Case study: UK Covid mutual aid groups

 

By John Drury & Evangelos Ntontis

In 2020, tens of thousands of people got involved in Covid mutual aid and similar community support groups, with over 4000 new groups being set up in Spring of that year.

Who were they?

Many participants were new to volunteering or community action. Some groups were repurposed pre-existing community groups. Groups tended to be informal, distinct from the existing voluntary sector, and with no formal constitution. Some groups later applied for charitable status to access grants more easily. Local communities with more social capital tended to have more mutual aid groups.

What did Covid mutual aid groups do?

Mutual aid groups’ main activity was shopping to support those self-isolating or shielding. They also engaged in other community support activities, including fundraising, providing information, dog-walking, mental health support, and collecting prescriptions.  Some pointed out that mutual aid groups were crucial in the UK’s pandemic response. In addition, many groups sought to respond to other community needs beyond Covid, including food poverty and supporting refugees.

Understanding how Covid mutual aid groups sustained themselves

The Economic and Social Research Council funded research to examine how Covid mutual aid groups sustained themselves over time. Following the initial upsurge, participation in mutual aid groups dropped, particularly after ‘lockdown’ restrictions eased. For example, activity in Covid mutual aid groups on Facebook dropped by 75% by June from the high point of March 2020. Some volunteers left because they felt let down by local authorities, needed logistical infrastructure, felt overwhelmed, lacked capacity, or lost motivation due to return to ‘normality’. For the groups that continued, there was a need to sustain themselves and maintain volunteers’ engagement over time.

Interviews with organizers and a two-wave survey of volunteers indicated three types of factors that helped sustain groups. First, there was group scaffolding – such as access to funds, space for meetings and storage, computing facilities, and transport.

Second, there were group experiences which arose from participation and motivated further involvement -- including a sense of identity, wellbeing, empowerment, and skills acquisition. Finally, organizers employed various group strategies to enhance a sense of belonging and motivate volunteers – in particular, fostering a culture of care, holding social events, a flexible leadership structure, and regular communication.

Learnings: Implications for community resilience

Central government, local authorities, and local infrastructure organizations/ the formal voluntary sector can all help scaffold the group processes that sustain mutual aid groups.

Group scaffolding can comprise financial/ practical support, connections and links, and guidance / advice.

It is important that no ‘strings’ are attached to this external support, as it is precisely the identity of mutual aid groups as independent and informal that makes them trusted by communities.

Behavioural legacies of ‘freedom’ days

 

July 19^th last year (2021) was characterised as ‘freedom day’ by the UK government and media. On that date, there were three notable changes in policy in relation to the Covid pandemic: nightclubs were allowed to reopen, social distancing rules were dropped, and the wearing of face coverings was no longer required by law.

As with ‘freedom day’ 2020, changes in public behaviour began ahead of the day itself. The media fanfare ahead of the actual announcement operated as a strong signal that measures such as face coverings were less necessary due to a decline in the threat from the virus.

However, the psychology and behaviour were somewhat at odds. In a commentary published a few weeks after ‘freedom day’ 2021, the British Psychological Society COVID-19 Behavioural Science and Disease Prevention Taskforce observed that ‘most adults (92%) said they continued to wear face coverings, while the percentage of adults who said they ‘always’ or ‘often’ maintained physical distancing was 53% (down from 63% just before ‘freedom day’) in the same period. These data and other evidence therefore suggest that, for at least a large proportion of the UK public, there was still a desire to maintain protective behaviours’.

While there was therefore no large sudden drop in protective behaviours immediately after ‘freedom day’ 2021, the Office for National Statistics has charted a steady decline in key protective behaviours – use of face coverings, avoiding crowded places – in the year since then, as well as a very concerning decline in the rate of take-up of vaccinations.

Yet arguably it was the further abandonments of mitigation measures by the government this year that have had a bigger impact than ‘freedom day’ 2021, and certainly seem to be associated with the acceleration in the decline in protective behaviours. In January this year, the prime minister announced the dropping of (relatively limited) requirements to present Covid passes at certain venues and events and the rule to wear face coverings on public transport and in certain indoor locations, as well as the guidance to work remotely. (Indeed, the term ‘freedom day’ was used for January 2022, not just July 2020 and 2021). Then, in February, the legal requirement to self-isolate and the £500 isolation payment for people on low incomes who are required to self-isolate were both dropped. And free Covid testing stopped on 1 April this year.

Today, even as rates of Covid infection are sky-rocketing, only a minority are now adopting protective measures such as face coverings. In-person meetings and events are now the norm, and rates of self-isolation, already low, have dropped still further.

In order to explain these patterns of public behaviour, it’s helpful to look at the same factors that explained adherence in the first place.

First, there is perception of risk. There has been a step-change in the public’s perceptions of the risks associated with Covid in the past six months or so. This partly reflects a recognition that the vaccines have made the threat of serious illness and death less likely for the vast majority. But it is also a function of the way we think about illness – that in some way it’s now ‘ok’ or more acceptable or accepted to be ill with Covid. Of course, if you are very ill or unable to access a service because of illness in the workforce, then you can see that it isn’t actually sustainable to accept these levels of illness. This is where the government’s messaging comes in. They and their supporters have repeatedly told us that the pandemic is over. (Many were surprised then at yet another Omicron wave this summer.) In line with this, they have dismantled much of the machinery set up to help in the pandemic response (including the advisory groups and some of the surveillance). Like the government’s attempts almost to enforce pre-pandemic norms (such as coming into the office), these actions have further significantly impacted public perceptions of risk. In addition, perceptions of risk have also been altered in terms of scope: there has been an unfortunate reframing of risk to focus on ‘me’ the individual (mostly not going to die) rather than ‘us’ the community (which includes large variations in levels of vulnerability). These altered perceptions of risk have consequences for people’s willingness to take up the offers of vaccine, as well as for behaviours such as mask-wearing. It is no coincidence that the vaccine programme has stalled in the past six months, with a significant minority still not vaccinated.

Second, there are social norms. To see other people abandoning masks and embracing crowded places operates as a form of evidence that in-person interaction is safer now -- particularly when the other people involved are our reference groups. The survey data suggests that most people see mitigation measures as important, but think that other people don’t feel the same way. These perceived norms drive behaviour more than own attitudes do.

Third, there is the role of support (or lack of it). Now, almost all support for protective behaviours has been dropped. The ending of financial support for self-isolation and the abolition of free testing for most people not only make it harder for many people to do these things, but also again send a very strong signal that risk is reduced.

There has been a struggle over the meaning of ‘living with the virus’. The prevailing definition, in which we put up with repeated and sometimes long-term illness, is in large part of function of so-called ‘freedom day’ 2021 and, more so, the other government announcements to drop mitigations, which communicated that the public could and should behave as though the virus doesn’t actually exist.

Survivors’ experiences of informal social support in coping and recovering after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing

Survivors’ experiences of informal social support in coping and recovering after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing: 

Background

Much of the psychosocial care people receive after major incidents and disasters is informal and is provided by families, friends, peer groups and wider social networks. Terrorist attacks have increased in recent years. Therefore, there is a need to better understand and facilitate the informal social support given to survivors.

Aims

We addressed three questions. First, what is the nature of any informal support-seeking and provision for people who experienced the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack? Second, who provided support, and what makes it helpful? Third, to what extent do support groups based on shared experience of the attack operate as springboards to recovery?

Method

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with a purposive sample of 18 physically non-injured survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing, registered at the NHS Manchester Resilience Hub. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed.

Results

Participants often felt constrained from sharing their feelings with friends and families, who were perceived as unable to understand their experiences. They described a variety of forms of helpful informal social support, including social validation, which was a feature of support provided by others based on shared experience. For many participants, accessing groups based on shared experience was an important factor in their coping and recovery, and was a springboard to personal growth.

Conclusions

We recommend that people who respond to survivors’ psychosocial and mental healthcare needs after emergencies and major incidents should facilitate interventions for survivors and their social networks that maximise the benefits of shared experience and social validation.

Understanding collective flight responses to (mis)perceived hostile threats in Britain 2010-2019: a systematic review of ten years of false alarms in crowded spaces

Understanding collective flight responses to (mis)perceived hostile threats in Britain 2010-2019: a systematic review of ten years of false alarms in crowded spaces: (2022). Understanding collective flight responses to (mis)perceived hostile threats in Britain 2010-2019: a systematic review of ten years of false alarms in crowded spaces. Journal of Risk Research.