Harmful Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Parents and Carers

Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH)

DOI: 10.13056/acamh.22059
In this podcast, we are joined by Dr. Hope Christie, a teaching fellow at the Center for Research on Children and Families at the Department of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Hope is the first author of the paper, ‘Examining harmful impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures on parents and carers in the United Kingdom: A rapid review’ doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12095 published in JCPP Advances. There is an overview of the paper, methodology, key findings, and implications for practice.
Discussion points include;

• Why parents appear to have suffered disproportionately compared to non-parents during national lockdown restrictions
• Why the pandemic was so hard for so many parents
• Why kinship carers may have struggled more
• Parents with children aged 10 or younger reported high levels of stress when restrictions were highest, whereas parents with older children reported more depressive symptoms
• How the impact of COVID-19 pandemic continues to manifest with many parents still suffering disproportionately
• How parents at the greatest risk might be best supported, now and in the event of a future lockdown
• Advice for parents or carers, CAMH professionals and policy makers.