I.
CONTEXT AND INTRODUCTION
The economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly disrupted the lives of young children and their caregivers. In March 2020, India went into lockdown, creating widespread economic disruption. Many people lost their sources of income and livelihoods, creating economic pressures on families with young children. Social interactions came to a halt as families adopted social distancing norms and limited movement outside the home, reducing access to informal caregiving networks. The crisis and lockdown have transformed the lives of young children and their caregivers; it seems almost certain that this will have long-lasting impacts. Institutional support mechanisms also underwent significant shifts to respond to the pandemic, furthering the disruptions parents and young children experienced. Healthcare and welfare services such as the ICDS system provide wide-ranging institutional support to parents to help with young learning and development. However, these systems affected many routine services, some of which were critical for young children, as focus shifted to preparing for and addressing the spread of COVID-19. For instance, one study found that over half of the parents with children under the age of five did not have access to immunization in April 20208. These changes further impacted parents who were also dealing with the loss of livelihood and social support. At the same time, frontline workers (ASHA and AWWs) took on additional COVID-19 activities which put major stress. The opening up of economies post-lockdown has resulted in a resumption of work and a recovery of livelihoods, but many services remain disrupted. For example, AWCs and pre-schools continue to remain shut in many parts of the country, meaning that young children continue to spend the their time at home with minimum learning support even while their parents have resumed paid work outside. By the time society and the economy open up completely, our youngest children will have lived a substantial portion of their first few years in crisis and recovery mode, with likely impacts on their physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development. These impacts will vary across socioeconomic groups in India. Given the importance of early childhood and especially the first 1,000 days of life, decision-makers need to understand the key impacts of the pandemic on the availability and delivery of ECD services for young children and their caregivers and use this evidence to further strengthen the ECD services for this and future crises. Our study is designed to answer two key research questions: 1) How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the availability and delivery of various ECD services for children under six years old across the various domains of early childhood development? 2) How has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the lives of the caregivers along with the frontline workers who provide ECD services to children under six, both at home and in the community? We explore both these research questions through two quantitative surveys, a set of in-depth interviews9 with caregivers, consultations with experts, and other research efforts.
6 | Evidence-based response to ECD during the COVID-19 crisis
