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Autistic children's experiences of COVID-19 have been largely absent from current crisis and recovery discourse. This is the first published study to directly and specifically involve autistic children both as research advisors and as research participants in a rights-based participatory study relating to the pandemic.
This study explores the lived experiences of care leavers in Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic. While COVID-19 has undoubtedly been difficult for many groups, care leavers are among those who may have faced additional pressures during this period. International evidence suggests that under normal conditions care leavers may already face more difficulties in relation to accommodation, employment, health, and wellbeing as well as facing increased risks of social isolation. A small number of studies examining various aspects of care leavers’ experiences during COVID-19 in other jurisdictions…
In February 2020 the COVID-19 virus started to spread in Europe. Since then our economies, societies, and daily lives have been turned upside down. This report reflects on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on children. It compiles information gathered from 25 countries across Europe, and provides recommendations for improving public policies in the short and long-term to support better outcomes for children and families. The assessment is accompanied by reflections on the 2020 European Semester. This report is based on information gathered until August/September 2020, and was released…
Abstract
Resulting from the outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown, EPIC (Empowering People in Care) decided to contact all young people’s residential centres in Ireland. Often the young people that live in residential homes are the forgotten children in care, so it was important to reach out to ensure that their issues were being heard. The survey concentrated on the needs of the young people, issues affecting staff, how work practices had changed and what extra supports were needed. The responses were positive on many levels and certainly the voices of the…
"One-third of foster carers have said that a lack of structure for their foster children during the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge, according to a new survey," says this article from the Irish Times. "The survey of 200 foster carers carried out by the Irish Foster Care Association in January also found that one-quarter of respondents said that facilitating family visits was 'challenging' during the pandemic."
"The pandemic has had an adverse impact on all children. That has been more severe for those with special needs but an almost forgotten group of especially vulnerable children are those who experience abuse and neglect," says this Irish Times in this editorial. "The latest volume of reports from the Child Care Law Reporting Project contains a number of reports detailing the impact of the pandemic on them."
This article describes some of the findings from a new report on childcare law matters in Ireland, which has revealed many of the impacts of COVID-19 lockdown on families of children in state care. The report discusses "cases where the type of comfort vulnerable children might have got before from visiting family members was no longer available to them."
"The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions have had a particularly heavy impact on vulnerable and marginalised children, none more so than those who require the protection of the State through the child care courts," says the Irish Times in this opinion piece. The article describes the impact of the crisis on vulnerable children and their families, including the impact on face-to-face contact between children in care and their parents, the strain on parents already struggling with addiction or mental health issues, and the delivery of services for families.
"The State…
"Concerns have been raised about how children in the Irish care system are coping during the coronavirus pandemic," says this article from the Irish Examiner. In-person services from social workers have been scaled back in light of the crisis, as have in-person parental visits, according to the article. There have also been "difficulties monitoring children and a withdrawal of traditional supports such as schools and sports clubs." The article describes some of the ways that social workers and child protection services are responding to, and trying to mitigate, these challenges.
"Almost all visits to children in residential care and detention facilities have been suspended as a result of the coronavirus crisis, including visits by most family members," says this article from the Irish Times. The article describes the impacts on children in residential care, including Special Care Centres, secure facilities which provide intensive treatment and care to particularly troublesome or violent children for up to three months.