Covid-19 recovery package needed for children

Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, is calling for a comprehensive recovery package for children affected by the pandemic and provides a roadmap for what should be done to help children to recover from their experiences.

This is part of a report from the Children's Commissioner which exams the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on children.

The report sets out how for many of the most vulnerable children the disruption of the last six months has been damaging and compounded existing inequalities. Even before the crisis struck, there were 2.2 million vulnerable children living in risky home situations in England, including nearly 800,000 children living with domestic abuse and 1.6 million living with parents with severe mental health conditions. The report warns these numbers are likely to have swelled, fuelled by families locked down in close quarters for weeks and months, and an emerging economic crisis adding pressures on family finances.

At the same time, the disruption to children’s education has been sizeable, with schools closed to millions of children for six months. The report predicts a widening of the attainment gap between children from disadvantaged or vulnerable backgrounds and their peers.

The Children’s Commissioner calls for a comprehensive recovery package for children to help mitigate the damage done by the crisis thus far, arguing that central to this package must be significant investment in early help for families starting from the early years. The report says the nation’s efforts to ‘build back better’ must begin with a focus on children, sometimes sadly lacking during the pandemic. Should there be more lockdowns, the report calls on children’s needs to come first.

The report details how millions of children have faced a cocktail of secondary risks which means that many have suffered disproportionately as a result of the crisis. Some of the most vulnerable children, including children in care, children in custody and children with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities have seen their rights actively downgraded at a time when protections should have been increased, not weakened.

The report also warns that faced with the spectre of a winter of Covid-related restrictions across society, followed by a long economic tail including widespread unemployment of the type not seen by the 1980s, the country faces an inter-generational crisis, with the impact of the economic fall-out on parents determining the future prospects of their children, destroying the Government’s promises to ‘level-up’ opportunity.

The report makes a number of recommendations, including acomprehensive recovery package for children to mitigate the damage caused by the crisis. The report calls on the Government to ensure all families have the basic resources to provide care for their children by introducing a pre-emptive package of welfare and housing support for families who have built up rent arrears to counter a potential wave of family homelessness. It argues the £20 uplift in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit for families, due to expire in April 2021, should be retained, and an additional £10 per week child payment introduced.

It also says schools should target their portion of the £1 billion catch up fund on vulnerable and disadvantaged children who have lost out the most – they should not be forced to spend it on PPE, supply teachers or adaptations to school buildings. Reducing educational disparities between disadvantaged children and their wealthier peers must be central to the Government’s levelling up agenda.

The report also urges for next year’s summer exams to be pushed back as far as possible, while ensuring that children receive results in time to progress to college or university as normal in the autumn.