We have all been deeply affected by the current global pandemic and as I write this blog it is five weeks since the nation was asked to stay at home in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
As a researcher, I have worked closely the local homelessness sector over the last three years and am acutely aware of the pressures they had already been working under before this crisis. Sustained cuts to public sector since 2010 had eroded housing welfare services by 46% between 2010 and 2014 (Perry, 2014). Moreover, evictions from the private rented sector sored by 28% between 2010 and 2017 (Fitzpatrick, et al., 2018).
In this context, hidden forms of homelessness are of particular concern. In 2018, the government recorded that 79,880 households with children in England were living in temporary accommodation; in these households, there were 126,020 children (MHCLG, 2018). In addition to that, the charity Justlife estimated that 51,500 single adults reside in unsupported temporary accommodation in England (Maciver, 2018).
Whilst there is a statutory responsibility for Local Authorities to provide support to families with children, the temporary accommodation offered almost always has a damaging effect on people’s mental and physical health as well as children’s developmental needs. Even before COVID-19, issues such as were already major problems – the Trussell Trust reported a peak rise of 23% from 2018 to 2019 in the number of food parcels distributed nationally (the steepest rise in five years).
It is for these reasons that small projects such as #LockdownLIVEs are so important. As an ongoing project, it hopes to creatively connect Greater Manchester residents living in emergency and temporary accommodation. As a weekly documentary broadcast it has the potential to increase public awareness in a way that can drive political change.
In the first instalment released on Tuesday 28th April 2020, we got a taster of what the project will look like going forward. It already looks like it will become a positive force to connect people and build community. Poetry was provided by one contributor whose engaging style and delivery reminded me of the legendary John Cooper Clarke,
“stay at home and don’t go out, just stop in and isolate. You know what this is all about, you shouldn’t really congregate”
However, it won’t shy away from the real struggles of living in emergency or temporary accommodation. One contributor described that it is a growing struggle to find positive things to do during the day where he lives.
I’m told that each week there will be a theme for each documentary which will help build a discussion about these collective experiences that undoubtably needs to happen. This week’s theme is What’s the first thing you noticed about the place you’re staying?
To find out more, visit @LockdownLIVEs @twitter and Street Support Network on Facebook.
What does physical distancing and the COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ mean for participatory and co-produced research?
There are a number of emerging resources for re-thinking research methods and projects (e.g. Virtual not Viral, MethodsLab) and youth work (e.g. Youth Work Support) in light of the lockdown and physical distancing. This teach-out will further explore the challenges and potentials for doing participatory and co-produced research with young people and communities. The constraints of the lockdown and physical distancing pose considerable challenges to us as participatory researchers, as our work typically emerges through intensive investments in relationships with and between the people we work with. How can we do collaborative work through online tools?How can we seek to decentre academic power and knowledge relations while working from a distance? What types of research and knowledge co-production are foreclosed by the apparent necessity to record and document? What can we learn from communities with greater experience of doing collaborative research remotely?
On Wednesday 22nd April ESRI hosted an online teach out to discuss these issues.
The event was larger than expected. The original plan (@YouthLoneliness Thread) was to bring together 15 people but over 200 expressed an interest in participating. A decision was made to run a bigger event that allowed more people to participate. I’ve spoken to a lot of people in similar positions, wondering how they can continue or plan a research project during lockdown/physical distancing. We need to come together at this time to share knowledge and support one another to champion co-produced research that is courageous and imaginative. COVID-19 is posing considerable challenges to our collective lives. Anxieties over safety, ballooning public deficits and economic uncertainty auger seismic changes to our social, political and economic landscapes. We need to affirm that co-produced work enables those without a voice and without a part can be brought into the public conversation about how we survive and emerge from this pandemic.
We had presentations from Kirsty Liddiard (University of Sheffield) and James Duggan (MMU)
Disabled children’s and childhood studies. With and by children and young people. Plans for impact and engagement determined by them.
Virtual environments are important for activism and advocacy work.
Project team has daily interactions via WhatsApp/Skype/Email/Twitter/closed Facebook group.
Online is often more malleable to different abilities/bodies.
Not tokenistic approach. The young people have undertaken the research and analysis, using new technologies such as online semi-structured qualitative interviews (see slides for list).
There are always doubts about tokenism/imbalance in research, particularly the idea that co-researchers are only capable of doing a certain level of research. We argue they have alternative, legitimate expertise (Nind et al, 2012, 660 & Bucknall).
Virtual methods, access and the body: new forms of citizenship online.
Aware of digital exclusion. Work with what Kafer 2013 – ‘crip time’ allowing for e.g. different hours of availability, fatigue, medical routines. Embodied experiences – interruptions are not unwelcome but disrupt embodied modes of enquiry.
Research team co-writes together online.
Disability research during the pandemic: ‘Your ‘only’ is my ‘everything’ – came from parent in Living Life to the Fullest in relation to focus on ‘the vulnerable’ being at risk – used to allay people’s fears.
The Coronavirus Act suspends duties of Las in Care Act, 2014. Removing this obligation is deeply impactful.
Is now the right time for research? Should we be focusing on enquiry when survival is key?
Loneliness Connects Us (with Janet Batsleer): 14 co-researchers and engaged 200 young people.
Used a carousel of methods to build the young people’s research capacity. Also worked with game/theatre designers to develop an immersive experience called ‘Missing,’ which toured the country.
The ‘carousel of methods’ allowed people to make a sustained contribution, so they could, e.g. contribute to one session and then another a few months later. This allowed them to participate if they had chaotic lives. We used community philosophy, made things, worked with body and movement etc. The young people selected the topics.
We were interested in the different responses is we spoke to them cold about loneliness (e.g. ‘I go for a walk in the park.’) versus those that emerge during an immersive experience. This is why we chose the ‘escape room’ format for ‘Missing.’
FOMO: we worked with the idea of the fear of missing out re online representations.
I have a different idea of coproduction. I struggle with the idea that it is empowering/committed to social justice. It’s not as clear with what I do (as what Kirsty does). I’m interested in the question ‘How are you empowering people?’ More about the speculative. Proposing constraints and ‘lures’ for feeling to help people orient themselves in the world. Isabelle Stengers– ‘It matters.’
Left on Read: the plan was to focus on loneliness, how the young people want to approach it and what do. However, my usual project imaginaries focus on the model of the lab – bringing people together in a room. Now I’m thinking about the more contextualised place of young people’s homes. ‘Home labs.’ How we can use them to engage with something that helps to think around loneliness.
Often I’m interested in the coproduction of failure.
I’m also thinking about the potential issues with Homelabs.
I’m working with the City of Literature on this project that mobilises the ideas around Afrofuturism – a comic (book)-based provocation:
How has your life changed? What world would you want to go back to?
And we want people to create responses to the comic. And it could become a rough-and-ready/co-produced version of the No Small Plans project.
*Stephanie Bolt asked the question – what happens to the young people next?
Then 5 breakout conversations
Edmund Coleman-Fountain (Northumbria) – co-producing sensitive research in lockdown, issues with privacy with, e.g., intimate and sexual citizenship
Work on sexual citizenship. Challenges in locked down longer-term.
What if e.g. LGBT people are locked down with people who they haven’t come out to/they can’t comfortably express themselves around.
What are the challenges of doing research during lockdown?
What challenges to co-production research do lockdown conditions present, specific to sensitive and intimate topics?
How can technology vs embodied togetherness help us to navigate the situation?
Is now the right time? If not. When?
Caroline Bald. Social work lecturer. Looking at young carer’s experiences.
Ned asked – how do you find appropriate methods for dialogue? Is it important to e.g. get away from voice?
Catherine Dod…(missed name). Undertakes policy research into HIV. Wonders if the answer is hybrid approaches. Young people can see us but can type replies. But some may not be able to type. Is it about fluidity? Access to headsets to increase privacy? Could exchange take place over a protracted space/time?
Michelle…(missed name – Healthcare professional): Had a call this afternoon about trauma-informed approach to primary care. At the start we did introductions – where are you? Is there anyone else who can overhear you? Being aware that people may not be in a situation where they can speak freely.
If there is a facilitator, can there be an online chat so people can support one-to-one afterwards if something arises and people don’t feel comfortable speaking but need support?
Alex Marland: Trainee teacher. Ask the young people. They usually know what apps work best for them. Better for us to learn what they know rather than expecting them to.
Introductions:
Fiona McHardy Research & Information Manager at the Poverty Alliance.
Rachel Marsden: Enjoying the interdisciplinary focus. Different backgrounds. Something to be said about the wealth of shared knowledge. Does practice-based research in the arts. Contemporary arts, action archive, trauma of body, representations of chronic illness in art.
Anna Pilson (Durham) – Dealing with the practicalities, safeguarding, platforms, and choices
Tania de St Croix (KCL) – Rethinking the early stages of co-production
Christine Smith (Hull) – Doing memory work and collective biography during lockdown
Ben Bowman (MMU) This is not a webinar: how can we [have fun and] share co-production in isolation?
The internet is full of instructional videos, dance clips, TED talks and other one-way, producer-consumer multimedia interactions. That’s fine, but it’s not what we’re usually looking for in co-production. What tools, skills and approaches can we use to resist, adapt to, or subvert those one-way relationships?
1. For me, right now (in #covid19) the internet is so full of classrooms – classrooms for yoga, classrooms for sourdough baking, teaching and webinars and talks. pic.twitter.com/rpNIkp1VS1
Prof Keri Facer (University of Bristol/ University of Uppsala) Reflections and ways forward
Remember – collaborative work is difficult enough as it is.
Remember digital isn’t the only thing. There are posters, flyers, collective making.
In my organisation, we have shifted a lot of face-to-face activities to writing (email).
Look at all the work on digital divides since the ‘90s. This is not just about access to technology.
Look particularly at work in LMICs. Instead of thinking of the end user as one person in a room, think of the collective. That one person connecting and communicating with others, e.g. Steve Woolgar’s work.
Don’t try and make it all up on your own. Ask for institutional support. Demand that e.g. ethics an tech teams support you and recognise that we are working in different conditions.
Opportunities: How often do we get so many people together like this otherwise? Look at South African Community Action Networks. Reach one, teach one. Taking a lot from barefoot college traditions in India.
Mutual Aid – there has been a massive growth. How do we get behind and support this activity? Not trying to get on with what we wanted to do before. Just because it’s an emergency doesn’t mean we should rush. The same rules for collaborative research apply: take things slowly, create space, have conversations, work with brokers (trusted intermediaries).
How does this work bleed into our every day lives? Recognise this is emotional labour – responsibility for self-care.
Research councils: Take for granted they will give no cost extensions. Slow things down.
As ever – who’s not involved? Who are we not speaking to?
This is a moment for building solidarity – collaboration not competition. Collective fights, not individual. What might it look like if we networked this group?
If you are interested in future events on #CoProdLockdown please get in touch (J.Duggan [@] mmu.ac.uk)
Special thanks to Kirsty Liddiard, Anna Pilson, Tania de St Croix, Keri Facer, Ben Bowman, Christine Smith, Ned Coleman-Fontain for presenting. And to Laura Breen for taking notes that are included in this post.
April 12th is the International Day for Street Children. This year, organisations around the world will be marking the day between April 8th and 15thand our researchers at ESRI would like to take the opportunity to recognise the work of two of the organisations that they collaborate with in Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo*.
ESRI’s focus
on street-connectedness, education and social justice is led by Dr Su Corcoran
who has over a decade’s experience of either working or conducting research
with street-connected young people. In 2017, she co-edited an edition of Enabling Education Review that showcases a variety of ways in
which organisations around the world enable street-connected young people’s
access to education and has been focusing on this area of research in her work
in East and Central Africa.
The Mombasa County response team led by Glad’s House; Liz from Glad’s House filling a food parcel
Kenya
In 2018/19,
she led the British Academy-funded (Re-)engaging
street-connected young people with education in Mombasa project in collaboration with Glad’s
House. Exploring
street-connected young people’s opinions and experiences of education to inform
future social work practice, the team – which includes Kelvin Mugwanga (Senior
Social Worker), Irene Atieno (Street Worker), and Dr Lilian Awimbo (Counsellor),
found that negative experiences of schooling can be a key motivating factor for
dropping out of school and migrating to the street. These experiences – in
addition to feelings of (not) belonging, shame, and stigmatisation – can
present barriers to going (back) into education as well as the cycles of
dependency that are set up and reinforced by civil society organisations and
‘Good Samaritans’ taking an adhoc and uncoordinated approach to supporting
street-based communities. The complete findings and recommendations for
practice can be found in the final project report, which should be uploaded
onto the project page at the end of April 2020. The team are now hoping to develop a follow
on project that will focus on inclusive pedagogies of education practice.
Currently, while Kenya prepares to go into lockdown in the wake of COVID 19, the Glad’s House team are working to ensure that the young people they support are not forgotten. It is an especially hard time for young people who are street-connected and homeless, as they have nowhere to go when cities and countries go into lockdown. Glad’s House have contributed to a Street Invest blog post that shares the experiences and fears of street-connected young people in Ghana, Kenya, and Bangladesh, as well as guidelines for street workers during the pandemic that Street Invest have compiled. In practice, the organisation is working to ensure that homeless young people are as safe as they can possibly be. They have delivered food parcels to the young people and families they support and have also been working to install water tanks and facilities that street-connected young people can access to ensure that they are able to follow the COVID 19 recommendations of washing hands frequently and staying safe. In addition, Glad’s House are currently leading a response team comprising a number of non-governmental organisations and the County Government to develop a united, targeted approach to the issue.
The water tank set up by Glad’s House in Maboxini
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Dr Corcoran and Professor Kate Pahl’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and Global Challenges Research Fund networking project, Belonging and Learning, explored the use of arts methodologies to facilitate dialogue between displaced populations in Kenya, Uganda, and the DRC, and policy makers concerned with education and training. Using a different creative process in each country, policy makers were invited to take part in workshops with either street-connected young people or refugees to discuss the young people’s experiences and the challenges they faced in accessing education. In the DRC, Thomas D’Aquin Rubambura from the organisation PEDER, co-facilitated the workshop, bringing local policy makers together with various education stakeholders to write poetry or short plays concerned with children’s right to education. The project report will be available to read here at the end of April 2020.
A PEDER listening post
PEDER takes an holistic approach in their work with street-connected young people, from providing trustworthy adults on the streets of Bukavu who can support them to running multiple centres that provide vocational training for street-connected and vulnerable young people. One aspect of PEDER’s work that is inspiring is the installation of Listening Posts across the city. These small sheds are manned at set times every day to ensure that if they need to find a trustworthy adult, young people know when and where to find one. In the current COVID 19 climate, the DRC government have imposed rigorous measures to prevent the spread of the virus and most of these interventions have had to close. As it is important that young people access the government advice on the virus, PEDER is prioritising tools for raising awareness with street-connected young people. They are developing a communication system focused on the health of the young people they support: providing necessary information about COVID 19 in order to reduce the risk of contamination and setting up operational alert mechanisms to monitor their health situation and decide modes of referral to specialised services when needed. PEDER are also part of a Protection Cluster network of organisations, coordinated by UNICEF, and will meet to discuss a collaborative advocacy approach to supporting street-connected and vulnerable young people that they will take to local government.
Dr Corcoran and Professor Pahl are hoping to develop their collaborations with both organisations in the future.
* Due to the length of this blog we can only focus on two organisations, but Su and Kate would like to recognise the important work of Kito International, Fikisha Kenya, Zero Street Child Foundation, Retrak, Child Rescue Kenya, Project Elimu, InterAid, Karunalaya, Street Child United (SCU), and all organisations participating in the 2018 Street Child World Cup and 2019 Street Child Cricket World Cup – as well as their contributions to their current and past research projects.
