FEATURE
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable children by Professor Rosemary Sheehan
The stress and anxiety facing parents who have lost their jobs, coupled with social isolation and educational disruption, is likely to put many children at a significantly higher risk of poor education and health outcomes. Extreme employment stress in jobless households can compromise the quality of parenting and home environments. Providing basic necessities can be challenging, and lead, for example, to poorer child nutrition. Professor Sheehan reports seeing an increase in child malnourishment because parents cannot afford to feed their children, and/or neglect to feed them and/or feed them an unhealthy fast food and snack diet.
In this article, Professor Rosemary Sheehan explores the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable children, outlines some of the problems faced by at-risk families and children in lockdown and looks at recent referrals to the Children’s Court.
A family’s socio-economic status is the biggest factor influencing the educational opportunities of children in Australia. Children from struggling families are 10-20 per cent more likely to be missing key educational milestones compared with their peers.
Vulnerability is seen as a consequence of a child facing complex circumstances which have a significant impact on their wellbeing and which may make a child unsafe and at risk of harm.
Children in families experiencing job loss are more likely to start school developmentally vulnerable, repeat a grade and leave school early, and are less likely to gain a qualification that will help set them up for employment.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) has disrupted every child’s life. The extent of this disruption falls along a continuum from manageable to very vulnerable.
Heightened tensions in the household, added stressors placed on caregivers, economic uncertainty, job loss or disruption to livelihoods, and social isolation are increasing the rates of family violence. In recognition of this the Victorian Government has allocated $20 million to domestic violence services.
How a child, and their vulnerability, is affected depends on a range of factors: family, community, education, health, income, how much space there is in the family home, etc. The Conversation reported (7th June 2020) that three quarters of a million Australian children are likely to be experiencing employment stress in their family as a result of COVID-19. This is on top of around 615,000 children whose families were already dealing with employment stress, whose situation may have worsened.
Children witnessing or suffering violence and abuse can also expose them to new protection risks. When it comes to violence, a number of factors related to confinement measures are likely to result in increased risk for children who are increasingly witnessing intimate partner violence.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 2.7 million people left their job or had their hours reduced between March and April 2020. This jobs crisis affects 1.4 million Australian children. www.graduatehouse.com.au
School closures are keeping children at home all day every day and this brings particular mental health pressures to bear, especially for those 20
