Title: Co-POWeR - Consortium on Practices of Wellbeing and Resilience in BAME Families and Communities
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: 1. Develop an understanding of the combined impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on different BAMEFC cohorts across the UK, in whose lives existing health inequalities are compounded by a myriad of structural inequalities, to create an integrated perspective demonstrating the 'snowball' effect of each impact of COVID-19 on BAME FC. 2. Build an expanded understanding of wellbeing and resilience informed by a critical race feminist lens that highlights gendered and intersectional approaches wherein 'wellbeing' and 'resilience' are interrogated as social, medical, collective and individualist. 3. Co-create via a 'People's Commission' case studies on BAMEFC under crisis, providing general insights as a historical resource for future emergencies. 4. Provide evidenced recommendations to key audiences (healthcare stakeholders, policy-makers, local government and social services), targeting policy and behavioural change, and raising awareness to support BAMEFC to live well and in confidence under COVID-19. Recommendations will stress how policy can improve to 'build back better', supporting BAMEFC to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience to future shocks. 5. Enhance official decision-making through strengthening cultural competence in ongoing responses to COVID-19 thereby maximizing the success of national strategy to manage, ameliorate and eradicate infection and death from COVID 19. 6. Enhance official ability to organise support for wellbeing and resilience in stigmatised and traumatised BAMEFC who survived the initial wave of COVID 19 but need further official support for maintenance of social cohesion. 7. Provide a temporal scope enabling valuable specific policy guidance by considering wellbeing and resilience of BAMEFC at various stages of pandemic management: during the emergency, during local interventions and as the 'new normal.' 8. Build upon and giving wider resonance to existing commissioned projects (eg CoDE survey) providing a combined, intersectional and multi-disciplinary analysis of the impact of COVID 19 on BAME FC in order to create an holistic idea of vulnerabilities damaging BAMEFC, broadening/deepening existing work as well as conducting new research. 9. Adapt existing frameworks for measurement of wellbeing and resilience to co-create more culturally sensitive and inter-generational tools.

Lay abstract: Two viruses - COVID-19 and discrimination - are currently killing in the UK (Solanke 2020), especially within BAMEFC who are hardest hit. Survivors face ongoing damage to wellbeing and resilience, in terms of physical and mental health as well as social, cultural and economic (non-medical) consequences. Psychosocial (ADCS 2020; The Children's Society 2020)/ physical trauma of those diseased and deceased, disproportionate job-loss (Hu 2020) multigenerational housing, disrupted care chains (Rai 2016) lack of access to culture, education and exercise, poor nutrition, 'over-policing' (BigBrotherWatch 2020) hit BAMEFC severely. Local 'lockdowns' illustrate how easily BAMEFC become subject to stigmatization and discrimination through 'mis-infodemics' (IOM 2020). The impact of these viruses cause long-term poor outcomes. While systemic deficiencies have stimulated BAMEFC agency, producing solidarity under emergency, BAMEFC vulnerability remains, requiring official support. The issues are complex thus we focus on the interlinked and 'intersectional nature of forms of exclusion and disadvantage', operationalised through the idea of a 'cycle of wellbeing and resilience' (CWAR) which recognises how COVID-19 places significant stress upon BAMEFC structures and the impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on different BAMEFC cohorts across the UK, in whose lives existing health inequalities are compounded by a myriad of structural inequalities. Given the prevalence of multi-generational households, BAMEFC are likely to experience these as a complex of jostling over-lapping stressors: over-policed unemployed young adults are more likely to live with keyworkers using public transport to attend jobs in the front line, serving elders as formal/informal carers, neglecting their health thus exacerbating co-morbidities and struggling to feed children who are unable to attend school, resulting in nutritional and digital deprivation. Historical research shows race/class dimensions to national emergencies (e.g. Hurricane Katrina) but most research focuses on the COVID-19 experience of white families/communities. Co-POWeR recommendations will emerge from culturally and racially sensitive social science research on wellbeing and resilience providing context as an essential strand for the success of biomedical and policy interventions (e.g. vaccines, mass testing). We will enhance official decision-making through strengthening cultural competence in ongoing responses to COVID-19 thereby maximizing success of national strategy. Evidenced recommendations will enable official mitigation of disproportionate damage to wellbeing and resilience in BAMEFC. Empowerment is a core consortium value. Supporting UKRI goals for an inclusive research culture, we promote co-design and co-production to create a multi-disciplinary BAME research community spanning multi-cultural UK to inform policy. CO-POWeR investigates the synergistic effect on different age groups of challenges including policing, child welfare, caring and physical activity and nutrition. WP1 Emergency Powers investigates these vague powers to understand their impact on practices of wellbeing and resilience across BAMEFC. WP2 Children, Young People and their Families investigates implications for children/young people in BAMEFC who experience COVID-19 negatively due to disproportionate socio-economic and psychosocial impacts on their families and communities. WP3 Care, Caring and Carers investigates the interaction of care, caring and carers within BAMEFC to identify how to increase the wellbeing and resilience of older people, and paid and unpaid carers. WP4 Physical Activity and Nutrition investigates improving resilience and wellbeing by tackling vulnerability to underlying health conditions in BAMEFC. WP5 Empowering BAMEFC through Positive Narratives channels research from WP1-4 to coproduce fiction and non-fiction materials tackling the vulnerability of BAMEFC to 'mis infodemics'.

Research activity codes: 3.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (PREVENTION);8.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE