Would your child like to draw their experiences of the coronavirus pandemic? Any child between the age of 4 and 14 years may take part in this study. When children are facing uncertainties to their lives it is important for their wellbeing to encourage them to communicate how they are thinking and feeling. Drawing is a way in which they can express themselves, and is considered an activity that promotes children’s imagination, creativity and visual thinking. If you and your child are interested in participating in the project please click on this link www.coviddrawings.org.uk.

The written instructions – supplemented by a video – are provided in the website. Each child will be asked to think about how their life has been since the coronavirus entered the UK, and how they have felt. They will then be asked to draw a picture about this. There is no time limit to the drawing, but we wouldn’t expect any child to spend more than 30 minutes to complete it.  We then ask you to take a photograph of the drawing and upload it to a secure website. If the child wishes they can explain their drawing in a comments box underneath the uploaded drawing. There is also a very short questionnaire we would like you to complete to give us some background information about the children who are participating in the project. More details about the drawing task and questionnaire is described in the supplementary document, ‘Further information on the children’s coronavirus drawings project’.

This project is being carried out in the Department of Psychology at Staffordshire University, and has been approved by the Staffordshire University Ethics Panel. We are interested in what themes children across the UK express in their drawings of their lives during this coronavirus situation. We are asking parents and guardians to help us collect these drawings. We believe that participating in this study offers an opportunity for children to voice safely both their positive experiences as well as their challenges and frustrations. If you agree, and both you and your child are interested in participating in the project please click on the attached link www.coviddrawings.org.uk (or paste it into a web browser). You will also have the opportunity to enter a prize draw where the first prize is a £100 voucher!

If you have any further questions please contact the project email address research@coviddrawings.org.uk and we will respond as quickly as we can to your query.