Schools as Covid 19 Field Hospitals
This article by Isabelle Boyd first appeared in TES online on Sunday 6 September 2020
https://www.tes.com/news/why-schools-during-covid-19-are-field-hospitals
As children and young people have returned to school, we need to take stock of the impact of COVID 19 school closures had on them.
There is much reported about the disproportionate impact of the crisis on groups of vulnerable children and young people.
This got me thinking about disruptions, about casualties and about recovery. How about thinking of schools as field hospitals? Describing our schools as field hospitals could be a worthwhile analogy. The field hospital takes care of casualties in easily accessible and highly visible buildings. They deal with the immediate and not the peripheral data.
The impact of lockdown on children and young people is real. UNESCO anticipate that a further 50m child will join the other 386 million living in poverty as a direct consequence of the pandemic. 188 countries had full school closures as part of their plan to reduce the community spread of the virus and 2/3 of these developed online distance learning approaches. However, over 30% of the world’s children are digitally excluded.
Closer to home we know that the impact of COVID 19 will be felt disproportionately by children and young people who live in poverty, who live with domestic violence, who have caring responsibilities and who have a disability or an additional support need.
A June 2020 report by (CPAG) Child Poverty Action Group detailed that 40% of low-income families were missing at least one essential resource to support their children's learning during the school closures and one third of families who are most worried about money have had to buy a laptop, tablet or other device. The CPAG survey also found that families who were worried about money were more likely to say they found it difficult to continue their children’s education at home.
Another key finding from this work is that parents stated that when children can go back to school their primary concern is their children's wellbeing
Even those young people who are not recognised as ‘vulnerable’ report to feeling worried and anxious during the pandemic and with school closed felt isolated and missed the structure and stimulation that school brings.
So, the return to school should be welcomed by all involved in the care and welfare of children and young people. However, we need to find a balance between establishing a ‘normal’ bringing a much-missed structure, routine and stimulation with identifying and dealing with the immediate needs of those most affected by the crisis.
So, the school as field hospital needs to deal with children and young people’s COVID 19 lockdown wounds. In a field hospital, the doctor knows it’s useless to discuss your cholesterol level or BMI when your wounds need immediate attention.
For many of our children, especially those with additional needs and those most impacted by the closures, schools need to deal with their immediate ‘wounds’ - their anxiety, their lockdown experiences, their lack of structure and routine.
We know that these wounds will manifest themselves in different ways. Some children will be withdrawn, others will act out and others may not come to school at all. Teachers and assistants may also be required to administer mental health first aid until the professional resources are available.
It is incumbent on us to deal with these wounds. To make our schools the safest, happiest most structured places they can be. I am confident that teachers and others who work in our schools with children and young people are delighted to have them back and equally keen to see them thrive. While our school staff are dealing with the wounds, it’s incumbent on all of us to apply pressure for the proper resources to deal with increasing child and adult mental health.
In treating the impact of lockdown and all it entailed on children and young people there needs to be a concentration on relationships, on establishing or re-establishing routines and structures and increasing use restorative language. Research and in-school experience show us that “just calm down” never works so why not say “How can I help you?”. Instead of “what did you do?” to the disruptive pupil say “what happened?”.
These approaches will be challenging at times, no one denies that, but they will pay dividends. They will certainly help our children and young people thrive and survive post lockdown – far more so than any testing regime designed to measure what they missed. Children, young people, teachers and families will tell you if asked – they missed people! They missed their friends, their teachers, the lollipop man, the dinner lady and the jannie.