“I found it really difficult to comprehend that I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I had started to enjoy such as attending Students’ Union events and meeting up with friends,” she says.
“I eventually got so used to being indoors that I struggled to start going back out when things opened up again – it was a challenge.”
When the first lockdown was announced around this time five years ago, we didn’t know it would be just the first in a series. We didn’t know the impact this would have on all of us, especially children and young people. And we didn’t know that, five years on, we’d still be dealing with its aftermath.
Looking back, both Meg and Troy have mixed emotions.
Despite the obvious fear, anxiety and uncertainty they felt throughout those lockdowns – Meg’s mother is immunosuppressed so was at particular risk – this was also the moment that they both began sharing the voice and experiences with others and “creating change and making a difference”, as Troy puts it.
The lockdowns resulted in a generation of children and young people growing up, learning about themselves, and going through their own challenges indoors, locked away from most face-to-face contact; and having to deal with the effects of a global pandemic not only on their communities but, often, on their families too.
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And for some young people, that meant the death of loved ones.
As I wrote in a blog in April 2020, the pandemic “brought fear into most households, and sorrow into many”.
Reflecting five years on, it’s clear that bereavement services made a monumental effort to adapt and respond to an unprecedented increase in the number of bereaved adults and children, and in the challenges those families faced.
Bereavement support services had to pivot suddenly to providing their support in new and different ways. This included sending support packs out to help families grieve together at home and isolated from their usual networks, learning how to facilitate safe and inclusive online groups; and learning how to ‘read’ and respond to grief on the screen. I am so proud of how the sector managed to hold on to hope for the population and to find new ways of working.
The Covid-19 Inquiry was set up to examine the impact of the pandemic on the UK, our response to it and to learn lessons for the future. As the impact of lockdowns on children and young people still hasn’t been fully measured, and it can have lifelong consequences on a whole generation, it is vital that learning across all parts of the Inquiry connects with Module 8, which is specifically focused on children.
In April 2020, I expressed the need that once life returned to normal, “we must remember and address the legacy of grief for children and young people so deeply affected.”
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Five years on, has that happened?
Well, we have been able to draw attention to some of the long-standing challenges facing bereaved families – many of these were brought together in our UK Commission on Bereavement report Bereavement is Everyone’s Business.
But there is still so much to do in improving bereavement support for children and young people and families, including developing a more ‘grief literate’ society where we all know how to support each other, to finding more sustainable ways to fund the network of support services that provide crucial extra help to those that need it.
I’m proud to have been actively involved in the Covid-19 Day of Reflection, since it was first introduced by Marie Curie in 2021. The context for the day is very different today, but it’s still important to come together as a nation and reflect.
That includes remembering those who died during the pandemic and the losses we all endured, many of which continue to affect lives today. But it also includes acknowledging the extraordinary acts of service and kindness that kept us going through that dreadful time.
Meg says she still feels anxiety when out and about five years on from the first lockdown, but says this is something that she is working on and that “my confidence and self-assurance has enhanced which has supported me in education, the workplace and in making the world a better place”.
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She hopes the Inquiry will bring greater understanding and awareness of loneliness and wider mental health issues as well as an opportunity to remove the barriers in society that can marginalise and alienate.
“I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and that we are sent to Earth to learn lessons and I hope when the Covid-19 Inquiry concludes that decision makers learn that this period in time had vast meaning for people and that they need to consider this sensitively.”
Looking further ahead, Meg hopes to realise her dream and become a barrister.
“Covid has taught me to treasure the moments we have and to live more in the present.”
The experience of Covid-19 and the lockdowns seem to have had a similar effect on Troy.
Since the pandemic, he says he sees he spends more time together with his family and friends, “even more than before”, and he’s “appreciative of life and spending time with my loved ones and cherishing the moments we have”.
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Dr Alison Penny is assistant director at National Children’s Bureau, and director of the Childhood Bereavement Network. You can find her blog alongside a variety of other reports, guidance and learning produced by the Childhood Bereavement Network, the Council for Disabled Children and the rest of the NCB family during and immediately following the pandemic here.
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