• COVID-19
• 4. Education close

Students have been multiply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic: threats to their own and their family’s health, the closure of schools, and pivoting to online learning in March 2020, a long summer of physical distancing, and then the challenge of returning to school in fall 2020. As damaging as the physical health effects of a global pandemic are, much has been speculated about the “second wave” of mental health crises, particularly for school-aged children and adolescents. Yet, few studies have asked students about their experiences during the pandemic. The present study engaged with over two thousand ( N = 2,310; 1,288 female; Mage = 14.5) 12- to 18-year-old Alberta students during their first few weeks of return-to-school in fall 2020. Students completed an online survey that asked about their perceptions of COVID-19, their fall return-to-school experiences (84.9% returned in-person), their self-reported pandemic-related stress, and their behavior, affect, and cognitive functioning in the first few weeks of September. The majority of students (84.9%) returned to school in person. Students reported moderate and equal concern for their health, family confinement, and maintaining social contact. Student stress levels were also above critical thresholds for 25% of the sample, and females and older adolescents (age 15–18 years) generally reported higher stress indicators as compared to males and younger (age 12–14 years) adolescents. Multivariate analysis showed that stress indicators were positively and significantly correlated with self-reported behavioral concerns (i.e., conduct problems, negative affect, and cognitive/inattention), and that stress arousal (e.g., sleep problems, hypervigilance) accounted for significant variance in behavioral concerns. Results are discussed in the context of how schools can provide both universal responses to students during COVID-19 knowing that most students are coping well, while some may require more targeted strategies to address stress arousal and heightened negative affect.

SHAPE-ID has been funded by the European Commission to explore the challenge of how to better support the integration of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) perspectives into interdisciplinary research with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and other scientific disciplines, including Medicine, particularly in the context of addressing societal challenges. In this context, SHAPE-ID Work Package 3 (WP3) organised a series of workshops to learn directly from the experiences of researchers from across disciplines, as well as policy makers, funders and representatives from research performing organisations, industry and the cultural sector. This deliverable comprises two parts: Section A illustrates the matrix for integration of learning cases and the framework of analysis that was co-designed with the SHAPE-ID partners at the Co-Design Workshop, held at ISINNOVA, in Rome, on 13-14 June 2019. Section B illustrates a challenge-oriented research evaluation framework, criteria and tools proposed to evaluate research projects, as well as an evaluation methodology proposed for the learning workshops.

Around the world, many schools were closed as one of the measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. School closure brought about important challenges to the students' learning process. This context requires strong self-regulatory competences and agency for autonomous learning. Moreover, online remote learning was the main alternative response to classroom learning, which increased the inequalities between students with and without access to technological resources or for those with low digital literacy. All considered, to level the playing field for students without digital resources, there is an urgent need to promote self-regulatory competences through offline intervention solutions. The current paper describes a project with this purpose, using radio broadcasting and letters to reach elementary students without digital resources. Moreover, potential reach and participants' perspectives of the project implementation are presented and discussed. The project draws on a prior evidence-based story-tool intervention grounded on a self-regulated learning framework. The original intervention was set previous to the COVID-19 pandemic and was implemented in the classroom context (N= 1,103 students). Once the schools had been closed down, the mode of intervention was adapted with the collaboration of the community. Alternative solutions were developed as follows: (i) story chapters were read on the radio and students received to their homes a printed script, prompting reflection, and suggesting related activities; (ii) students were provided with the story-tool to read autonomously and received letters from the main characters of the story which included, for example, suggestions for activities and reflection. These two alternative modes of intervention delivery potentially reached 394 elementary students, including students with digital resources. Interviews conducted with a group of students were provided information about the positive aspects of these two modes of intervention delivery, perceived learning (e.g., planning), constraints, and suggestions to improve the project. The current work is likely to merit attention from researchers and educational practitioners, given the need to use offline alternatives to provide support for students without digital resources to engage in autonomous learning during the pandemic period. This project may also be used as an alternative or a complementary solution to online modality.

Objectives: Co-constructive patient simulation (CCPS) is a novel medical education approach that provides a participatory and emotionally supportive alternative to traditional supervision and training. CCPS can adapt iteratively and in real time to emergent vicissitudes and challenges faced by clinicians. We describe the first implementation of CCPS in psychiatry.Methods: We co-developed clinical scripts together with child and adolescent psychiatry senior fellows and professional actors with experience performing as simulated patients (SPs). We conducted the simulation sessions with interviewers blind to the content of case scenarios enacted by the SPs. Each hour-long simulation was followed by an hour-long debriefing session with all participants. We recorded and transcribed case preparation, simulation interactions, and debriefing sessions, and analyzed anonymized transcripts through qualitative analysis within a constructivist framework, aided by NVivo software.Results: Each of six CCPS sessions was attended by a median of 13 participants (range, 11–14). The first three sessions were conducted in person; the last three, which took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, via synchronized videoconferencing. Each of the sessions centered on clinically challenging and affectively charged situations informed by trainees' prior experiences. Through iterative thematic analysis we derived an alliterating “9R” model centered on three types of Reflection: (a) in action/“while doing” (Regulate, Relate, and Reason); (b) on action/“having done” (Realities, Restraints, and Relationships); and (c) for action/“will be doing” (with opportunities for Repair and Reaffirmation).Conclusions: CCPS is an experiential approach that fosters autonomous, meaningful, and individually tailored learning opportunities. CCPS and the 9R model for reflective practice can be effectively applied to psychiatry and have the potential to contribute uniquely to the educational needs of its trainees and practitioners.

We examine how Canadians living in the East York section of Toronto exchange social support. Just as we have had to deconstruct social support to understand its component parts, we now deconstruct how different types of communication technologies play socially supportive roles. We draw on 101 in-depth interviews conducted in 2013-2014 to shed light on the support networks of a sample of East York residents and discern the role of communication technologies in the exchange of different types of social support across age groups. Our findings show that not much has changed since the 1960s in terms of the social ties that our sample of East Yorkers have, and the types of support mobilized via social networks: companionship, small and large services, emotional aid, and financial support. What has changed is how communication technologies interweave in complex ways with different types of social ties (partners, siblings, friends, etc.) to mobilize social support. We found that with siblings and extended kin communication technologies could boost the frequency of interaction and help exchange support at a distance. With friendship ties, communication technologies provide a continuous, constant flow of interaction. We draw implications for theories of social support and for social policy linked to interventions aimed at helping vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comment: 36 pages, 2 tables, references

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, instructors and students worldwide have been faced with the challenges of shifting from face-to-face to remote education. Due to universities short notice closure, synchronous online instruction through videoconferencing platforms has been the favoured choice for most instructors. In this paper, we report on our experience teaching an online course using Zoom videoconferencing platform. We conduct a two-fold analysis of online synchronous teaching: 1) We first compare the engagement and feedback features offered by Zoom with traditional classroom interactions. We show that some features are challenging to transpose to traditional face-to-face classroom setting while others may require additional hardware and software. 2) We analyze Zoom’s attention tracker tool and evaluate the effectiveness of the attentiveness score as an effective grading metric. Our results show no apparent relationship between the students’ attention as measured by Zoom and their performance. We also show that the use of recordings increases while attention decline during live classes.

The most important feature of modern distance learning is the change of student position, which is reflected in the fact that students, although physically separated from the teacher and other students, can communicate with the teacher and cooperate with other students easily. Following the decision of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the direct teaching in the classroom was stopped and online teaching was introduced. The research sought to determine the experiences of the primary school and subject teachers in relation to the implementation of distance teaching and learning. The total number of 534 teachers from primary schools from the territory of the AP Vojvodina participated in the research, and a questionnaire was created for the needs of the research. The results show that the respondents generally have a positive view of teaching via TV, but they believe that the way of organizing such lessons and the quality of the lessons should be improved. On average, the respondents expressed the view that the lower-grade students can follow the classes on TV more easily than others. The respondents singled out Viber and e-mail as the most useful means of communication with students and parents. The most common type of material distributed to students is textual material with an additional learning content. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that the experiences of teachers are very diverse in terms of different aspects of the implementation of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract Objective The COVID-19 pandemic has had detrimental effects on mental health. Literature on the impact on individuals with eating disorders is slowly emerging. While outpatient eating disorder services in Canada have attempted to transition to virtual care, guidelines related to optimal virtual care in this field are lacking. As such, the objective of our Canadian Consensus Panel was to develop clinical practice guidelines related to the provision of virtual care for children, adolescents, and emerging adults living with an eating disorder, as well as their caregivers, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Methods Using scoping review methodology (with literature in databases from 2000 to 2020 and grey literature from 2010 to 2020), the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system, the Appraisal of Guidelines, Research and Evaluation tool, and a panel of diverse stakeholders from across Canada, we developed high quality treatment guidelines that are focused on virtual interventions for children, adolescents, and emerging adults with eating disorders, and their caregivers. Results Strong recommendations were supported specifically in favour of in-person medical evaluation when necessary for children, adolescents, and emerging adults, and that equity-seeking groups and marginalized youth should be provided equal access to treatment. For children and adolescents, weak recommendations were supported for telehealth family-based treatment (FBT) and online guided parental self-help FBT. For emerging adults, internet cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)-based guided self-help was strongly recommended. Weak recommendations for emerging adults included CBT-based group internet interventions as treatment adjuncts, internet-based relapse prevention Maudsley Model of Anorexia Nervosa Treatment for Adults (MANTRA) guided self-help, telehealth relapse prevention using MANTRA, and guided CBT-based smartphone apps as treatment adjuncts. For caregivers of children and adolescents, weak recommendations were supported for virtual parent meal support training, and moderated online caregiver forums and support groups. For caregivers of emerging adults, guided parental self-help CBT was strongly recommended, and unguided caregiver psychoeducation self-help was weakly recommended. Conclusions Several gaps for future work were identified including the impact of sex, gender, race, and socioeconomic status on virtual care among children, adolescents, and emerging adults with eating disorders, as well as research on more intensive services, such as virtual day hospitals.