Armaan Tiwana
Yue Dai
1. Family’s Relationships Role in Transgender Individual’s Wellbeing
Summary:
Doussa, Power, and Riggs explore the ways that an individual’s transitioning can positively or negatively impact their family relationships. They emphasise the high value placed on family relationships by transgender individuals and focus on how these changes in relationships affect their wellbeing. Their research highlighted the lack of support these individuals receive from family members, leading to them feeling as if they have no support, causing them to isolate themselves from family members. They also highlight a feeling of shame that was not only present in the individual but also the family, often hiding the individual’s identity from others. This article is useful for our research because it adds to our state of knowledge by highlighting the negative impacts and stress that having a transgender identity can add to an individual’s family relationships.
2. Impact of Covid 19 on Family Carers
Summary:
Muldrew, Fee, and Coates identify the many impacts that COVID-19 has had on the care and support that individuals receive from family carers, such as siblings, parents, and close friends. While caregiving and family support has already faced obstacles pre-pandemic, the pandemic has further stressed the quality of care individuals receive from family. They highlight how the measures taken in an effort to limit COVID-19 have further reduced the quality of care and support individuals receive. Muldrew, Fee, and Coates identify factors such as increased isolation, higher pressure for caregivers, lack of support services, and fear of virus transmission/quarantine to be responsible for this further reduction in quality of support and care. These factors lead to decreased wellbeing which reduces caregiver support, which can be fought against by improving caregiver jobs, encouraging vaccines to reduce isolation, and providing wellbeing assessments to identify needed support. This article is useful for our research topic because it adds to our state of knowledge by providing information about how the pandemic has added obstacles and stress to family relationships and caregivers, as well as solutions for fighting this stress.
3.Economic stress, parenting, and adolescents’ adjustment during the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary:
In this article, Low and Mounts examine the pathways through which financial stress impacts parents’ and adolescents’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their research shows that the pandemic has further exacerbated financial issues faced by families, with factors including rising unemployment adding to existing stressors They highlight how parent-adolescent relationships are facing higher amounts of stress during the pandemic due to higher stay-at-home intensity, with factors including isolation from the outside world, more opportunity for conflict, and higher parenting stress. This can lead to more general psychological distress which, when experienced by parents, undermines the adjustment of adolescents and leads them to internalise stressful behaviours. This article is useful for our research proposal because it adds to our state of knowledge by showing that the pandemic has further stressed family relationships, specifically parent-child relationships, and the different factors that cause this stress.
4.The Complexity of Family Reactions to Identity among Homeless and College Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Young Adults
Summary:
In this research paper, Schmitz and Tyler reflect on reactions to individuals coming out as being part of the LGBTQ community and how they can differ from family to family. Schmitz and Taylor highlight the importance of family support in the transition of LGBTQ individuals and how it can make the transition much easier or more difficult. They examine families’ responses to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth identity, which range from rejection to acceptance, and identify the different factors that contribute to the difference in these responses. These factors, such as the quality of family relationships, account for the differences in reactions among family members towards LGTBQ identities. This article helps us better understand the reactions from families that LGTBQ individuals face as well as the different factors that play a role, adding to our state of knowledge on how having a minority identity affects an individual’s relationship with and support from their family.
Proposal:
Family Relationships of Transgender Individuals During COVID: Stress, Isolation & Family Support
Many factors negatively affect and further stress the quality of family relationships (Low & Mounts 2021, Schmitz & Tyler 2017, von Doussa et. al 2017, Muldrew et. al 2021). Individuals expressing LGBTQ identities often face negative reactions from family, with lack of support and identity avoidance causing shame and stress (von Doussa et. al 2017). Schmitz and Tyler (2017) found that family reactions to LGBTQ identities ranged from rejection to acceptance, with factors such as the quality of family relationships being responsible for these differences. COVID-19 has also stressed family relationships, with more isolation, reduced support, and increased stressors serving as main factors (Low & Mounts 2021, Muldrew et. al 2021). This affects family relationships on multiple levels by reducing opportunities for individuals to receive support from family and increasing stress in caregivers, which adolescents may internalise (Low & Mounts 2021, Muldrew et. al 2021). While research looks into how the pandemic and expressing minority identities stress relationships with family members, little research explores how the pandemic has stressed family relationships among transgender individuals. Because of this, our research will look into how the pandemic has further stressed family relationships among transgender individuals. What roles do identity stress, pandemic isolation, and family support play in family relationships? How has COVID-19 further stressed transgender individual’s relationships with family? Our paper will address these questions. Keeping previous research in mind, we predict the pandemic will further stress family relationships, with transgender individuals specifically facing stress from lack of support, little socialization, and isolation with unsupportive family members. We will explore social media posts of transgender individuals discussing the pandemic’s effect on their family relationships, including sources such as Reddit, Youtube, and Twitter. Using these sources, we will use open and axial coding to identify themes commonly faced by these individuals, such as isolation, rejection, and shame.
Article Pages For Gist Notes:
Although negative physical and mental ill-health outcomes have been associated with the caregiving role pre-pandemic (Gilhooly et al., 2016; Sambasivam et al., 2019; Shu et al., 2017), international qualitative and quantitative evidence in this review demonstrates that since the pandemic began, many carers experienced worsening psychological and physical wellbeing due to public health restrictions aimed at limiting virus transmission. Mandatory home confinement and lack of support services linked to public health restrictions severely impacted care recipients’ wellbeing, especially in those with neurodegenerative disorders, which in turn contributed to declining carer wellbeing through additional stress and perceived carer burden. The plight of carers has received little media or public attention, and the need to recognise the significant pressure experienced by carers as a result of the pandemic is urgent (Carers UK, 2020b). A recent quality statement for supporting adult carers (NICE, 2021) in the UK has reinforced that a carer's physical, mental and social wellbeing should be assessed and addressed through a carer's assessment. It calls for evidence of local processes to ensure that all carers who are known to services are offered an assessment, and that an assessment will result in access to appropriate and tailored support.
Lack of availability of replacement care, or carers’ inability to afford replacement care are among the reasons why 48% of carers have not had a break from their caring role in 5 years (Carers UK, 2021). Increased caregiving due to the closure of support services or withdrawal of other support (such as friends and family) and the need to socially isolate often meant that carers had to reduce or leave their paid employment. This exacerbated an already precarious financial situation for many carers who were left in debt or unable to provide basic needs (Carers UK, 2020b; Lorenz-Dant & Comas-Herrera, 2021). Although local initiatives to target carer needs such as the purchase of technology (Campbell, 2020) or individual cash grants (Southern Health & Social Care Trust, 2020) were available and undoubtedly benefited carers, they exist sporadically and fall short of a policy-led proactive and integrated approach that is needed in order to sustain carers in their role over the longer term. Funding, specifically in the areas of social care, state benefits for carers, improved access to breaks and improvements to flexible working hours for working carers is urgently needed (Carers UK, 2020b).
A recent report concluded that caring is a lonely and isolating experience which requires a clear pathway to practical, financial and emotional support (TIDE, 2021). In the UK, social support for people living with chronic illness, including attendance at day centres, periodic residential care, or domiciliary care, provides carers with the essential respite to enable them to engage in activities that maintain their wellbeing. COVID-19 related public health restrictions resulted in suspension of many services and consequently, carers had to take on additional care, often around the clock, and they lost the opportunity to engage with peer support, social opportunities or rest. Thus, the loss of support services indirectly impacted carer wellbeing, leading to negative physical and psychological outcomes.
Carers have ongoing concerns about the ability to return to support services, and the associated risks of leaving the house while COVID-19 is still prevalent. Fears about virus transmission or worries about possible future quarantine may deter carers from reconnecting with support services and contribute to uncertainty and carer stress, thus increasing the necessity for specific practical and psychological support to enable care recipients to re-join support services. Future processes and pathways to encourage the rebuilding of social support networks require attention. Whilst availability of the vaccine will alleviate many concerns, high vaccine hesitancy (French et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2021) represents an important problem, and further efforts should be made to increase vaccine uptake among carers and within society more widely.
Support measures reported in our findings were only discussed in a limited number of studies (n = 12). Given the reported closure of support services, worsening of care recipients’ symptoms and increasing care responsibilities of carers as a result of COVID-19, it is concerning that research to date does not report commensurate carer support. It is clear that a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not be effective when considering the variations that exist in the caregiving context, and diversity in caregiving (such as demographic variables), or caring-related health inequalities (Carr et al., 2019). As a consequence of COVID-19, the use of technology to allow continuous communication between support providers and carers could be employed, however, although this helped to minimise virus transmission through a reduction of face-to-face contact, it should also be recognised that not all carers can access this type of support (Carers UK, 2020b). Barriers to the use of technology include lack of experience or lack of access, and other obstacles such as familiarity, design challenges, competency and needing help from others (Aledeh & Habib Adam, 2020; Carers UK, 2020b; Fischer et al., 2014; Hirvonen et al., 2020; Rasi et al., 2020), resulting in low recruitment and retention rates of older carers for online support (Baruah et al., 2021). In light of this information, it cannot be assumed that the use of technology can replace face-to-face contact, rather it should be used to supplement existing support.
Gist Notes For Article:
· Paragraph One:
· Caregiving + pandemic restrictions → negative health outcomes, lack of support
· Recognise pandemic pressure → URGENT wellbeing assessments → gain needed support
· Paragraph Two:
· Support withdrawal + isolation → stop caregiving → miss basic needs
· Solution = funding + benefits + flexible hours + breaks
· Paragraph Three:
· Caring = lonely + isolating → requires support pathways
· Pandemic restrictions → support service suspension → lost engagement opportunities → wellbeing negatively impacted
· Paragraph Four:
· Pandemic restrictions → lower support engagement → solution → encourage vaccine + rebuilding support networks
· Paragraph Five:
· Research shows COVID pressure, but not increased support pressure
· Technology communication → reduce transmission → BUT restricted access + experience = barriers → low support engagement
Peer Reflection Paragraph:
The peer review process was useful for us in two ways. Firstly, while reviewing a peer’s work, we identified mistakes that we made in our proposal. For example, while reviewing our assigned peer’s work, we noticed their proposal was double spaced and highlighted their main abstractions, which we realised we forgot to do. Secondly, the process allowed us to make specific changes to our proposal to strengthen it based on feedback. With how central of roles COVID and identity stress play in our research proposal, we realised we had to mention them in the title. We removed certain aspects of the proposal which did not serve any purpose to our topic, such as socioeconomic status and timing of life course transitions affecting transgender individual’s family relationships. We also adjusted certain sentences in the proposal where our reviewer found they had trouble piecing information together or seeing the relevance of the certain sentences, such as how our proposal suddenly brought up the pandemic without talking about why it was important. The peer review process pointed out these criticisms and allowed us to remove unnecessary information, add key aspects of our research to the title, and adjust sentences to be clearer.
References:
Low, N., & Mounts, N. S. (2021). Economic stress, parenting, and adolescents’ adjustment during the covid ‐19 pandemic. Family Relations, 71(1), 90–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12623
Muldrew, D. H., Fee, A., & Coates, V. (2021). Impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on Family carers in the community: A scoping review. Health & Social Care in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13677
Schmitz, R. M., & Tyler, K. A. (2017). The complexity of family reactions to identity among homeless and college lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and Queer Young Adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47(4), 1195–1207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-017-1014-5
von Doussa, H., Power, J., & Riggs, D. W. (2017). Family matters: Transgender and gender diverse peoples’ experience with family when they transition. Journal of Family Studies, 26(2), 272–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2017.1375965