An Interdisciplinary Child Well-Being Network (ICWBN) to study the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children in Ireland and the United Kingdom

背景：新冠肺炎疫情对英国和爱尔兰来说是前所未有的挑战。尽管儿童患严重新冠肺炎的可能性较小，但他们特别容易受到其社会和经济后果的影响。为遏制病毒传播而采取的措施，如学校停课和居家命令，可能会加剧儿童及其家庭之间的社会经济不平等。在英国和爱尔兰，有孩子的家庭遭受了十年前经济危机和紧缩政策的一些最糟糕的后果。新冠肺炎疫情对两国都造成了冲击，而此时儿童贫困率已经很高。2018年，爱尔兰近五分之一的18岁以下儿童和英国四分之一的儿童面临贫困的风险。AIMS&目标：该项目将在英国和爱尔兰建立一个关于儿童福祉的学术和非学术专家网络。新的跨学科儿童福祉网络将研究新冠肺炎危机对儿童生活水平的影响，以及随着他们年龄的增长，他们在健康、发展、教育成就和生活满意度方面的成果。该网络将汇集社会科学领域的理论、证据和方法。该项目有两个主要研究目标：1)建立跨学科儿童福祉网络(ICWBN)该项目将汇集来自英国和爱尔兰的学术和非学术儿童福祉专家，包括虚拟和面对面的。它不仅将促进来自不同社会科学学科的网络成员之间的合作，而且还将提供一个平台，通过一个新的网站(博客、播客、网络研讨会)和社交媒体(推特)向不同的非专业受众交流他们的研究和宣传活动。该小组还将编写一份政策简报，强调在新冠肺炎大流行的背景下关注儿童福祉的重要性。2)制定促进儿童福祉的跨学科研究议程：a)从跨学科的社会科学角度了解新冠肺炎大流行对儿童及其家庭造成的社会和经济后果以及相关的遏制措施，包括学校停课。b)绘制新冠肺炎危机与儿童在健康、教育和主观幸福感方面的结果之间潜在的直接和间接途径。c)提出政策措施，以缓冲新冠肺炎危机对儿童成长的负面影响。首先，项目团队将组织一次虚拟的“核心小组”会议，讨论核心网络当前和未来的研究计划，并寻找跨学科的协作资助机会，以研究“新冠肺炎”危机对儿童的影响。其次，在都柏林举办的为期一天的研讨会将有助于在网络成员之间建立新的联系，讨论他们正在进行和计划中的关于新冠肺炎危机对儿童结局影响的研究，并阐述将于2021年底联合提交的大型协作赠款提案的目的和目标。最后，项目小组将在圣安德鲁斯开会，协助起草联合赠款提案。潜在的应用和好处：ICWBN将很好地记录研究差距，阐明跨学科合作的领域，并为联合赠款申请制定雄心勃勃的研究议程。未来几年，新冠肺炎危机对儿童及其家庭的影响很可能在欧洲和英国的政策和话语中占据核心地位。该项目的结果将使学者、从业者、政策制定者和公众了解危机对儿童生活的长期后果。该项目的调查结果将指向减轻危机负面影响的政策。

CONTEXT: The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented challenge for the UK and Ireland. Although children are less likely to develop a severe form of COVID-19, they are uniquely vulnerable to its social and economic consequences. The measures put in place to curb the spread of the virus, such as school closures and stay-at-home orders, are likely to exacerbate socio-economic inequalities among children and their families. Families with children suffered some of the worst consequences of the economic crisis and austerity ten years ago, in both the UK and Ireland. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit both countries at a time when child poverty rates were already high. Nearly one in five children under 18 in Ireland and one in four in the UK were at risk of poverty in 2018.AIMS & OBJECTIVES: This project will establish a network of academic and non-academic experts on child well-being from across the UK and Ireland. The new Interdisciplinary Child Well-Being Network (ICWBN) will study the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for children's living standards as well as their outcomes in health, development, educational achievement and life satisfaction as they grow older. The network will pool theories, evidence and methodological approaches from across the social sciences.The project has two key research objectives:1) To establish the Interdisciplinary Child Well-Being Network (ICWBN)The project will bring together academic and non-academic child well-being experts from the UK and Ireland, both virtually and face-to-face. It will not only facilitate collaboration between network members from across different social science disciplines, but will also provide a platform for communicating their research and advocacy activities to diverse non-specialist audiences through a new website (blogs, podcasts, webinars) and social media (Twitter). The team will also prepare a policy brief highlighting the importance of focusing on child well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2) To develop an interdisciplinary research agenda for promoting child well-being:a) To understand the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated containment measures, including school closures, for children and their families from an interdisciplinary social science perspective.b) To map potential direct and indirect pathways between the COVID-19 crisis and children's outcomes in health, education and subjective well-being across the life course.c) To propose policy measures to cushion the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children as they grow older.First, the project team will organise a virtual 'core group' meeting to discuss the ongoing and future research plans of the core network and to seek out collaborative interdisciplinary funding opportunities for studying the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on children. Second, a one-day workshop in Dublin will help establish new connections between network members, discuss their ongoing and planned research related to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children's outcomes, and to set out the aims and objectives of a large collaborative grant proposal to be submitted jointly in late 2021. Finally, the project team will meet in St Andrews to facilitate the writing of the joint grant proposal. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS: The ICWBN will be well-placed to document research gaps, elucidate areas for interdisciplinary collaboration and create an ambitious research agenda for joint grant applications. The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on children and their families is likely to hold a central place in European and UK policy and discourse for years to come. The results of this project will inform academics, practitioners, policy makers, and the general public about the longer-term consequences of the crisis for children's lives. The findings of this project will point towards policies to mitigate the negative effects of the crisis.