In this blog, Gareth Mulvey, a co-Investigator in the Refugee and Asylum stream offers an early analysis of our study’s organisational survey.

Our survey has been completed by organisations and service providers in Scotland that are working with people in particular situations: disabled people and people with long-term health conditions; domestic abuse or sexual violence; control by immigration authorities or involved in a refugee/asylum process; imprisonment or other form of criminal justice control.

This analysis covers responses to the survey received between 28 July 2020 and 21 August 2020. It analyses responses to this question:

Are there any positives you have seen in the context of your work during this pandemic?

It finds a number of ways that organisations and groups identified short- and potentially longer term positive effects of lockdown. Of 36 responses received at this point, only 5 did not respond or responded ‘No, no positive effects of lockdown’. This left 31 respondents or 86% of the sample at this point of the pandemic seeing some positive sides of the response to Covid-19 lockdown.

While quite a number of responses to the question of whether there have been any positives arising from the pandemic unsurprisingly said no, there were also a number of responses that indicate positive changes in working practices as well as a flourishing of community care practices.

Regarding the former, many respondents talked of the crisis making them rethink how they do certain things, e.g. communication, using technology (for visits) etc. In some cases the changes were ones long discussed but never implemented and the pandemic has forced that implementation. For others, changes were more dramatic and immediate, but in both cases they seem to have been at least partly positive, evidenced in the fact many believe post-pandemic these practices will continue.

Some aspects of client engagement have increased: there are often more check-ins with clients (albeit not face to face) and a deeper understanding of their issues, though this must be put in the context of the digital divide, with concerning evidence that some people are falling off the radar of services completely.

Another impact on practice mentioned has been the mobilisation and joint working of the third sector. A number of responses talked in very positive terms about the ways in which the third sector and community groups have stepped into the vacuum created by the pandemic and the required changes in service provision. Very quickly these activities appeared to become coordinated so that organisations were working in complementary ways.

The creativity and drive of staff is also mentioned, though there must be some concern about longer term burn-out issues here. Nevertheless, staff and volunteers have been extremely motivated to help and groups and organisations are very appreciative of that. The fact that more staff are being enabled to work flexibly and that there appears to be a little more independence and autonomy for staff was also mentioned as a positive. Traditional top-down management styles in some cases have had to be loosened.

Less organisationally, there is also a sense that ‘out there’ in communities there have been some positive impacts of the pandemic. Increased neighbourliness is mentioned alongside a sense that new communities are in the process of being built around mutual aid groups and service provision. So community interaction has in some cases increased despite restrictions on movement and community generosity has been made more visible

A final issue worth mentioning is that some funders are seen to have responded well particularly in emergency/crisis support, and also in some cases with support being rolled over, though it is important to note analysed survey responses were those submitted prior to GCC’s announcement of huge third sector cuts.

Gareth Mulvey is co-Lead for the stream on Refugees, Asylum-seekers facing Destitution. He is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow, working on issues of migration, migration policy and the impact of policy on diverse migrant communities.