The New Normal A project by St Dominic’s Grammar School, Belfast, and Friends’ School, Lisburn. November 2020-May 2021 1 What is the new normal? This is not a great time to be young. No one would wish to experience the current pandemic. There are some things – such as the search for a new vaccine – which we can’t control. However, young people in their communities have the ability to support one another and make the situation more bearable both for themselves and for all of us. Our aim is to give young people a voice during the current pandemic and to be recognised as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. We provide our participants with a platform to work together and come up with fresh ideas, based on their own observations. They focus on what has changed in their homes, families, or communities. What is working and what is not? Our role is to support those with whom we work throughout the development of their ideas. We have established partnerships with organisations with specialist skills to support and mentor the participants. They include Young Enterprise Northern Ireland, The Oh Yeah! Music Centre, Start 360, Suicide Down to Zero, Fresh Ideas and Stranmillis University College. Our network combines a unique pan Northern Ireland approach, supported by strong local grassroots involvement. As a result, we have the capacity, expertise and flexibility to back almost any idea with which the course members come up. Who is taking part? We are a group of 14 sixth form politics students from St Dominic’s Grammar School, Belfast and Friends’ Grammar School, Lisburn. We have been working together via Collaborate Ultra and Google Classroom since November 2020. In total we have completed 5 sessions, and each week we have looked at a particular issue that we feel should be tackled in order to make Northern Ireland emerge from the COVID 19 pandemic in a stronger position. 2 What issues have we focused on? At our first meeting we discussed what we wanted Northern Ireland to look like after this pandemic. We discussed our ideas about what we felt could be improved upon in our society and some the ways in which our local Executive could bring about important changes. There were 4 areas that we decided to focus on: 1. Mental Health & Wellbeing for Young People 2. Loneliness and Isolation 3. Economic Impact 4. Social Media Who have we spoken to? We recognised that to build on these ideas we needed to speak with those who are experts in the field of politics, policy and public engagement. We have posed questions about some of the issues that mater to us above to the following prominent individuals. Each session was conducted online and lasted for an hour in length. • Alex Tennant, Head of Policy and Participation at Northern Ireland Commission for Children • Hugh Roarty, Action Mental Health, MensSana • Peter Weir MLA, Minister for Education • Michelle O’Neill MLA, Deputy First Minister • Gary Middleton MLA, Junior Minister in the Executive Office • Julian Smith MP, Former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland • Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste for Republic of Ireland 3 Issues that should be prioritised. Mental Health & Wellbeing for Young People The area our group was tasked to assess was the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of young people. A Secondary Students’ Union of Northern Ireland (SSUNI) report found that, in a survey conducted between November and December 2020, 76% of young people asked had experienced mental health problems related to the pandemic, and the handling of it by the government. As a group, our goal was to research the impact of the pandemic, and suggest strategies to de-stigmatise mental health, raise awareness and provide support to those who need it. Over the course of the project, we were given opportunities to ask questions relevant to our research to experts in the field of mental health as well as politicians. On the 17th November, Peter Weir announced his Educational Restart Wellbeing fund, a £5 million fund to help educational settings support the mental health and wellbeing of their students, stating “Wellbeing was identified as one of the key areas of the Education Restart Programme. A project was established to ensure educational settings have the information, resources and support they need to help them provide a culture of positive emotional health and wellbeing for children and young people.” We had the opportunity, through Politics in Action, to attend a Question and Answer session with Peter Weir in January of 2021, in which many of the groups participating raised the issue of mental health. The Education minister recognised that this area needed focus as so many had been affected by it, and gave insightful remarks on how his department would help to raise awareness around mental health. Furthermore, he acknowledged the failures of his department on the lack of clarity within the 2020 and 2021 CCEA examination period. SSUNI found that 85% of the students they asked said that the lack of clarity put a strain on their mental health, and Peter Weir stated that he was aware of the shortcomings and the problems that this lack of clarity created. Additionally, a further Question and Answer with Michelle O’Neil showed us that the issue of young people’s mental health had reached the top 4 level of government within Northern Ireland, and was obviously being discussed within the Executive committee. Further Question and Answer slots with Alex Tennant from NICCY, and Hugh Roarty from Action Mental Health, gave us an insight into the work that local charities have been doing during the pandemic, such as the ‘Heads Up’ campaign by NICCY, which produced a Mental Health Toolkit to help young people. Additionally, reports such as the SSUNI ‘Mental Health Matters: Secondary School Mental Health Reform in NI’ allowed us to access figures from surveys conducted on a larger scale, and see what a larger organisation would suggest as an effective strategy to deal with the issues around mental health. After hearing that the pandemic had caused an increase in mental health issues, and that strategies were being proposed to intervene and support, we discussed a number of strategies we could propose and implement to help with mental health and wellbeing. A number of key issues were identified, including the stigma that revolved around mental health, limited awareness and support for people whenever and wherever they need it. One idea we developed was an Instagram page to promote positive mental health and wellbeing. Approximately 153,000 young people aged 13-17 use Instagram in Ireland, and we feel that an account which posted details of groups who could provide support and help to those who need it would be beneficial. Additionally, we hope that presenting the issue of mental health in a way that they find easier to connect with would help remove some of the stigma surrounding mental wellbeing. Additionally, we are writing to Politicians to raise awareness around the issue and we hope to hear responses to show that Members of the legislative Assembly consider the issue of mental health to be a significant one. Overall, it is clear to see that the coronavirus pandemic has taken a significant toll on the mental health of young people, and we hope that our strategies will help de-stigmatise mental health, raise awareness and support those in need. 5 Loneliness and Isolation A commonly agreed-upon description of loneliness is the feeling we get when our need for rewarding social contact and relationships is not met. According to Immigroup, the UK is considered to be the second most lonely country in the world. Similarly, according to a study conducted by Cigna, loneliness is on the rise and younger workers and social media users feel it most. A survey conducted by YouGov UK of UK adults in November 2020 found that 24% had experienced loneliness in the previous two weeks. This has led our group to focus on the impact that the Coronavirus pandemic has had on loneliness and isolation. With further discussion, we decided to focus mainly on the loneliness and isolation felt by young people, in particular those in full-time education, as well as older people and the clinically vulnerable who are shielding or generally spending much more time at home than they would've done in pre-Covid times. A report by NICVA in December 2020 revealed that 71% of people want the Northern Ireland Assembly to do more to tackle the issue of loneliness. Throughout the pandemic, many of us have had to resort to using technology to stay connected to our peers and our education, particularly during the period of home learning from January to March 2021 as classes were streamed online and work was submitted on services including Canvas and Google Classroom. However, as I’m sure we all know, technology is not only expensive, but temperamental and unpredictable at the best of times, ultimately leaving many students at a disadvantage, as a result of not having suitable access to a device or broadband. A study carried out by the Belfast Telegraph in February 2021 revealed that in Belfast Model Girls school, 30% of the pupils were accessing remote learning resources via a mobile phone which is, put plainly, inadequate to the not only the volume of work, but the velocity with which it is expected and the requested format. For this reason, we, as a group, believe that more needs to be done to combat this digital isolation in our virtual world.