“There is a lot of uncertainty and many crises in the world now. The world is constantly changing, and we need to be better prepared for the future. Families with children are the core of our society, and their well-being and resilience are crucial to our understanding of how to achieve sustainable and resilient societies."
This is according to Katja Upadyaya, researcher at the University of Helsinki and head of the UNIting FAMilies across Nordic countries for resilience, which is part of NordForsk's major initiative on societal security.
The network was established to study and identify the well-being and resilience of Nordic families with children.
‘If well-being is good, there is also resilience,’ she says.
The network includes researchers from the University of Helsinki, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Stockholm University, the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Iceland.
Lessons from the pandemic
How did families in the Nordic countries fare during COVID-19?
“This is one of the things we are trying to map out to gain a better understanding of resilience. There were both similarities and differences between the countries, which are interesting to examine. Sweden and Iceland opened nurseries and schools for younger children, and there were more social meeting places than in Finland, Norway and Denmark," she says, adding:
"Some vulnerable families had a harder time and suffered during the social shutdown, while there were also families who felt more united because everyone was at home and could do more activities together. Some children became more engaged in their education during the pandemic, while others struggled with home schooling. We need to understand how the situation was for different groups of families and remember that the experiences were not the same for everyone. The aim is to find out how we can support different groups more, because that is an important lesson for us.”
What lessons about the well-being of families with children during the pandemic can we take with us into a future pandemic or crisis?
"We have already learned a lot, but in the network, we are trying to map out what happened specifically to families with children in order to get an even clearer picture. Since the pandemic, for example, we have established digital healthcare, and we have become better at listening to children and young people, so I believe that we are already in the process of creating a better future for children and their parents, and I hope this will continue.”
Read more about the network on their website: UNIFAMN – Uniting Families Across Nordic Countries for Resilience.
