The educational and psychosocial needs of students with additional provisions during COVID-19 in Greece: Parents' perspectives against schools' crisis management.
Greek parents of students with extra needs felt deserted by schools during COVID-19, echoing earlier parent-exclusion findings and urging BCBAs to create crisis-proof family partnership plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Anastasia and her team sent an online survey to 447 Greek parents. All had children with extra needs such as autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.
The survey asked how schools handled COVID-19 closures and reopening. Parents rated support, communication, and stress in spring 2021.
What they found
Seven in ten parents said schools gave little or no help during lockdown. Half felt their opinions were ignored.
Remote lessons were rarely adapted for the child’s needs. Many parents stopped work to teach at home and reported burnout.
How this fits with other research
The same bleak picture appears in Italy. Bentenuto et al. (2021) also used a parent survey and found stress soared when therapy stopped. Both studies show COVID-19 hurt NDD families across southern Europe.
Before the pandemic, French parents already felt left out. Rattaz et al. (2014) showed moms and dads of autistic kids wanted more say in school plans. The Greek data extend that worry into crisis mode: when services vanished, the silence got worse.
McKinlay et al. (2022) add that exclusion is not just a COVID story. Their UK interviews reveal parents routinely feel unheard in mainstream classes. Taken together, the papers say disempowerment is chronic; a crisis simply exposes it faster.
Why it matters
If parents feel sidelined during calm times, they will feel abandoned during the next crisis. Build a two-way channel now: add a short parent-check form to every IEP meeting and set a 24-hour reply rule for emails. When disruption hits, send a single-page action plan that lists who does what, when, and how parents can shape it. A ready script turns future lockdowns into teamwork instead of silence.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The sudden breakdown of educational and care services following the COVID-19 outbreak caused severe implications to the educational and psychosocial well-being of students with additional needs. AIM: The present study investigates the perspectives of parents of students requiring additional provisions in relation to the schools' responsiveness against their children's educational and psychosocial needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on (non-) applied inclusive and empowerment practices of parenthood. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A sample of 125 parents in Greece filled out a self-reported questionnaire providing information on four main themes: school organisation in accordance with the COVID-19 measures; distance education; support on transition from quarantine and remote education back to school; and parental empowerment. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The data revealed that most of the participating parents felt poorly supported during the pandemic. The feeling of being left alone in supporting their children and in fully meeting their personal needs and emotions was also identified. The demographics of the participating parents with children with additional needs revealed an experiences mosaic in relation to the parents' level of education, the number of children who were present in their households, the children's gender as well as their level of school education (preschool- and primary school-aged or secondary school-aged pupils) and attendance of the school programme in regular or special schools. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Data suggest that regular and special schools in Greece, as orchestrated by the Ministry of Education, deployed practices that left students requiring additional provisions unsupported in relation to their educational and psychosocial needs while their parents felt disempowered during the whole period of the COVID-19 pandemic. A range of implications on a more effective support for families and their children with additional needs in alignment with the principles of inclusive education is detailed and discussed. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: The focus of research on the schools' responsiveness to the needs of students requiring additional provisions from the perspective of their parents is of critical importance as it may offer valuable insights pertaining to the school's inclusive policy practices and the promotion of empowering parent partnerships during crisis times. The knowledge gained by exploring parents' experiences will contribute significantly to inform modifications and changes in education delivery in crisis times so as school, as a social system, become more inclusive, supportive, and effective for pupils with additional needs. So far, little attention has been paid to the above-mentioned issues. In the current paper, the parents perspectives were explored through a self-reported questionnaire to reflect on the way schools responded to theirs and their children's educational and psychosocial needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the participating parents felt poorly supported. The feeling of being left alone in supporting their children and in fully meeting their personal needs and emotions was also identified. The demographics of the participating parents with children requiring additional provisions revealed an experiences mosaic in relation to the parents' level of education, the number of children who were present in their households, the children's gender as well as their level of school education (preschool and primary school or secondary school education) and attendance of the school programme in regular or special schools. A range of implications on a more effective support for families and their children with additional needs in alignment with the principles of inclusive education is detailed and discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2023 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104638