The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable children by Professor Rosemary Sheehan

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable children

by Professor Rosemary Sheehan

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. School closures are keeping children at home all day every day and this brings particular mental health pressures to bear, especially for those

who are vulnerable. Closures have intensified social isolation. There is a lack of connection to the friends (and their friends’ families) who would have ordinarily provided important safety valves, and there is a lack of opportunities for the learning of alternative and important socialisation skills. Children are spending a lot more time with their families and this can heighten anxiety, risk and lack of safety. This is all the more so with complicated family structures whereby the child might be moving between households and living with adults with whom they are not familiar. Many children do not ever have a sense of ‘feeling at home’ even in their own homes. More often than not, they are feeling ill at ease and fearful. For many children, school is a protective factor. It is a safe place to be during the day. Generally also, there is access to food. Stating the obvious, the health and well-being issues caused by the crisis are undermining a child’s learning and efforts to re-engage with school; and children who do not receive a good education are more likely to have poor longterm health outcomes. Children are experiencing heightened anxiety and worry which is affecting their well-being. Children whose families do not have money for laptops or iPads, or who live in households that do not have Wi-Fi, miss out on vital learning and also face the risk of stigma and shame. Speaking to one school as an example in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, the vast majority of the children at this school do not speak English as their first language and did not own a computer. Ninety-five per cent live in nearby public housing. Fortunately, Bendigo Bank and The Smith Family stepped in to assist the school in providing laptops and iPads, as well as portable Wi-Fi packs, to all students. This has helped the school achieve a 97 per cent attendance rate. On the whole, these children are supported by at least one helping parent. However, many more children, who are not supported, are coming through the Children’s Court. There has been a significant increase in the number of referrals on grounds of neglect and of child maltreatment, often in the context of parental mental health problems, addiction and family violence – factors that heighten even more the disadvantages that these children experience. With no family life to keep them safe, poor schooling opportunities, poor nutrition and poor health outcomes they are clearly vulnerable and clearly at risk of continuing as vulnerable. The management of COVID-19 has comprised schooling at home and having to stay in the house for 23 hours a day. Though obviously necessary, this management strategy has been predicated on people having resources, laptops for children, Wi-Fi, space for them to do their lessons, a helpful adult, a calm household, sufficient quiet for being able to concentrate, food available, etc. This is a response that assumes a level of income, accommodation and family functioning, that is not universal. It is a response that is seeing many more children falling between the gaps and becoming the hidden forgotten victims of COVID-19. Little attention has been paid to the community’s response to how we protect these children. Martin Foley, when he was Victoria’s Minister for Mental Health (he was recently appointed as the Minister for Health), said that the state’s mental health system “wasn’t fit for purpose”. He spoke about the “missing middle” – the people who fall between the gaps and who may not be unwell enough to get care. The same can be said about vulnerable children as the “missing middle”. Is there a ‘culture of indifference’ to vulnerable children? UNICEF noted recently that children risk being among the pandemic’s biggest victims, as many children’s lives are being changed in profound ways. Children are being affected, in particular, by socio-economic impacts and, in some cases, by mitigation measures (such as isolation, schooling at home etc.) that may inadvertently for some do more harm than good – and their vulnerability is going unnoticed and without an adequate and comprehensive response. * * * Professor Rosemary Sheehan is Director of the Higher Degrees by Research Programme in the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. Her research focuses on child welfare and the law, family violence, mental health, judicial and corrections responses to offenders and social work curricula.