Children, Young People and Flooding: Recovery and Resilience 2013-2016

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This is a qualitative data collection gathered with two groups of children and young people (from one rural and one urban location) who were affected by the 2013/14 UK winter floods. The project had three key aims, Firstly, to understand the children’s experiences of the flood, their resilience and the longer-term recovery process. Secondly, to illuminate the relationship between children’s multi-sensory experience of flooding and the recovery strategies they developed. Thirdly, to understand how children can best be supported in a flood, what their unique needs might be and how to enhance their resilience to future emergencies. The data set is comprised of a mix of transcribed group conversations and photographs collected during four day-long workshops in each location during the 2014-15 school year. The recorded conversations and photographs (taken by the participants and researchers) were gathered during walks with the children around local areas that had been flooded. Further conversations then took place in ‘phototalk’ sessions and then in model-making sessions when the children created individual and group 3D representations of their experience. Other conversations comprised semi-structured one-to-one interviews with some of the young people who requested an interview, as well as with adults affected by flooding, and who were involved in community response and recovery.

Children and young people are missing, virtually invisible to the emergency planning process in the UK and more widely, for disasters such as extreme weatherflooding. Studies have shown that when they are mentioned, children are positioned as vulnerable and consequently, problematic for emergency planners, rather than seen as a resource (Emergency Planning College and; Save the Children 2014). Understanding children's perspectives is a vital part of the process of building disaster resilience: children are citizens and community members in their own right. Most studies of hazards have failed to recognise the role of children and young people as social actors and the need to develop participatory methodologies that can empower children both to articulate their experiences and shape responses from relevant agencies and adults. This neglect is particularly problematic given the increasing policy emphasis on building individual and community resilience as a strategy for coping and responding to hazards, and on policy shifts recognising children's right to a voice in decisions which affect their lives, e.g. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12. In-depth qualitative social scientific approaches that facilitate the sharing and exploration of experience and meaning of events in children's lives are needed to fulfil these commitments in this context. The acute storms and floods of winter 2013/4 revealed a problem which, against the background of the 2007 floods where thousands of homes were made uninhabitable, is now understood to be chronic, with 5.2 million properties now at risk of flooding in England alone. There is urgent need a) to document children and young people's perspectives on their experience of flooding in appropriate ways before the next flood season and before their memories recede; b) to develop appropriate responses which build on this enhanced understanding and c) integrate a and b with policy, working with all levels of government and civil society to improve practice in both response and preparedness domains. Some of the complexities experienced by flood-affected children such as enduring long-term effects of living in temporary accommodation, re-locating to a different school, family tensions at home exacerbated by flood-related financial worries and the fear of recurring disaster are beginning to be known. In many cases such disruption to home, school and friendship networks impact on children's longer-term physical and emotional health. Living with these changes and uncertainties was particularly problematic for groups of children in the 2007 Hull floods who felt that they had no one to turn to for help (Medd et al 2014). This project aims: 1. To understand children's experiences of the flood, their resilience and longer-term recovery process. 2. To illuminate the relationship between children's multi-sensory experience of flooding, the recovery strategies they develop, and the longer-term effect of flood disaster on their interactions within home and school, the impact on their educational life chances and health and well-being. 3. To understand how children can best be supported in a flood, what their unique needs might be and how to enhance their resilience to future emergencies. We propose action oriented research in two contrasting flood-affected communities with school age children and young people: i) Thames Valley where in January/February 2014 thousands of households were evacuated ii) Humberside where in December 2013 a third of the children at a village primary school had to leave their homes. We will produce a collaborative report to a) inform the local flood-affected communities b) shape ongoing and future research and c) influence policy and practice across government and third sector.