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Disadvantaged children and young people: how COVID has doubled down

Disadvantaged children and young people: how COVID has doubled down

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 In episode 4 of the Generation Pandemic podcast we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic doubled down on disadvantaged familes and children. Joining host, Catherine McDonald, are Dr Jim Kaufman from the COVID Realities project, Sarah Edmonds from the Irish Youth Foundation and Emma, a mum of three whose family has been hit hard by the pandemic. Emma gives a first-hand account of her family's experience and the panel discuss both the enormity and complexity of the pandemic's legacy.   Transcript Catherine McDonald  0:05  Hello, and welcome to Generation Pandemic, a podcast from the Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network, looking at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in the UK and Ireland. I'm Catherine MacDonald and today we're focusing on how the pandemic has doubled down on children and young people from disadvantaged and low income families. In a moment we'll be hearing from Dr. Jim Kaufman, from the Covid Realities project, and Sarah Edmonds from the Irish Youth Foundation. But first we're going to hear from Emma, a mum of three, as she explains the point at which the pandemic began to put a strain on her family. Emma  0:43  It started to affect us just a few months in my husband was furloughed on 80%. I wasn't working at that stage because my middle child had health issues. So I had to give up work a few months before the pandemic in order to look after her. It just it gradually got worse and hit an all time low, mid-summer, last year. And it's just generally got worse from there. Catherine McDonald  1:12  And what is it that's got worse? Is it mainly financial income? Emma  1:15  Yeah, completely. I mean, inflation obviously hasn't helped. And we was already playing catch up. And when you're on a downward spiral, financially, it is so hard to get on top of that. You're constantly chasing your tail. And it is generally just got worse and worse and worse, no matter how hard we're trying to improve our situation. Catherine McDonald  1:39  And what has happened with your husband's work now has the furlough, so obviously the furlough period has ended has he now gone back? Emma  1:39  He's now gone back on reduced hours and reduced income. He was working full-time, six days a week. But he's now working full-time, five days a week. He's lost seven hours a week, but he was furloughed for a total of 10 months. And the application for universal credit took a while. So that automatically put us on a setback. It has been hard without what we had before. I mean, it's crazy to say that two years on, we're now doing more to improve our situation, but we're worse off than where we was back, then. Catherine McDonald  2:26  That's a really interesting point, actually, isn't it that even though you know, we are all back at work, and the children are back at school and preschool and nursery, so to that extent life is back to normal, but you are still having to pedal faster than you were just to be in the same position as you were? Emma  2:43  Yeah, exactly. You just you constantly feel like you're drowning. I looked at going to work full-time. So I figured that would be my only option. And in order to do that, and put my two youngest in childcare, it was gonna cost over £900 a month. And there was no way that it would be beneficial to be working full-time, and to be paying out that at the same time, because then you've got travel costs on top of that, and it didn't matter what we did, you felt like there was no way out of it. And there still isn't, I mean, things are starting to look a bit brighter. Now I've got the warmer weather, but it is just so hard, and it does consume you completely. It's had a massive impact on my mental health and my oldest child as well. And is this just a sad the last few years have been absolutely horrendous. Catherine McDonald  3:40  And do you mind me asking how that's impacted on your mental health and that of your child? Emma  3:46  No, I mean, when, when we was in the midst of lockdown, and I was trying to homeschool my son, the girls were only two and three at the time. And it was just so hard and my son is a very sociable person. So it impacted his mental health greatly. And he even we even went for a patch where he turned around and said, Mom don't want to be here anymore. It breaks your heart but it's just what. It's so hard to get out of that situation. We got him the help he needed. And now everything has opened up again. He's fine, but it made me feel like such a failure as a parent. I couldn't do a weekly food shop like I used to do so the kids went from being able to eat almost what they wanted when they wanted to basically having rations. And everyone knows when when you've got kids at home and they're bored all they want to do is eat and it was it was such hard work and it took a massive toll on my mental health because financially we just couldn't cope. I couldn't give the kids what they wanted, what they needed. And if it hadn't been for ...
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