Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was living a learning crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic now threatens to make education outcomes even worse.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools around the world, disrupting the education of almost 1.6 billion students according to UNICEF, classrooms were closed to millions of displaced children. Less than half of school-aged refugee children were enrolled while only one in four were attending secondary school. Months-long school closures risk reversing small gains recently made in expanding access to education for refugee children.

This report has been compiled jointly by 36 international organizations, under the aegis of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities (CCSA).
It covers different aspects of public and private life from economic and environmental fluctuations to changes that affect individuals in terms of income, education, employment and violence and changes affecting public services such as civil aviation and postal services. The report also puts a spotlight on the affects for some sub-population groups like women and children as well as geographical regions. Children already left behind will likely bear the brunt of the pandemic’s impact, whether through missing out on life-saving vaccinations, increased risk of violence, or interrupted education. Many children, especially those in the poorest households and the poorest parts of the world, risk losing their lives to pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, HIV and other preventable diseases unless urgent action is taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

 

Nearly half the national school student population is at risk of having their learning and wellbeingsignificantly compromised by not being at school because they are in a vulnerable group, due to their young age; social disadvantage; specific needs; or family employment context. As soon as health restrictions permit there is an urgent need to reconnect these students to the physical context of school-based learning to support their learning and wellbeing outcomes. Concurrently there is a need to invest rapidly in developing significant capability in schools to deliver education both online and on-site

This report aims to highlight one major initiative, the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) implementation of the Reach Up and Learn program in the Middle East, and the ways in which this initiative is providing vital support to both children and their caregivers affected by the Syrian refugee crisis. The first section includes a description of the adaptation process, with following sections highlighting the diverse characteristics of frontline staff and clients, program costs and the early-stage measurement piloting conducted in preparation for the planned randomized controlled trial. By sharing these experiences and lessons learned, the report aims to provide practical guidance for early childhood leaders, practitioners, policy-makers and researchers interested in designing, delivering, testing and scaling home visiting programs in crisis- and conflict-affected settings.

Home quarantine may lead to families developing a variety of psychological distress. The purpose of this research is to examine the psychological status and well-being of children and their parents during 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Spain. It aims to offer testimonies and reflections of the confinement period along with its living conditions, emotional mapping and an analysis of the effects that confinement is generating on boys and girls.

This report describes national policy and strategy responses for ensuring educational continuity in the context of widespread school closures implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on a selection of high-income and low-income contexts. The evidence highlights the current, and rapidly changing status of national policy and strategy responses to date. The report examines key themes emerging form policy and strategy response and reflects on these: which are working, and which are not working so well? The nature of the evidence and material available at this stage of the crisis makes firm conclusions hard to reach. Despite this the report concludes with a set of recommendations supported by the literature as it stands.

As many as 30 million children are at risk of disease and death because of the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. World Vision’s Aftershocks report considers what would happen if the devastating secondary impacts of the 2015-2016 Ebola outbreak on children were replicated in the 24 most fragile countries covered by the UN’s COVID-19 humanitarian appeal. Secondary impacts will threaten many more children’s lives than COVID-19 itself. As many as 30 million children’s lives are in danger from secondary health impacts such as deadly diseases like malaria, a lack of immunisation, or increased malnutrition, as health systems are overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.

Women and men, girls and boys, urban and rural populations in East, Central and Southern Africa are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Immediate impacts at the time of this research center around reduced income and access to basic needs due to government lockdowns, changing gender roles in households, and increased gender-based violence. The COVID-19 pandemic in East, Central and Southern Africa is currently exacerbating socio-economic issues, with women bearing the largest burden of caring for their families while also seeking to lead communities in prevention and adaptation. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute most of frontline healthcare responders. Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Further, women are more likely to lose income as many are in the informal sector.

This report from the VAWG Helpdesk explores the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic may impact on violence against women and girls, based on emerging evidence, including increased risk of corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, and abuse of girls, as well as intensification of child protection issues due to children being separated from caregivers.

The purpose of the INEE QELO Mapping Project is to identify and “map” (code, analyze, describe) existing social emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support (PSS) measurement/assessment tools, as well as guidance documents, being used in the international Education in Emergencies (EiE) sector with the broad aim of informing policy that is grounded in a shared understanding of learning outcomes and monitoring. The work is a priority of the Quality and Equitable Learning Outcomes (QELO) work stream within INEE’s Education Policy Working Group (EPWG) and is funded by Porticus.

This report presents the results of a survey that aims to (1) determine the most common difficulties Hong Kong children face with remote learning during school suspension and how students think they could overcome them; (2) get children’s perspectives on their well-being during the school suspension and the things that affect it most; (3) get children’s perspectives on what support they need for and their feelings about their return to school.

Physical distancing caused by COVID-19 has had a significant impact on daily life throughout the world. In this sense, Cuba is no exception. Children are a vulnerable population due to the characteristics of their subjective development. The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF, 2020a) has warned that children and families across the globe will suffer the consequences of the economic destruction caused by the pandemic. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore has said this situation is generating a world economic crisis and in order to protect childhood during the COVID-19 crisis, international collaboration would be essential, since 99% of children and young people under 18 are currently living with movement restrictions (UNICEF, 2020a). Cuba has joined the call by the United Nations Secretary General to ensure and prioritize education, health and safety for all children and adolescents during this pandemic (UNICEF, 2020b), and expresses concern about the consequences this situation has and will have for the well-being of the youngest ones.

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on school education. It has affected a large number of children across states, class, caste, gender and region. The shutting down of schools and the decision of shifting traditional classrooms to digital platforms is not only increasing learning inequality among children, but also pushing a large number of children out of school due to the digital divide. Other than learning, the absence of schooling would also have a long-lasting effect on the health and nutrition of children. The role of the budget in the current situation as well as beyond the pandemic is very crucial to ensure inclusive education for all. This policy brief highlights some of the issues associated with school closures which need immediate attention. It also suggests some short-term policy measures that can be implemented in the coming Union and State budgets. However, the overall direction of allocations should not only be limited to addressing issues arising from the pandemic but should go beyond. COVID-19 has created an opportunity for governments to learn valuable policy lessons to deal with such situations and also to revamp the system so that it is better equipped to deal with them. In this context, the policy brief has also put forward a set of long-term measures that the government should implement in the due course of time.

Discussions around the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and its impacts and costs are moving swiftly from health concerns to economic and social concerns. The ways in which countries are dealing with COVID-19 itself, through social lockdowns and school closures, are expected to have wide-ranging social and economic costs and governments have responded with rapid implementation of fiscal stimulus and social protection reforms.

COVID-19 is a global health crisis, with severe economic consequences, impacting countries and continents in waves, and therefore is – with the exception of the Spanish Flu in 1918 – without a recent comparator. Necessarily this means that experience with, and evidence for, dealing with such a crisis is limited.

Acknowledging that health, economic, and social crises can rapidly become a crisis for children, this paper seeks to contribute evidence to understanding what the crisis means for children and for families with children in the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In particular, what governments and stakeholders should be looking for when seeking to protect children from the worst outcomes of the crisis. In doing so, this paper asks: Through which mechanisms can COVID-19 affect children in the region? What can we learn from previous crises about the potential effects on children and those who care for children? How is vulnerability to poverty and child well-being likely to be affected? Are initial government responses to the crisis likely to worsen or mitigate risks to children’s well-being? And how might future public policies be optimized in the short and medium term to protect child outcomes?