In January 2022, we resumed workshops for STAGE 3 of APiC’s COVID-19 Project with Children and Young People. Supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS), #ScotYouthandCOVID3 has recalled the Young Consultants who participated in our original two stages of the project.
The study is a participant-led project involving teams from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and (Rural) Stirlingshire and Falkirk, each with 4-6 boys and girls, aged 10-16 in the first round, and now ages 12-18.
We ended #ScotYouthandCOVID2 with a set of 34 Asks to Scottish Government to improve children and young people’s experiences now and in the future. Our Young Consultants also devised a strategy to create a Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery that supports the needs of as many across Scotland as possible.
In this next stage, we are fulfilling the Young Consultants’ strategy from #ScotYouthandCOVID2. This includes holding more workshops with our original Young Consultants, primary school children, and other groups that have thus far not had enough opportunity to be heard in the pandemic.
In this week’s blog, we report on one of these additional conversations, with young people attending a peer support group (Our Voice) run by Families Outside in Tayside. Families Outside is the only national charity in Scotland that works solely to support families affected by imprisonment. We are incredibly grateful for their support in convening the workshop, and to the V&A in Dundee who partner with Families Outside by providing a venue space for families to meet.
#ScotYouthandCOVID3: Families Outside Workshop
Wednesday 16th March, we attended the Our Voice Peer Support Group session in person with children and young people. Taking part as our Young Consultants were 5 girls, aged between 9 and 12.
We began the workshop with a task to fill us in on what life has been like across the last two years. This took the form of two timelines (sketched out below), one covering March 2020-21 and the other covering March 2021-22. Young Consultants were then invited to add in experiences based on:
- What’s been good/easy
- What’s been bad/hard
- Things I would change (or would have changed)
This task raised a wide range of insights and experiences. While not everyone agreed on all the good and bad things, experiences such as getting more sleep and having more time to play on the computer were all agreed as good. Meanwhile, not seeing friends and family for really long periods of time was very hard for everyone. For some, it was really hard to not get to go physically to school, while for others it was very hard to go back after a long period of time at home.
In the remainder of the blog, we discuss the really big themes that surfaced from our discussion and have led to additional Asks or refinements for the Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery.
Restrictions without Compassion
A key theme coming from the workshop was how difficult it has been to not have contact with parents and family members who are either in prison or have been unwell during the pandemic. This includes not seeing family members at all for long stretches of time (for some this was over a year and impacted by staff shortages at the prisons), including at Christmas, and not getting to say goodbye to loved one before they die. The post-it notes below give some insight into just now difficult this has been and what they would change if they could.
The Young Consultants felt that there needed to be a solution to this if similar restrictions are needed at any other point in future.
School Transitions and Confusing Rules
One Young Consultant talked about how much they missed getting to experience P7 properly and get the usual support for the transition to secondary school. Instead of getting three visits to the new school itself, they instead got one visit to the school, and a visit from a few teachers to get told about random things they didn’t think were that useful. The example they shared was getting a talk about how to pack their bags properly.
Instead, the Young Consultant suggested the aim of the induction should be to have a good sense of the place before they get there. In particular, they should:
- Know the teachers
- Know their way around
- Know what to expect
Any future induction that has to be conducted under similar circumstances should keep these three objectives in mind.
Other Young Consultants, in primary school across the pandemic, noted how confusing the rules around what they could and could not do were. This included being in social bubbles, having different break times across year groups, and using different spaces for play and for lunch from the usual spots. The key message coming from them was that these were all subject to change, and it was very confusing and stressful to not know what your day ahead would look like. The number of rules also meant Young Consultants felt they were getting shouted at a lot. Clarity is needed in future to better support children who may face similar disruptions at times when they are already confused about what is happening.
Learning Continuity
A final theme around education arose for all the Young Consultants. This was that staff shortages mean that for the last few months they’ve been getting different teachers from usual. They may also start something with one teacher, who goes off sick, and then the next teacher starts something new or something they feel they’ve already done. This stop and start approach to different topics is very confusing and impacts their learning.
Solutions include ensuring there is a clear way for teachers that go off sick or leave the school to handover notes to anyone taking their place. This would provide the greater certainty and conducive learning environment that children and young people feel they have lost. This is also in the face of returning to school and beginning to understand just how much they’ve missed across the pandemic.
Manifesto Asks from Families Outside
We ended the workshop with Young Consultants by asking:
‘What is the one thing you would change if you had a magic wand (that would improve things for you and all children and young people in Scotland?’
We then took what they said and compared it with the set of 34 Asks already produced by our original team of Young Consultants. There was no disagreement with what had already been put together, but the following additions surfaced from the discussion, which are needs we will be incorporating into the Manifesto for Children and Young People’s Rights in Recovery:
- We need there to be compassion in the rules and restrictions that come with COVID-19 and any future similar situations.
This would allow people to see friends and family members that are:
- in prison
- very ill
- very lonely.
It’s important that these meetings are still safe, so there needs to be more covered outdoor spaces, or more creative solutions, that allow low-risk face to face meetings.
- We need a plan for more consistent teaching and learning in times of high staff shortages.
- We need the three core principles of a successful transition between primary and secondary school to be upheld at all times.
- We need better communication to all children and young people (of all ages) around COVID-19 and what it means for us.
- We need more free (or at least affordable) activities for children and families to take part in in their communities.
What’s Next?
We will be convening workshops with primary school children and three more seldom heard groups over the next month, before reconvening with our original Young Consultants to discuss our findings. If you are interested in finding out more about this project, or getting on the mailing list to receive a link to our Scotland-wide survey later in the year, please get in touch with Dr Jenny Wood at jenny.wood@aplaceinchildhood.org.
We will be posting further updates on this project as we go, so follow us on Twitter for updates. We will also be writing a report at the end of the project, to chronicle our journey to the Children and Young People’s Manifesto for Rights in Recovery.
Read about wave one and wave two of #ScotYouthandCOVID here.