Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Young People, and on Their Access to Food, Education and Play and Leisure in England and the West Midlands, 2020-2024

Andres, Lauren (2025). Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Young People, and on Their Access to Food, Education and Play and Leisure in England and the West Midlands, 2020-2024. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857718

PANEX-Youth aimed to understand how young people have adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess the wider impact of such processes of adaptations in England (ESRC), South Africa (NRF) and Brazil (FAPESP). To do so, we adopted a nexus approach, focusing on the interconnections between three key elements of children and young people’s everyday lives that were impacted by the pandemic: food, education, and play/leisure. These elements were embedded within a wider understanding of the settings (local places) and home/personal contexts (household composition and home/personal life) of children and young people.

The findings of the research aim to support global recovery and the longer-term resilience of societies in a post-pandemic world. To achieve this we used an action research methodology to co-create knowledge with young people, and the communities in which they live, along with non-government bodies and non-profit organisations that focus on this age group.

Data description (abstract)

The project had Four Research Stages

Stage 1 – Global Mapping Exercise
Aim: Map and develop typologies of the pandemic’s impact on the food/education/play-leisure nexus, with a focus on young people’s vulnerabilities globally, based on an international, integrative review of research and policy literatures.
Stage 2: – National and Regional Mapping (Brazil, South Africa, UK)
Aim: Examine key impacts of pandemic-related policy on young people’s access to and adaptations around food, education and play/leisure at the national, regional and local scale.
Stage 3: Zooming in on local adaptations of young people in monetary-poor households
Aim: In-depth research with professional stakeholders and young people in each case study region, with a focus on incremental and innovative strategies and the impact of those adaptations on everyday survival and recovery. In England, this research took place in Birmingham and the West Midlands. In total, we worked with 87 young people, using qualitative methods such as interviews and visual mapping. The research was co-produced with young people: we worked with a core group of ten young people from Birmingham City Council’s Youth Voice team, who co-designed some of the methods, undertook peer research with some of the young people in our sample, and co-analysed data.
Stage 4: Co-design of solutions to foster young people’s recovery and resilience
Aim: Co-design solutions with our community of young people and key professionals that will help vulnerable young people to recover and be prepared in the eventuality of future major health and socio-economic crises. In England, this process took place in Birmingham and the West Midlands and involved the same core group discussing the project’s main findings. Through a series of workshops, young people’s recommendations were created and tested with us and a selected group of professional stakeholders.

Stage 1 - Interviews with key organisations working in the food/education/play sector and with children and youth.

The team conducted 32 interviews with key organisations between February and June 2023. The aim was to situate and identify what had been the key impacts of pandemic-related policy towards the food, education, play/leisure nexus of issues facing young people during and after COVID-19, in England. It also sought to examine what policy/programmes/initiatives were developed, and how local places mattered (including home life/household contexts). To do so, we identified representatives from a range of organisations that played a key role in supporting young people and/ or in assessing the impacts of the pandemic on them.

Sampling was done through desk-based research based on a review of national and regional review of the literature and reports and further on snowballing, we identified non-governmental and non-profit organisations that played a key contribution in supporting young people and/or assessing the impact and repercussions of the pandemic on them. Selection of the interviews was made either through their role across the country or because of their contribution at regional and city levels. The number of 30 was considered as commensurate with the methods used in similarly-sized comparative projects of similar scale.
This included representatives from the following types of organisations:

• Charities (incl. Foundations and Think-Tanks) working either across England or in specific English regions, and specialized in the following sectors: food education, food policy, food provision
(including food banks) and healthy food; education provision, education and digital technology, education policy, education and youth, social mobility and educational disadvantage; play provision, play policy; support to disadvantaged and vulnerable young people.
• Not-for profit social enterprises focusing on youth education, youth employment, food and nutrition.
• Schools/Colleges.
• Private Companies specialized in supporting education organisations and play provision.
• Research Institutions with specific expertise in education, food and health and children/young people.
• Local and Combined Authorities.
• Diocesan and Faith groups.
• National networks representing community
organisations in the faith and play sector.
• Young People Ambassadors.

While looking at England as a whole, we also zoomed on West Midlands/Birmingham. The West Midlands was one of the hardest-hit parts of the UK during COVID-19. The region includes some of the most deprived neighbourhoods and a younger than average population. The intent of the interviews was twofold: 1) to understand each organisation’s response to supporting young people during/after COVID-19, and 2) from the organisation’s views, to identify what adaptations and tactics young people used to deal with the challenges that COVID-19 and associated lockdowns presented. Interview questions focused on the following themes: The role of the organisation and how they engaged with young people, the impact of the pandemic of the food/ education/play-leisure nexus, the connection between vulnerability, place, social networks and adaptation, the legacy of Covid-19 and the importance of the cost of living crisis. All interviews were recorded, and our research fully conformed with UCL’s ethical guidance. The interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed, with 37 core themes extracted.

Stage 2 - Interviews with Young People

Aim: In-depth research with professional stakeholders and young people in the West Midlands with a focus on incremental and innovative strategies and the impact of those adaptations on everyday survival and recovery.

In total, we worked with 89 young people, aged 10-24. The research was co-produced with young people: we worked with a core group of ten young people from Birmingham City Council’s Youth Voice team, who co-designed some of the methods, undertook peer research with some of the young people in our sample, and co-analysed data. Data archived relates to interviews with young people conducted by the Panex Youth Research Fellow.

Young people were recruited from a range of settings across the case study region. Predominantly, young people were recruited from youth groups, youth centres and schools. Sampling was done based on age, gender, ethnicity, status (i.e. student or in employment), place of living.

While not ‘representative’, per se, this has ensured coverage of a range of different living conditions and (along with working with established schools networks and NGOs in each region) enable recruitment of young people. This was commensurate with the methods used in similarly-sized comparative projects working with youth (Kraftl et al., 2019) and enables sampling for diverse youth while again not seeking ‘representativeness’ in this qualitative study.
The main methods for this strand of research were interviews and visual web discussions conducted through workshops between June 2023 and May 2024
Some activities were not recorded and transcribed, for example the workshops done with 32 primary school pupils nor the other workshops done with young people. Owing to the impossibility of anonymising the mapping exercise and visual webs (which were intensely personal in nature and showed data about young people’s homes, schools and workplaces), we cannot deposit these data. We have not taken this decision lightly but this is the only way that we can conform to our project’s ethical principles.

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