Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This article aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 restrictions among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Parents of 213 Australian children (5–17years) with ADHD completed a survey in May 2020 when COVID-19 restrictions were in place (i.e., requiring citizens to stay at home except for essential reasons).

Care in the early years entails more than childcare. This paper has three major sections. In the first section, I begin with an introduction and a quick overview of the ECEC system in Australia. This snapshot of the Australian ECEC system presents a messy map of the care and education system for young children under a neoliberal political economy to elucidate what this may mean in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. With this contextual background of the ECEC system in Australia, in the second section I discuss my theoretical, ethical, political, ontological, and epistemological positioning when re-imagining and reconceptualizing what a socially just ECEC landscape might look like through the lens of a feminism approach. This onto-epistemological discussion explains the shift toward a feminist approach and how this enables me to (re)think about care and education in the early years differently. Taking up this different set of analytical tools with a post-structural sensibility of the politics of caring, in the third section, I continue on to critical analyses and discussions, highlighting the paradoxes of care and education in the early years. A key aim of this paper is to un-settle the taken-for-granted ways of thinking and talking about ECEC in Australia.

Individualized funding schemes are designed to offer people with disability greater choice and control over the services they receive. This research reports on a survey of over 700 families to explore how Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) supported children and young people and their families to learn remotely during COVID‐19. NDIS funding to support education during the first COVID‐19 lockdown period forms an important case study of the flexibility of individualized funding schemes.

Everybody agrees that the COVID-19 pandemic is a big disruption in education. It questions many traditional rules and structures that have organised the work of schools in the past. But not everyone agrees that the pandemic will eventually change schools. This article tries to determine whether the pandemic will help us fix some of the preexisting inequalities that we were unable, and often unwilling, to improve. It also argues that as we think about how education should be reimagined, it is paramount to continue efforts to make education more inclusive, fairer and equitable for all. Two examples from two distinct education systems, Australia and Finland, are used to highlight how disrupted teaching caused by school closures has had different impacts on schools and teachers.

Hand hygiene is one of the most effective ways to remove germs, prevent the spread of infectious pathogens, and avoid getting sick. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, health authorities have been advocating good hand hygiene practices. The primary aim of this study is to field test a prototype smart handwashing station deployed in a school setting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Extant literature on early childhood educator workplace well-being focuses on the disease model of well-being, with studies mainly addressing stress and burnout. There is a paucity of research conceptualising healthy workplace well-being for educators and an absence of theorising to frame, understand and enhance early childhood educator workplace well-being. This paper reports on Phase 2 of an exploratory sequential mixed methods study, which aimed to explore the individual, relational, and contextual factors influencing healthy workplace well-being. Using Phase 1 interview findings (Author, blind for review), a survey was developed to investigate predictors on workplace well-being in early childhood services in Australia.

This report is an analysis of the global literature and available Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and school outbreak data, 25 January 2020 – 31 August 2020. It aims to explore the role of ECEC and schools in transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

This article aims to present the reasons for vulnerability of children and young people (CYP) during the pandemic, and to focus on actions by health professionals that mitigate additional challenges to their health and well-being. Using a rapid review of the literature and team-based discussions, eight vulnerable groups were identified: CYP with disabilities, mental health conditions and chronic diseases; CYP facing financial hardship; within the child protection system; Aboriginal; migrant and refugee; in residential care; rural; and isolated CYP. Recommendations for action are required at the level of governments, health professionals and researchers and include enhancing access to health and social supports, prioritising vulnerable CYP in resuming health activity and elevating the voice of CYP in designing the response.

School closures have occurred globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, empiric data on transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) among children and in educational settings are scarce. In Australia, most schools have remained open during the first epidemic wave, albeit with reduced student physical attendance at the epidemic peak. This study examines SARS-CoV-2 transmission among children and staff in schools and early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW).