“Listen to What We Have to Say”: Children and Young People’s Perspectives on Urban Regeneration

There is an important body of research that explores the contested understandings of urban regeneration programmes in areas of socio-economic disadvantage. While poor housing and living conditions must be tackled, regeneration programmes have been criticised for their destructive and displacement impacts on communities, their lack of public consultation and their reinforcement of the stigmatization of poor areas that draws “attention away from the structural and institutional failures that produce and reproduce poverty” and inequality (Hancock & Mooney, 2013, p. 59). However, much of the literature focuses on the understandings and perspectives of adult residents in regeneration areas. This article explores the views of young residents from ages 6 to 19 in Knocknaheeny, one of the largest social housing estates in Cork City in the South of Ireland, which is undergoing a regeneration programme. Through a series of creative methods, the research reveals the distinctive analysis these children and young people have on their community, the change it is undergoing, issues of poverty, stigma and exclusion, and their lack of involvement in the decision-making process. Taken together, these children and young people generate an analysis that is strikingly reminiscent of Wacquant’s (2008) concept of ‘territorial stigma.’ They clearly cite how the misrecognition and devaluation of their neighbourhood and community shifts responsibility for decline away from the institutional failings of the local authority and state, back toward the people who live there

Children's voices in housing estate regeneration

Background: The theme of this research is children’s participation in housing estate regeneration. Estate regeneration can affect children’s lives in terms of their living conditions and environmental surroundings, and their sense of safety, belonging, place, identity and community. However, children’s voices are seldom heard in regeneration programmes. This research represents a first step in hearing the voices of children and young people and presents their views in relation to a major regeneration programme currently underway in the Knocknaheeny Housing Estate on the Northside of Cork City. Methods: The research methodology used was a rights-based approach entailing a range of qualitative and creative methods, including focus group activities and discussions, rap, photography and art. These methods ascertained children and young people’s views and experiences on what they like and do not like about their area, what they think is good and bad, and what they think should be changed. Ten focus groups involving 78 children and young people were held over the spring and summer of 2013. Key findings: Children and young people would like regeneration to achieve renewal of their area, a safer neighbourhood, a cleaner environment, a better reputation for the estate, and improved life chances and opportunities by: Enhancing community and personal safety through more effective community policing and housing management, addressing problems such as: anti-social behaviour and disruptive tenants; public drinking; drug dealing; violence and intimidation. Improving existing amenities and the local environment through: new and better quality houses; providing effective refuse collection and litter removal; maintaining green areas and open spaces; improving recreation, sports and leisure amenities; considering the impact on young people when lanes are closed in response to residents’ petitions; managing through-traffic and road safety; providing new amenities to reflect their current interests; improving bus services to the area and connectivity with the wider city. Providing educational and employment opportunities through: training, apprenticeships and employment in the regeneration programme; promoting commercial and retail investment in the local economy. They also highlight some of the disruptive impacts of regeneration in terms of: losing their homes due to demolition; re-location of families and friends to addresses outside of the estate; the associated impact on their social networks, friendships and family connections. All of the participants want to be involved in the decision-making around regeneration. The older groups, however, are more cynical about having an influence and are critical of the omission of children and young people’s voices. Conclusions and Recommendations: The research highlights the importance of actively listening to the voices of children and young people and enabling their capacity as agents to influence change. There are three main sets of recommendations arising from this research relating to: regeneration guidelines; estate management; capacity-building

Hearing children's voices in housing estate regeneration

There is growing acknowledgement that citizens have the right to participate in policy decisions that affect them, especially in areas of socio-economic disadvantage that are subject to large-scale interventions such as housing regeneration. This article focuses on the voices of 78 Irish young people in relation to changes to their environment that affect their sense of identity, safety, belonging, place and community in ways that are different from adults. The article argues that it is crucial to use appropriate methods to engage with children and youth and reveals that they have many ideas on their area and a desire to influence the decision-making process

Comparative assessment of multiple COVID-19 serological technologies supports continued evaluation of point-of-care lateral flow assays in hospital and community healthcare settings

There is a clear requirement for an accurate SARS-CoV-2 antibody test, both as a complement to existing diagnostic capabilities and for determining community seroprevalence. We therefore evaluated the performance of a variety of antibody testing technologies and their potential use as diagnostic tools. Highly specific in-house ELISAs were developed for the detection of anti-spike (S), -receptor binding domain (RBD) and -nucleocapsid (N) antibodies and used for the cross-comparison of ten commercial serological assays-a chemiluminescence-based platform, two ELISAs and seven colloidal gold lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs)-on an identical panel of 110 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples and 50 pre-pandemic negatives. There was a wide variation in the performance of the different platforms, with specificity ranging from 82% to 100%, and overall sensitivity from 60.9% to 87.3%. However, the head-to-head comparison of multiple sero-diagnostic assays on identical sample sets revealed that performance is highly dependent on the time of sampling, with sensitivities of over 95% seen in several tests when assessing samples from more than 20 days post onset of symptoms. Furthermore, these analyses identified clear outlying samples that were negative in all tests, but were later shown to be from individuals with mildest disease presentation. Rigorous comparison of antibody testing platforms will inform the deployment of point-of-care technologies in healthcare settings and their use in the monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 infections

Longitudinal observation and decline of neutralizing antibody responses in the three months following SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans

Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in most infected individuals 10-15 d after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. However, due to the recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the human population, it is not known how long antibody responses will be maintained or whether they will provide protection from reinfection. Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 d post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 individuals with real-time quantitative PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, we show seroconversion (immunoglobulin (Ig)M, IgA, IgG) in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody responses when sampled beyond 8 d POS. We show that the kinetics of the neutralizing antibody response is typical of an acute viral infection, with declining neutralizing antibody titres observed after an initial peak, and that the magnitude of this peak is dependent on disease severity. Although some individuals with high peak infective dose (ID50 > 10,000) maintained neutralizing antibody titres >1,000 at >60 d POS, some with lower peak ID50 had neutralizing antibody titres approaching baseline within the follow-up period. A similar decline in neutralizing antibody titres was observed in a cohort of 31 seropositive healthcare workers. The present study has important implications when considering widespread serological testing and antibody protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2, and may suggest that vaccine boosters are required to provide long-lasting protection