How are the caregivers doing? Learning from ChildFund's Covid-19 global response plan and a study of caregiver wellbeing in rural Guatemala

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Caregiver wellbeing in the context of COVID-19: evolving strategies to assess and respond to an evolving global crisis

Proposal

The COVID-19 crisis has intensified and shed light on the challenges faced by caregivers worldwide. As schools closed, social gathering ceased to be allowed, jobs were lost, and learning vastly moved to online platforms, the pandemic has disproportionally affected those communities and families already in vulnerable conditions. Many caregivers suddenly found themselves having to teach and care for their young children, while protecting the health of their families, often facing new dire financial challenges and the stressors coming from it. These new hardships have especially affected those who would normally rely on their social networks for support. More than half a year after the beginning of the pandemic, the international audience is asking what the short and mid-term effect of COVID-19 has had on caregivers’ wellbeing, and its impact on their ability to care for their young children (Prime, Wade, & Browne, 2020; Yoshikawa et al., 2020).
In response to the global pandemic, ChildFund International (ChildFund) launched a global COVID-19 response plan to support families, including the provision of food security responses such as cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and the delivery of food baskets. Across 20 countries, ChildFund has liaised with local and national governments, and local partners, to initiate, complement, and adapt services to meet the immediate needs of families. As communities started to be impacted by the disruption caused by the virus, response activities also included those in support of the psychosocial wellbeing of caregivers.
Since May 2020, ChidFund has been conducting an ongoing, “rapid response” global process and outcome evaluation study to examine both the implementation characteristics (i.e., barriers, enablers, lessons learned) and results of the response activities. Using this global monitoring and evaluation (M&E) study data, the presentation will first share the strategies, barriers, enablers, and lessons learned around providing support to caregivers during the pandemic across countries.
The presentation will then share an in-depth look at the caregiver experience in one country—Guatemala. This case study, will share findings from the examination of caregiver stress (depression and anxiety) as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (Kroenke, Spitzer & Williams, 2003) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (Löwe et al., 2008) and its relationship to food insecurity as measured by the Household Hunger Scale (Ballard, Coates, Swindale, & Deitchler, 2011). The case study will focus on a segment of the population in rural Guatemala, where families might be at greater risk for suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to understanding how the disruption to normal access to public services and networks have created distress, disrupted parenting practices, and might affect child adjustment, the presentation will discuss challenges and success in connecting with families in unprecedent times.

Authors

• Cassandra Scarpino, ChildFund International

• Sandra Sandoval, Child Fund Guatemala

• Darcy Strouse, ChildFund International