups, providers, local and national government, and a large number of third sector project partners.
Our project delivered detailed and robust evidence that the Covid-pandemic negatively affected the mental wellbeing of many children and their parents/carers, and this particularly during lockdown periods. It is clear from our research that mothers in particular bore the brunt of the pandemic by providing the lion share of extra childcare, home schooling and domestic work in conjunction with 'home office'/key worker responsibilities, leading to poorer mental health and high levels of exhaustion in women. The experience with 'emergency childcare hubs' where fraught for those who who sought access to this form of childcare during the pandemic, in terms of logistical challenges and quality of care. The 'extended household' policy on the other hand, was perceived and welcomed as a life-saver for many families to help juggle work and care responsibilities. Access to green outdoor space and internet-connectivity were central factors in boosting family resilience and wellbeing during the pandemic.
The Covid-pandemic has demonstrated in dramatic ways that schools and early learning and childcare (ELC) services not only provide important educational resources and opportunities for children, but also play a key role in supporting children's social, emotional and behaviour wellbeing - as well as the wellbeing of their parents/carers. Schools and ELC services also play a central role in supporting the financial well-being of families and the thriving of local communities. A key recommendation of this project is that these services need to be understood as social infrastructure in the planning of resilient and sustainable communities for a wellbeing-oriented and prosperous national economy. The planning of resilient 'children's services', including education and care, should thus not only be included in future policymaking in relation to the Children and Young People's Act (Scotland), but become integral to all planning stages of the following policy frameworks in Scotland: Common Wealth Building (CWB); Locality Planning (part of Community Planning); and Place-making (National Planning Framework).
Exploitation Route In a first stage, the main focus of our dissemination and outreach activities were to develop dialogue with local and national government and third sector organisations in Scotland. Having established numerous impact channels, there is potential for our findings and recommendations to influence in particular, the Scottish government's strategic planning phase for the Out of School Childcare policy for the period 2022-2026, and for Covid-recovery policies with regards to education, women's health and community planning. Our findings are also expected to provide insights and shape perspectives of a wide range of third sector organisations on the necessity of specific Covid-recovery policies to tackle social, care and gender inequalities in Scotland
Secondly, we have connected our project with a wide range of international academic networks and, having been invited to participate in a series of international fora and conferences for scholarly exchange (e.g. EARLI conference in Utrecht/Netherlands July 2022; German "contested care" network, May 2021; international "Transforming Care network", July 2021), we expect that our research will productively feed into wider international scholarly debate on the impact of Covid on children's and family wellbeing, gender equality, and issues around work/life balance and related policy frameworks.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy

Education

Healthcare

URL http://www.childcare-covid.org
 
Description Conducting research on the impact of Covid-19, at the same time as Covid-19 raged on and created challenging experiences and circumstances for families and communities, was an intense and sometimes difficult experience. It soon become clear that research on the pandemic, during the pandemic, had to be conducted in different ways than 'usual', not only by different means (online), but also with a much heightened acceptance of contingency, 'out of the box' thinking, kindness and consideration to the life experiences and circumstances of all involved: the research team and administrative support teams, research participants, project partners, and the wider academic and policy and practitioner communities. Pretending this was 'business as normal' was not helpful, and would have contradicted my 'ethics of care' beliefs as project lead; instead, flexibility, creativity and courage was required in the process of continuously adapting this project to the circumstances that unfolded before us - and that lasted far beyond what we had initially anticipated when designing this project. This has been the most extraordinary and challenging project I have led to date, but possibly also the most significant in forging networks and collaborations and allowing 'impact' to evolve, in a slow, yet profound way. Following a turbulent twelve months of 'official' project period, we had amassed a great body of evidence on the impact of Covid on family wellbeing, and established a wide array of knowledge exchange and impact channels. Many aspects of the project were more time consuming than anticipated (finding research participants, conducting co-production in a period when organisations have other, emergency-driven, priorites, etc.), and we were pleased to have secured an ESRC Impact Accelerator grant for five months following the project end to give us the possibility to deepen and expand our public engagement and policy impact. In terms of dissemination, the main focus of this project was to share our findings and insights with policy-makers, third sector organisations and practitioners, in form of meetings, seminars, and sometimes phone calls, and based on short briefing papers and summaries; we did this in effective collaboration with the Scottish Community Development Centre, a 'non-academic' institution that firmly connected our research project to the interests, needs and forms of communication of non-academic audiences. Our progress was, in academic terms, slightly unusual, as we embarked on many enriching dialogues and short briefings inputs, with less focus on academic outputs at first. At the same time, it is these informal conversations with policymakers and practitioners, that promise great potential for real impact of our project findings. For example, throughout this project I have as project lead, established good and frequent dialogue with colleagues in the Scottish Government. I have contributed with advice and briefings to drafting the next delivery plan for the Scottish Government Out of School Childcare policy 2022 -2026; I am in conversations with colleagues from various organisations, such as Public Health Scotland, The Improvement Service, NatScen and One Parent Families Scotland, to discuss how our project findings could inform future work and activities of these organisations. We have organised a series of policy and practice events that have received good response, suggesting considerable interest in our research findings. While this is a slow process, we expect significant long-term impact of the research of this UKRI rapid response project on policy areas such as childcare, women's health and community planning, and on future research initiatives, particularly with respect to the data gaps this project identified.
First Year Of Impact 2021
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy
Impact Types Societal

Policy & public services

 
Description Royal Society of Edinburgh response to Scottish Affairs Committee's consultation on the Cost of living: impact on rural communities in Scotland
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
Impact New UK budget recently announced to extend entitlement of 30 hours free childcare to two and one year old children.
 
Description Senior advisor to Scottish Government on the School Age Childcare Reference Group
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
Impact UK budget announcement in March 2023 to extend entitlement of 30 hours free childcare to children aged 2 and 1; to follow also in Scotland.
 
Description Collaboration on developing local co-production activities with Scottish Community Development Centre 
Organisation Scottish Community Development Centre
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Expertise on Early Childhood Education and Care policy in Scotland; methodological expertise; access to data; intellectual input
Collaborator Contribution Expertise on co-production method and processes; intellectual input.
Impact Developing ESRC Impact Accelerator project together; establishing links with the Scottish Co-production Network
Start Year 2020
 
Description Blogpost - 'Co-producing Knowledge and Ideas for Action' 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact blog post launched on the website of the Scottish Co-production Network, during the National Co-production Week.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.coproductionscotland.org.uk/2021-activity/co-producing-knowledge-and-ideas-for-action
 
Description Blogpost - 'UK Government's withdrawn 'sexist' advert hits a little too close to home' 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact blog post on the project's web page.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL http://www.childcare-covid.org
 
Description Development of Learning Material for Highschool students aged 12-16, including short film (animation) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Learning material developed for Futurm Careers on "Why good childcare provision is important for Gender Equality" for use for teachers of students aged 12-16
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Knowledge Exchange Seminar, organised by Cattanach (Early Years Charity) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Knowledge Exchange event to share findings and lessons for policy and practice from UKRI rapid response project 'Childcare and Wellbeing in Times of Covid-19'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Workshop at Children in Scotland Learning Week 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Delivered workshop (online) on Covid and Family Wellbeing, sharing early project results with non-academic audience at Children in Scotland Learning week, with discussion and questions afterwards. The event was recorded and the recordings made available on the website of Children in Scotland and our own project website.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL http://www.childcare-covid.org