According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, more than 188 countries closed their educational centres at all levels during the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the measures to stop the spread of the virus. More than 1,500,000,000 learners were affected, which is more than 90% of all enrolled learners, and were confined in their homes [
1]. In Spain, all educational centres from early childhood education to universities were closed on Thursday 13 March 2020. The next day, a state of alarm was decreed in the country. Citizens were asked to remain confined to their homes.
Faced with this global situation, on 20 March 2020, the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University highlighted the imperative need to reconcile two of the most relevant science-based messages for overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic, prolonged social distance and supportive relationships, to strengthen resilience in the face of adversity. The Center noted that responding from science to two apparently contradictory challenges requires rigorous scientific thinking, on-the-ground expertise and the lived experiences of a wide range of people and communities. Obviously, the impact of confinement conditions will not have the same short- and long-term effects on all people [
2]. It is a priority for social and educational research to contribute to the challenge of reducing the potential threats and consequences that the physical isolation of confinement can produce for those who are especially vulnerable, such as children at risk of abuse in their homes. This article provides knowledge to help minimise the negative consequences of confinement for all children, especially for those potentially at risk of abuse (physical, sexual, and emotional) at home.
In response to this challenge, this research provides knowledge from six evidence-based actions that are being carried out in nine schools (pre-primary, primary, middle, high, and special education) in the autonomous communities of Valencia and Murcia, Spain, during the period of COVID-19 confinement with the goal of “opening doors” to foster supportive relationships and a safe environment to prevent child abuse. The research was conducted with the inclusion of teachers who are implementing these actions in dialogue with the researchers to define the study design, analysis, and discussion of the results.
1.1. Increased Domestic Violence and Child Abuse during Confinement
On March 24th, Marceline Naudi, a representative of the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), the organisation within the Council of Europe responsible for the supervision of the Istanbul Convention [
3], made a call to create alternatives for women and their children who suffer domestic violence in the face of the COVID-19 crisis and the preventive measures of confinement. Due to the expected increase in domestic violence, it is essential for researchers and other professionals to work together and share actions to protect not only women but also their children [
4].
Research estimates that 275 million children worldwide are exposed to domestic violence, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, which may also involve neglect or deprivation [
5]. UNICEF cautions that this is a conservative estimate based on the limitations of available data. In fact, millions more children may be affected by domestic violence. Violence at home is not limited by geography, ethnicity or status; it is a global phenomenon. Confinement due to the pandemic forces these children to live with their abusers all the time. Child abuse is one of the main causes of emotional, behavioural and health problems throughout life [
6].
According to the Ministry of Equality of the Spanish Government, during the first fortnight of April, there was an exponential increase of 48% of phone calls to the 016 telephone number addressed to assist victims of violence against women and their children, as well as an increase of 650% in online consultations with the different existing services [
7]. In Spain, non-governmental organizations have warned that many children and adolescents are suffering from increasing violence and lack of protection during confinement. The only available data are from the ANAR Foundation (Help Children and Adolescents at Risk, in its Spanish acronym). This foundation has chosen to replace its usual telephone assistance service by a chat due to the possible difficult circumstances of calling in which boys and girls who need help can find themselves. The data collected from the chat show an increase of 300% for queries at this time. During confinement, it has received an average of 38 daily consultations [
8], while during 2019 the daily average was 9 consultations [
9]. In only one week (23–30 March), the professional team of this organisation answered 270 requests for assistance that were received by chat and e-mail. Among these, 173 serious cases were detected. Two out of every five cases addressed were due to violence. Physical violence within the family constituted the highest percentage at 12.7% of cases, followed by psychological abuse (6.9%). Noteworthy for their seriousness were cases of sexual abuse (3.5%), in which the minors could not escape from their aggressors. A total of 2.9% were minors who were in a state of abandonment or neglect during this period. Requests for help were made by children who had access and skills to use electronic devices through the Internet. ANAR warns that these data are only a small part of what is truly happening. Younger children are even more unprotected if neighbours, friends, and family do not identify and report situations that may be occurring [
10]. Research indicates that “closed doors”, hiding, non-identification, and non-reporting are the main barriers to overcoming child abuse [
11].
1.3. School-Based Programs to Prevent Child Abuse
In the last three decades, evidence has been collected on school-based abuse prevention programmes from early childhood, elementary and high schools; these programmes have been found to be effective in increasing children’s knowledge of child abuse concepts and self-protection skills [
6,
15,
16]. Schools are ideal settings for promoting child abuse prevention, providing knowledge and skills for children to recognise abuse and to reduce risk, creating a trusted environment in which children can disclose if they are being abused, and creating a safe context involving the entire community [
6,
15,
17,
18,
19,
20]. The main messages in programmes that have proven to be effective are to tell a trusted adult, that it is never too late to tell, that the abuse is never their fault, and that the perpetrator is always responsible. Examples are provided to further define these concepts so that children understand what is meant by “trusted adult” and “unsafe or confusing touch” [
17], permission to say no to authority figures, understanding that trusted adults can act abusively, and rules about breaking promises and keeping secrets [
20]. The purpose of these programmes is to transfer the knowledge and skills learned by children or adolescents in classroom settings to real-life situations [
21].
Other programmes focused on promoting healthy relationships and preventing domestic abuse emphasise friendships and peer relationships to discuss abuse in intimate relationships, how to build positive relationships, how children and youth can develop relationships free of fear and abuse, conflict resolution skills, and underlying attitudes that lead to abusive tendencies [
22]. In the same vein, evidence-based interventions following a preventive socialisation of violence approach have been conducted. Research on risk factors related to gender violence conducted from a preventive socialisation approach has identified the existence of a coercive dominant discourse in which people with violent attitudes and behaviours are socially portrayed as attractive and exciting, while people and relationships with nonviolent attitudes and behaviours are portrayed as less exciting [
23,
24]. Some of the messages from this approach are directed towards the promotion of zero violence from early childhood education, such as “a friend is the one who treats you well” and “someone who is an upstander in favour of the victim, acts without violence, and reports aggression is not a snitch, he/she is brave”. These messages aim to ensure that there is no justification for violence from an early age and to promote the socialisation based on the desire of nonviolent people who have the best values [
25]. In this approach, the actions addressed towards the preventive socialisation of violence are not separated from instrumental learning sessions (mathematics, language, science, etc.) or from the different spaces of the school (class, gym, lunchroom, etc.) Instead, they are promoted in each of the interactions that occur in all of these spaces [
26,
27].
These interventions work by implementing effective pedagogical principles used by teachers and programme facilitators in the classroom, especially those based on sociocultural theories of learning such as Vygotsky’s theory [
21]. From this perspective, evidence has shown that the most effective programmes are those that provide opportunities for active participation, including role-playing, video modelling, and discussion [
6]. Along these lines and from the perspective of the preventive socialisation of violence, schools are developing dialogic gatherings with boys and girls to promote egalitarian dialogues focused on the transformation of the language of desire to create possibilities for those who wish to question desires imposed by patriarchal societies and orient these desires towards nonviolent relationships [
28]. Many of these interventions are designed to engage children in interactive activities in which they exchange viewpoints on these issues [
29,
30]. For example, in interventions focusing on the prevention of sexual abuse, they discuss situations in which an adult’s touches or kisses feel like a boundary violation and how to deal with such situations [
31]. Interventions aimed at adolescents also encourage interaction among themselves and participation, largely by using real-life stories to engage students in discussion, identify with the different actors in a story, share their opinions, and listen to the opinions of others [
22].
Research has also been conducted on how these effective school-based programmes to prevent child abuse train teachers [
32,
33]. Training that targets teachers aims to raise awareness of their potential to be agents of social change to promote detection, disclosure, and intervention in their daily work at school [
34,
35]. In these trainings, teachers are warned of the risk children face when they disclose abuse and are not believed or are blamed, which can have devastating and long-lasting psychological, physical, relational, educational, and social effects. Therefore, teachers are encouraged to be agents of change who contribute to the creation of a safe environment to optimise the likelihood that children feel safe in disclosing child abuse, and that when children do disclose, they are believed and supported in the process [
17]. Another effective action in teacher training are dialogic pedagogical gatherings [
36]. In these gatherings, scientific articles and books with the main social, educational and psychological contributions related to child abuse and violence prevention are read and discussed by teachers [
26].
Other research has highlighted as a success factor the inclusion of local elements that promote community involvement in designing and developing child abuse prevention programmes [
19]. Research on child abuse prevention is clear that equipping children with greater protective skills and knowledge does not replace the responsibility of society to ensure the safety of children [
15]. For this reason, some of these child abuse prevention trainings also target all school staff, families, and community members [
6], enabling them to identify inappropriate situations and react appropriately by responding quickly and effectively to disclosures to protect children from new abuse, thus creating a safe context to prevent child abuse [
31]. In this regard, some interventions have been aimed at promoting upstanding behaviour involving children, families, teachers, and other school staff by being an upstander who, directly or indirectly, “says no” to violence, thus overcoming the role of the passive bystander who, knowingly or not, colludes with and supports abusive behaviour [
37,
38,
39]. Other interventions that involve the community start from a dialogic model of conflict prevention and resolution in which students, teachers, and families are involved in the decision making of norms for the promotion of a safe environment that is free of violence [
27].
Transferring these evidence-based messages into actions that can be promoted by schools in times of confinement could be essential to reduce the risk of child abuse. This study does not aim to identify children at risk of abuse. Since child abuse has been considered a kind of aggression that takes place “behind closed doors” [
11], the systematization of ODA offers knowledge to replicate them. The dissemination of ODA could contribute to “open doors” in other confined homes, creating spaces for supportive interactions as a preventive factor of child abuse and for good social, emotional, and physical development [
40]. For the abovementioned references, the aim of this work is to provide knowledge on evidence-based actions to “open doors” to foster supportive relationships and a safe environment to prevent child abuse during the period of COVID-19 confinement outside of schools. In a co-creation process between teacher leaders and researchers, what has been called the Open Doors Actions (ODA) emerge, based on scientific evidence with social impact for the creation of relationships that support children in times of physical distancing [
41]. These actions are based on the transfer of Successful Educational Actions [
42] to virtual school-home spaces. The article presents a systematization of these actions through a first analysis after six weeks of implementation. In this sense, the article does not show results resulting from the implementation of said actions. The impact of these actions is the subject of further studies and articles that are currently in progress. Therefore, it is a priority for the actions that are presented here—such as the dialogic workspaces, the dialogic gatherings, the class assemblies, the dialogic pedagogical gatherings with teachers, the mixed committees and the dynamisation of social networks with preventive messages and the creation of a sense of community—to be available to the worldwide educational community.