Children, Young People and Flooding: Recovery and Resilience

This is a qualitative data collection gathered with two groups of children
and young people (from one rural and one urban location) who were affected
by the 2013/14 UK winter floods. The project had three key aims: first, to
understand the children’s experiences of the flood, their resilience and
the longer-term recovery process; secondly, to illuminate the relationship
between children’s multi-sensory experience of flooding and the recovery
strategies they developed; and thirdly, to understand how children can
best be supported in a flood, what their unique needs might be and how to
enhance their resilience to future emergencies. The data set is comprised
of a mix of transcribed group conversations and photographs collected
during four day-long workshops in each location during the 2014-15 school
year. The recorded conversations and photographs (taken by the
participants and researchers) were gathered during walks with the children
around local areas that had been flooded. Further conversations then took
place in ‘Photo Talk’ sessions and in Sandplay and Modelling sessions when
the children created individual and group 3D representations of their
experience. Other conversations comprised semi-structured, one-to-one
interviews with some of the young people who requested an interview, as
well as with adults affected by flooding and involved in community
response and recovery.