VIP-CLEAR

Project funder

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Project team

• Professor Lindsey McEwen (Project Lead)
• Dr Sara Williams
• Dr Deepak Gopinath
• Dr Toity Deave
• Dr Verity Jones
• Dr Laura Hobbs
• Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers
• Dr Amanda Webber

Research partners/collaborators

• Luci Gorell Barnes (socially-engaged artist) as co-researcher
• Glenfrome Primary School
• Filton Avenue Primary School
• May Park Primary School
• Parkwall Primary School
• Speedwell Nursery
• Hartcliffe Nursery
• Action for Children
• Bristol City Council
• Bristol Museums/Archives
• Bristol Curiosity Connections
• Bristol Mayor’s Office

Project summary

The VIP-CLEAR project explores how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the learning, development, health and wellbeing of vulnerable, socially-disadvantaged children (early years: three to five years; primary: five to eleven years) in England by capturing their voices and experiences.  Their families live with multiple uncertainties, stresses and vulnerabilities, making these children more susceptible to COVID-19 impacts and highlighting deep societal inequalities. 

The interdisciplinary research aimed to: 

• gather and critically evaluate the worldviews, perceptions and experiences of social-disadvantaged children during the COVID-19 response
• draw learning from the above to support their involvement in ‘recovery’
• build anticipatory resilient capital from their experiences in preparation for future social shocks, including pandemics.

The project focused on multicultural Bristol, where the research team have well-established relationships with practitioners/ stakeholders in children’s learning, health and wellbeing. This helped ensure meaningful co-production with local, regional and national partners (nursery centres, schools, Bristol City Council and Action for Children) for immediate translation of our findings in policy and practice at different scales.

The project gathered and exchanged critical ‘data’ quickly using creative, participatory ‘daylighting’ methodologies that are child-focused and multi-channel. Our methods interwove socially-engaged arts practice with social science to capture nuances and trends in children’s voices and ensure their views are included.

Key outputs

Please see the project website for resources generated by the project.

• An archive of children’s voices (housed at Bristol Archives)
• A primary school book entitled Learning to live with fog monsters
• Educational resources 
• Policy recommendations and reports
• A primary school book
• Creative research outputs
• Webinars
• Peer-reviewed publications
  
  Williams, S., Webber, A. D., McEwen, L. J., Barnes, L. G., Deave, T., Gopinath, D., Hobbs, L., Jones, V. and Fogg-Rogers, L. (2021) Voices in a pandemic: Listening to the voices of children in a pandemic through arts-based, deep mapping methods adapted for online delivery. In SAGE Research Methods Cases.
  
  Williams, S., McEwen, L. J., Gorell Barnes, L., Deave, T., Webber, A., Jones, V., Fogg-Rogers, L., Gopinath, D. and Hobbs, L. (2023) The tree(s) of hope and ambition: An arts-based social science informed, participatory research method to explore children's future hopes, ambitions and support in relation to COVID-19. Children & Society, 00, 1– 20.
  
  Webber, A. D., Jones, V., McEwen, L., Deave, T., Gorell Barnes, L., Williams, S., … Gopinath, D. (2024). Voices in a pandemic: using deep mapping to explore children’s sense of place during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK. Children’s Geographies, 22(4), 565–580.
   
• Practitioner journal outputs for teachers
  
  Jones, V., McEwen, L., Webber, A., Williams, S., Deave, T., Hobbs, L., Fogg Rogers, L., Gopinath, D., and Gorell Barnes, L. (2023). Learning from children’s experiences of lockdown: Talking about invisible threats. Primary Science, 7-9.

Key findings

The VIP-CLEAR project aimed to capture the voices of young people in Bristol during the mitigation phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. The arts-based research process - framed by researchers as a creative diary - involved working with children of different ages (3-11 years) in two Early Year Centres and four primary schools in socially disadvantaged areas of Bristol, UK.

The emergent research process had three phases (with two activities per phase): deep mapping of the child's world at the time of the activity, an arts photo-elicitation activity and a forward-looking ‘Tree of Hope and Ambition’ activity. This work involved significant methodological development and interdisciplinary reflection, particularly considering the otherness of children.

Key research findings include the diversity of children's experience along various continua and the amplification of existing stresses through COVID-19 and its mitigation. We produced a policy brief based on evidence from the deep mapping work has been shared regionally and nationally, and we are securing feedback on its impact. We have targeted our outputs to different audiences working out from the individual child.

The primary book, Learning to live with fog monsters, was based on the children’s voices we garnered in our research and is designed to support children through hidden risks and social shocks like pandemics but also climate change, threat of war etc. This book has been shared locally, regionally and nationally through different networks (e.g. School Library Association; School Wellbeing Partnership; County-level local government).

Two interdisciplinary refereed journal articles and a SAGE case-study are now published, with two others in preparation. All will have accompanying public-facing blogs. There are also a teacher-facing articles sharing the book and related child-centred activities in Primary Science.

We have updated the VIP-CLEAR website to improve its accessibility as a resource bank and in its articulation of outcomes from the project.

Project contacts

For further information about the project, please contact Professor Lindsey McEwen (Lindsey.Mcewen@uwe.ac.uk) or Dr Amanda Webber (Amanda.Webber@uwe.ac.uk).