The Most Vulnerable Children Faced Unique Risks During COVID-19: How Agencies Communicated with Communities on Parenting in Low Resource and Humanitarian Settings
Article Sidebar
Downloads
Submit your own article
Register as an author to reserve your spot in the next issue of the Medical Research Archives.
Author RegistrationJoin the Society
The European Society of Medicine is more than a professional association. We are a community. Our members work in countries across the globe, yet are united by a common goal: to promote health and health equity, around the world.
Join Europe’s leading medical society and discover the many advantages of membership, including free article publication.
MembershipMain Article Content
Abstract
Evidence suggests that children in low resource and humanitarian settings experienced added mental health burdens and violence in the home during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, which may have affected their health and development. For humanitarian response agencies, conducting child protection services during this pandemic had been constrained by safety concerns related to the risk of COVID-19 transmission, and logistical issues aligned with social and public health measures. This paper describes how agencies responded to the identified risks children face, integrating remote risk communication and community engagement approaches and safe in-person dialogues with parents and caregivers into child protection interventions to educate about the disease and prevention, encourage a positive parenting environment and mitigate negative effects on children. United Nations (UN) agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) must reflect on these different approaches and share lessons learned and best practices internally and at an inter-agency level to support evidence-based responses for future epidemics and pandemics.
Article Details
The Medical Research Archives grants authors the right to publish and reproduce the unrevised contribution in whole or in part at any time and in any form for any scholarly non-commercial purpose with the condition that all publications of the contribution include a full citation to the journal as published by the Medical Research Archives.
References
2. Marazziti.D,; Pozza.A,; Di Giuseppe.M,; Conversano.C. The psychosocial impact of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: A lesson for mental health prevention in the first severely hit European country. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 2020, 12, 531-555.
3. Ritz.D.; O’Hare.G.; Burgess.M. The Hidden Impact of COVID-19 on Child Protection and Wellbeing. Save the Children International, 2020. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/18174/pdf/the_hidden_impact_of_covid-19_on_child_protection_and_wellbeing.pdf
4. Pereda.N.; Díaz-Faes.D). Family violence against children in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic: a review of current perspectives and risk factors. Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health, 2020, 14, 1-7.
5. Agenda for Action: 8 United Nations entities launch roadmap to protect children from violence in response to COVID-19. United Nations 27, April 2020. https://violenceagainstchildren.un.org/news/agenda-action-8-united-nations-entities-launch-roadmap-protect-children-violence-response-covid
6. UNODC. Research brief: What crime and helpline data say about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reported violence against women and girls, 2020. https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/covid/Violence_against_women_24Nov.pdf
7. Brooker.R.; Buss.K. Harsh parenting and fearfulness in toddlerhood interact to predict amplitudes of preschool error-related negativity. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2014, 9, 148-159.
8. Brown.S.; Doom.R.; Lechuga-Peña.; Watamura.S.; Koppels.T. Stress and parenting during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Child abuse & neglect, 2020, 110, 104-112.
9. McPherson.A.; Lewis.K.; Lynn.A.; Haskett.M.; Behrend.T. Predictors of parenting stress for abusive and nonabusive mothers. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2009, 18, 61-69.
10. Espeleta.H.; Brett.El.; Ridings.L et al. Childhood adversity and adult health-risk behaviors: Examining the roles of emotion dysregulation and urgency. Child Abuse Neglect, 2018; 82, 92-101.
11. Oh.D.; Jerman.P.; SilverioMarques.S., et al. Systematic review of pediatric health outcomes associated with childhood adversity. BMC Pediatr, 2018; 18, 80-83.
12. Miner.J.; Clarke-Stewart.A. Trajectories of externalizing behavior from age 2 to age 9: relations with gender, temperament, ethnicity, parenting, and rater. Developmental psychology, 2008, 44, 771-778.
13. Neppl,T.; Diggs.; Cleveland.M. The intergenerational transmission of harsh parenting, substance use, and emotional distress: Impact on the third-generation child. Psychology of addictive behaviors, 2020, 34, 852–863.
14. UNHCR. Practical Guidance for Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) for Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Migrants, and Host Communities Particularly Vulnerable to COVID-19 Pandemic. 2020. https://www.unodc.org/documents/drug-prevention-and-treatment/Practical-Guidance-RCCE-Refugees-IDPs-Migrants.pdf
15. Wang.G.; Zhang.Y.; Zhao.J.; Zhang.J.; Jiang.F. Mitigate the effects of home confinement on children during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Lancet, 2020; 395, 945-947.
16. El-Khani.A.; Ulph.F.; Peters.S.; Calam.R. Syria: the challenges of parenting in refugee situations of immediate displacement. Intervention, 2016, 14, 99-113.
17. El-Khani.A.; Ulph.F.; Peters.S.; Calam.R. Syria: Refugee parents’ experiences and need for parenting support in camps and humanitarian settings. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 2018, 13, 19-29.
18. Mohamed.S.; Thomas.M. The mental health and psychological well-being of refugee children and young people: An exploration of risk, resilience and protective factors. Educational Psychology in Practice, 2017, 33, 249-263.
19. UNODC. Listen First. 2020. https://www.unodc.org/listenfirst/en/covid_parents.html
20. Save the Children. Parenting Without Violence Key Messages. 2020. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/parenting-without-violence-key-messages
21. Betancourt.T.; Kha.T. The mental health of children affected by armed conflict: Protective processes and pathways to resilience. International review of psychiatry, 2008; 20, 317-328.
22. Cluver.L.; Perks.B.; Rakotomalala.; Maalouf.W. Ukraine’s children: Use evidence to support child protection in emergencies. Bmj, 2022; 376.
23. El-Khatib.Z.; El-Halabi.S.; Abu Khdeir.M.; Khader.Y. Children Immunization App (CImA), Low-Cost Digital Solution for Supporting Syrian Refugees in Zaatari Camp in Jordan - General Description. Stud Health Technol Inform, 2020; 271, 117-120.
24. Play@Home: Games for Health and Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Outbreak. Right to Play 2020. https://inee.org/system/files/resources/Play%20%40%20Home_Covid-19_Games_Packet.pdf
25. International Rescue Committee. Parenting Interventions: Parenting Curriculum (also known as Families Make the Difference, FMD). (n.d.) https://childprotectionpractitioners.org/child-protection-areas-of-intervention/family-level-interventions/parenting-interventions/
26. Save the Children. Adapt. Imagine. Innovate. Child Protection during COVID-19: A catalogue of innovations and adaptations. 2021. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/18855/pdf/covid_19_cp_catalogue_of_innovations_final_.pdf