Woman's Hour - Women and homelessness, Louise Hare, Children, fake news and anxiety

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

More money has been made available across the UK to help rough sleepers during the Covid-19 pandemic. But is enough being done to help the thousands of women and children who are in temporary accommodation? What’s being done to protect the thousands of “hidden homeless” who find themselves in B&B’s. Jenni speaks to Tina who is “sofa-surfing” with her 5 year old daughter, and to Polly Neate, CEO of Shelter and Lindsay Cordery-Bruce, CEO of The Wallich, a homelessness charity in Wales about the particular difficulties women find themselves in.Set in 1950s London, Louise Hare talks about her debut novel, This Lovely City about the Windrush generation.How can parents help their children navigate the constant stream of information about Covid-19 online? And how can children learn to spot useful fact from dangerous fiction? Sonia Livingstone is a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics and an expert in digital literacy in children, and Dr Radha Modgil is a GP who discusses how to reduce anxiety and keep trust alive in an era of non-expert influencers and fake news. Presenter; Jenni Murray Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 25th of March. Good morning. It's day three of children being home from school and parents trying to persuade them this is not a holiday. There's homework to be done, books to read, a physical workout, and then what? Well, lots will be glued to their screens. How best to help them navigate the internet and the constant stream of information about COVID-19, not all of which is accurate.

And as the review of the Windrush scandal accuses the Home Office of ignorance and thoughtlessness when it comes to race. A new novel, This Lovely City, is set in London in 1950. Louise Hare's central character, Laurie, is a jazz musician who came from the Caribbean on the ship. Now, there are obviously lots of worries we're all facing at the moment, but none is more acute than being told you have to stay at home to protect yourself and everyone else. But you don't have a home to go to. There's provision for a mortgage holiday and there was reassurance on this morning's Today programme from the community secretary, Robert Jenrick, who was asked whether people who rent their homes are also being protected. We've been very clear that nobody should be evicted from their home as a result of coronavirus.

We're doing that in a number of different ways. Firstly, we're bringing about a moratorium on evictions for at least the next three months. So no court proceedings will occur which would lead to somebody losing their home in the next three months. And we have the option in the powers that we're taking in the bill to extend that from three months to six months if we need to. We'll have to review the situation as we approach the three month deadline and see where we are with the coronavirus crisis. If it's continuing, then of course we'll consider whether to extend that. Nobody should be worried about losing their home as a result of coronavirus. And the steps we've taken,

make sure that will not happen. The Community Secretary Robert Jenrick. Well, there has been some money made available across the UK to help rough sleepers during the outbreak of COVID-19. But is enough being done to help the thousands of women and children who are in temporary accommodation? They are effectively the hidden homeless who find themselves in a B&B or like Tina, sofa surfing with a five-year-old daughter. I spoke to her earlier this morning. She explained how she's living now.

I'm sofa surfing at the moment between family and friends with my five-year-old daughter and I have been basically homeless for almost seven years it'll be in July. Now I know that you and your mother for whom whom you're the carer, have underlying health problems and have been ill. So how difficult has it been to comply with self-isolation advice? It's very difficult. It's very, very difficult. It's almost impossible due to the fact that I'm obviously in other people's homes and space and um obviously there's my daughter as well so yeah we've not been able to um isolate in a room without the sort of shift rooms what do you mean shift rooms i mean how how small a space are you in

it's a one-bedroom flat and um also when i go to my aunt's it's a one-bedroom flat and um also when I go to my aunt's it's a one-bedroom flat and my niece is a one-bedroom flat so you can imagine um being in the front room and when my mum's in the front room I'll go in the bedroom with my little girl and then but then obviously she's getting contaminated She ends up with my cough as well. And then when my mum wants to go to bed, we kind of swap over and I sleep in the front room. You talk about your cough. Is this a cough that you think might be connected to the virus or is that something you've had for some time?

Well, I ended up having an asthma attack two weeks ago. I don't know what caused it. I just had an asthma attack, which I haven't had for over 20 years. Straight after that is when I started feeling my chest burning, which turned into a chest infection. And then the chest infection was supposed to not be really contagious but then my mum's ended up on antibiotics with a chest infection as does my daughter so it must be quite contagious so how are you managing to look after your mother and your daughter it's very difficult

um but i've managed to work it out some way or the other especially um because i work as well i work in a school i'm a senko one-to-one teacher my daughter also goes to school that routine seems to be better um obviously we've all been quarantined you know we're not allowed at school we're not allowed at work so yeah it's just been me doing some shopping now that I'm better and basically trying to sustain the hygiene when I go out and come in with my little girl to go for a run and a little jog or something some sort of form of play and yeah then we come back in the house and we have to sustain hygiene all the time.

Lots of hand-washing, yes? Yes, yeah, the hand-washing. They're also talking about taking off clothes, putting them in a washing machine, not touching the face, which is quite difficult, as we all know. Staying apart from each other, which is quite complicated when you've got a five-year-old because she doesn't she's always with me so yeah what does your future hold is

there any chance of you getting more permanent accommodation for you and your daughter this is i've i believe because now this has mentally affected me and i've been uh for the last two years been put on antidepressant tablets but that has kind of unfortunately helped push the council to find me some form of accommodation actually for the first time in seven years almost give me bidding points to get a place to live and it's also affected my five-year-old and her emotional well-being she's currently waiting for art therapy because we've basically been from pillar to post we've been put all over the place from the time she was even born she's never had no consistency she's never had um you know that first opportunity that a child should have um and what is important for children to start out in life so it's affected her and it's affected me

the moment i'm waiting for the council to tell me where i'm a priority or not what you know it goes by the points apparently and um yesterday they offered me somewhere to look at but i haven't been given an appointment yet they said the landlord was going to contact me but again private renting is very unaffordable when you are a single parent and very unrealistic. They're saying that they're looking at my income and outcome, so I'll wait and see what happens with that. I was talking to Tina. Well, what is being done to help women like her?

I'm joined by Lindsay Cordray-Bruce, the chief executive of The Wallet, a charity for the homeless in Wales, and by Polly Neate, the Chief Executive of Shelter. Polly, what did you make of what Tina had to say? Oh, it's heartbreaking, isn't it? And it's really typical. So we are hearing stories like this continually at Shelter.

What we're looking at here is basically public health crisis meets housing crisis. And these are the families who are caught in the middle of that. Many of them are led by single mothers. You know, we've got people sofa surfing like Tina's talked about. We've got people in bed and breakfast hotels and hostels with their kids where they're sharing kitchen and bathroom facilities with other families and individuals who are in those hostels.

You know, and, you know, we also, we do have people who are in the process of being evicted. So, you know, the government are doing stuff. And, you know, quite right to quote Robert Jenrick at the beginning of the programme about halting new evictions. But there's around 20,000 evictions already in progress in the courts. And at the moment, those can go ahead. Funnily enough, I was looking at our shelter Yammer

group just this morning and I saw a post from a member of our team who says that they've had a call from a woman in absolutely floods of tears because she's received an eviction notice she doesn't know what to do and it, yeah, I mean it is

really quite a dreadful situation. And is it too late for her to be protected by what Robert Jenrick said this morning? So at the moment, the government have published legislation to suspend new evictions from happening for three months. But it means that an estimated 20,000 evictions that are already in progress in the courts could go ahead. And it's very often after an eviction that families then end up in the sort of situation, I mean, I don't know why Tina is sofa surfing, just to be clear, but very often it's after an eviction that someone would end up sofa surfing or in a bed and breakfast. And, you know, everyone, I mean, self-isolating with young children is

extremely difficult but if you're in the type of accommodation that i've described and that tina described it's not only difficult it's actually impossible lindsay how big a problem are you finding hidden homelessness is for your charity um it's a problem everywhere. We're definitely aware that there's far too many people sofa surfing and actually that's the biggest cohort of people who are homeless. A lot of people think about rough sleeping when they imagine homelessness, but actually this is affecting more people

than those who are actually on the streets. What is your charity doing to try and tackle it? Well, we exist to do three things. We get people off the streets, we keep people off the streets and we create opportunities to stop them going back. So we have a whole range of projects, ranging from going out to engage rough sleepers on the street every day right through

to hostel emergency accommodation and then engaging people in the arts and building a life at the end with employment but you know we heard from tina how difficult it is to get any kind of permanent accommodation are you managing to find permanent accommodation for any of the people you need to look after? Local authorities in Wales should be applauded. They're really stepping up their efforts since we've seen this corona crisis. But the bottom line is there isn't enough homes. We know that we need to build 4,000 houses year on year for 15 years before we even scratch the surface in Wales. And we need that accommodation to be genuinely affordable so that people aren't falling into the situations that Polly described that Tina's in.

And we're also seeing some situations around sex for rent or sex for repairs for women who are unsuitably housed. Polly, we heard from Tina how her mental health has been affected by the very long period of time she has spent with these difficulties how long can people face living in that kind of temporary accommodation whether it's b&b or sofa surfing with relatives well i mean just i mean this is only one example, and it is fairly dramatic. But before this crisis, I was visiting our frontline service in Plymouth, and there's a girl who is 12 and has lived her entire life in temporary accommodation.

So 12 years is a very long time, but it's extremely common to hear of people in temporary accommodation for two years and more. And for young children, you know, that is a very significant part of a vital bit of their life that they're never going to get back. So people can spend a really serious amount of time. I mean, what I do want to say, because you're so right about mental health being affected. You know, we are still open for business at Shelter. We are providing help on the phone, online, live web chats. We have expert advisors. We have lawyers who can fight evictions. So, you know, there is help available and I do want to really stress that because people are in crisis at the moment and they need to know that they can reach out. Of course we need or we also do need more action

from the government. What, Lindsay, are your teams able to do to help those with addiction and mental health problems? Well we have specialist services that deal with all of those problems and we work um closely in partnership with with substance misuse services and so one example is we have a specialist project in swansea that is a house for women who who have mental health and substance misuse issues and they get extra intervention they get extra support and we do a wraparound service to make sure they get the care that they need. Polly, I've just had a message handed to me from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

who obviously were listening to what you said about the cases that are currently going through the courts, the eviction notices. And it says clear guidance has been issued by the lord chief justice to judges and by the ministry of justice to bailiffs meaning that it's highly unlikely that any possession proceedings will continue during this period how reassured are you by that um i'm quite reassured um we are still seeing evictions before the courts though uh and you know uh we at shelter employ um amazing solicitors who go who are still uh working in the courts uh supporting people um so um yes i am a bit reassured. But we know that evictions are still taking place. And guidance isn't necessarily going to be enough for people who already have eviction notices.

I just want to say, I'm absolutely not saying the government is doing nothing about homelessness. They're doing a lot on rough sleeping. And they have taken measures on both benefits and, as Robert Gemmick said earlier, on evictions. There is more that needs to be done, and I think what's really important is to understand the situation of particularly single mothers and their children with desperately unsuitable accommodation or currently facing eviction.

So what specifically, Polly, could the government be doing more to help that particular group, the single women with children? So, first of all, we need a major effort to source appropriate accommodation for people to live in. So, you know, it isn't appropriate in this current situation that there's around 5,400 homeless families living in emergency bed and breakfast and hostels where they have to share facilities by which I mean kitchens and bathrooms and where families are often sleeping in just one single room. So that isn't OK anyway.

You know, that's never been OK, just to be clear. But the kind of perfect storm of that with this current public health crisis means that we really do need emergency measures for those people. Of course, in the long run, as Lindsay 100% rightly said, totally agree with her, what is needed is a programme of building properly affordable social housing. And actually, that is a great way to help the country recover from this crisis.

A programme of house building would help a lot. Polly Neate and Lindy Cordray-Bruce, thank you both very much indeed for being with us. We would like to hear from you if you're in this kind of situation. You can tweet or, of course, you can email us. And there are links on the Women's Hour website to the kind of charities that might be helpful. Now, still to come in today's programme, with the children at home and no doubt glued to their screens,

how best to protect them from any false information about the COVID-19 they might find online. Yesterday, we heard the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, confirm that children of parents who are separated are able to move between households during the restrictions. We'd like to hear from you about being joint parents during this time. How easy or otherwise are you finding it? And what was once called low-skilled is now a key worker.

Are you one of them? Supermarket workers, nurses, midwives and carers are all essential roles in keeping the country running. If this is your job, again, we'd like to hear from you. How are you coping and how are people treating you? Get in touch on Twitter, Instagram or through the Women's Hour website if you'd be happy to share your story. Earlier in the week, you may have missed tips for educating your children at home

and Dr Camilla Pang, who talked about her experience of autism. If you've missed the live programme you can catch up. All you have to do is download the BBC Sounds app and search for Woman's Hour and there we are. Now last week the long-awaited review of the Windrush scandal was revealed in which the Home Office was said to have shown ignorance and thoughtlessness on the issue of race. It's 72 years since the Empire Windrush docked in Britain, carrying hundreds of passengers from the Caribbean who'd answered... Excuse me. Not the virus, I promise you.

There we go. They'd answered an advert to help rebuild the country after the Second World War. It forms the background of a novel written by Louise Hare. It's called This Lovely City. Among the passengers who arrive is a jazz musician, Laurie, who makes his home in South London and falls in love with Evie, the girl next door. Evie still got a thrill every time she saw him play, watching the other women stare up at him,

admiring his good looks and his smart suit. She liked to stand far enough back that he wouldn't notice her, not wanting the spell to be broken. The dance floor was full now, men and women flirting as they spun around, shouting and laughing over the music as they shook off the working week. Friday night in London town, survivors of war. Who knew better how to live than those who had not so long ago wondered how short that life might be?

Boiling in here, Delia fanned her face with a creased beer mat. I'm sweating like a priest in a brothel, as my old pa says. Don't let my mother hear you talk like that. She says it's not ladylike to speak coarsely. Of course, she also claims that only men sweat, but women glow. Evie ran a light fingertip across her upper lip to check for moisture. Any warmer and she'd be glowing off the tiny amount of powder she'd carefully applied to her face, just enough to take away the shine, not so much that her skin looked ashen.

Well, earlier I spoke to Louise. What inspired her to write about the Windrush generation as they arrived in the UK? It was actually kind of an accident. I did a tour into the Deep Level Shelter underneath Clapham South Tube Station, which I knew had been used as an airway shelter. And it was only when I got down there and I saw they'd put up photos of Windrush passengers. And it really shocked me, the idea that this was a place that they thought would be suitable accommodation for people who had just arrived from the Caribbean. So I'd written a short story. I was doing an MA at the time in creative writing. And the feedback was, what happens next?

Now, Laurie, the central character, does get a job, but he struggles. How did you research how the new immigrants managed to find their feet? There's some really good literature of the time. So The Lonely Londoners by Sam Sullivan was really, really sort of helped me sort of set out on that journey as to what people had done, how people got jobs, how people lived. And then the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton was really useful for finding sort of first person accounts of Windrush passengers. So talking about their first dates, their first thoughts, how their lives had sort of progressed living in England since. Now the story centres on a crime. Laurie, by chance, he's a postman he's delivering parcels and things maybe he shouldn't be

um but he's on his bike and he finds a baby drowned in a common pond why would he have become prime suspect um well the obvious reason is that obviously he was at the scene of the crime also Also, the baby is black. So, you know, there's a small Caribbean community in that area. But he's the obvious suspect, just through his presence and through the colour of his skin, essentially. And, I mean, the book is sort of a murder mystery and you do want to solve the crime and it is solved by the end.

But I think I just wanted to use that as a way of exploring a lot of the issues of the time. The police are absolutely appalling in their behaviour towards him. Again, where did you get that real sense of the racism that was so prevalent from? Again, reading a lot of literature that was written at the time sort of enforced that these were the attitude not just of the police but of everybody I think you know I tried to sort of keep the police

out of it as much as possible I didn't want that to be the biggest focus it's more about the community and the way that the whole community reacts but obviously I did want to reflect you know the real issues of the time. You began writing before the Windrush scandal actually broke but how did it influence the story that you then went on to tell? In terms of the story and the plot line, not at all really because the book was written essentially by that sort of time which was March 2018. I had an agent at that point as well.

One thing that we discussed was just sort of reinforcing small things. So making sure that it was really clear in the book that these people travelled on British passports. They consider themselves as British. And that's why the Wimbledon scandal is such a scandal. You know, you're deporting people from a country that they consider their own. And it's cruel. Now, Evie, who we've just heard you explaining how she's listening to him playing music, she's mixed race.

Why were you keen to tell the story of a young British-born mixed race woman? Or do I really need to ask you that question? Obviously, I'm mixed-race myself, so it was easy for me to use a lot of my own experiences for Evie. But also, I wanted to sort of highlight the fact that there were black people living in this country back over hundreds of years. So I really wanted to have a character

who was pretty much as you like. So she was obviously born in the 1930s. You know, there were quite a few people like Evie in sort of London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Bristol, those sort of bigger centres, there would have been, you know, mixed race children. So I kind of wanted to make sure that people understood that and people knew that. So on what did you base the racism Evie faces, which is essentially different from what Laurie faces? Yeah, I used a lot of my own experiences from childhood, to be honest. So whereas Laurie faces probably more violence in the racism that he encounters, Evie's tends to be just little words or little things that, you know, you can't put your finger on and say that's exactly why,

but you kind of know. So, for example, I write about when she's at school and the teacher thinks that she's not a very good reader, but her mother knows that she reads books all the time and that's something that happened to me at school. So it's just those little things that I wanted to sort of bring to it to show that racism isn't always just someone getting into you know getting punched in the street it's quite sort of insidious. Agnes is Evie's mother now what are you hoping readers will learn from Agnes. Desperation, it seems to me, for respectability.

Yeah, I mean, she made a choice to keep her daughter. It meant that she was cut off from her family. She's white, of course, and the father has disappeared. Yes. So, I mean, yeah, she's desperate for, I guess, anything. I mean, she's been literally cut off. You know, she hides Evie at one point because she so much wants to fit in with the other women, the other mothers. And so, yeah, over time, over the 18 years of Evie's life, she's just become more and more bitter.

And she loves her daughter, but ultimately, I think she does sort of admit that at one point that she does sort of regret that decision at the end of the day, because it has sort of ruined any chance of her getting married, of her having a social life. She's basically ostracised from the community. Why is there so much music in the story? I mean, I always listen to music when I write. It really helped me to create the atmosphere in my head listening to music of the time um and I chose jazz because I kind of like jazz and I used to play clarinet at school so it made sense that Laurie played clarinet um but also there were a lot of musicians on the Windrush which sort of came with my research so um it was a really easy

way for me to sort of build um Laurie's group of friends around the band that he plays in. And it was just, yeah, it just cheered me up. It would have been great to have been in one of those clubs where they were playing, wouldn't it? Yeah, I loved it. I was talking to Louise Hare, the author of This Lovely City. Now, I think we're all aware of the stress that's being put on the internet because everybody at work and at home is going online for work, for schooling and simply to keep in touch with family and friends

for the limited amount of social contact that's available to us. It's not surprising that children forced to be at home from school are spending more time than ever in front of a screen, not only for their education and entertainment but also for information how conscious are children that what they read online may not be accurate or helpful i think social media can be scary like this new coronavirus i think it is really scary because i don't think social media helps it with people talking about it i understand like people have their opinions and everything but i just find it really scary. It can also lead to bigotry and hatred. If you take the coronavirus outbreak now, the sort of the fake news that it came from people eating bats, that's led people to have a bias against Asians in general, never mind just Chinese people.

I saw this thing, it was like coronavirus is a killer, but fake news can be even worse. For example, I heard one that was like bleach, drink bleach to cure the coronavirus. It's ridiculous. It's like if you drink bleach, you are going to die. You're not going to get cured. You're going to die. That's why you're not going to get the coronavirus. Charlie Hetty and Aliyah, who took part in the BBC Bite Size Fact or Fake campaign.

Well, how can parents help their children navigate the constant stream of information and how can children learn to be switched on to the difference between useful fact and dangerous fiction as the ones we just heard seem to have? Well, Dr Rado Modgil is a GP and one of the presenters of Radio 1's Life Hacks. Sonia Livingston is Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Sarah, one of those young people mentioned bleach.

Other stories going around, I know, have mentioned eating garlic and drinking urine. How do people get taken in by what seems just not right? Yeah, that's a really great question. And we are just seeing so many hoaxes and spam and misguided, quote, advice that is adding to the confusion of what is really already quite a difficult situation for families to deal with. So I think there are two kinds of

answers. One is, you know, these are just incredibly uncertain times. People are anxious, they really want to know. And so people are looking for information much more than they did before. And, you know, it's difficult to discern what can be trusted and what isn't trustworthy. And I think the other problem is that the platforms, the social media where, you know, we turn to and where people so much get their news from these days, those platforms promote the sensationalist information. It's kind of in their interest to grab our attention. And so what's kind of more, what seems more amazing, what seems more attention grabbing is just pushed at us a lot more. And people have often learned to trust information that they see coming from different sources. So if the fake information

comes from all directions, and often it's shared by people that we trust ourselves. You know, have you seen this? I think it just makes it incredibly difficult to work out what's reliable. Radha, to what extent is this crisis restoring the reputation of the expert and the need for them? Because we heard in recent years, oh, experts, we don't need them. Are we changing our mind yes absolutely so as you say over the last few years especially this virus you know it's been bubbling around under the surface around the need for experts and do we need experts and do we

not need experts this one of the things that this virus is really bringing to the forefront amongst many issues is the fact that we really need expert advice more than ever now and that's not just to stay physically safe it's also to stay you know mentally well and emotionally well as well when we have the facts when we know that we can trust those facts and we know what we should be doing our day-to-day lives then we can feel more reassured and can actually keep ourselves safe but we can also keep the people around us safe as well and it's never been more important that we can actually check and make sure we're getting expert advice at this time as Sonia was saying you know this last week has been incredibly difficult everything's been

changing every single day every single moment and so for all of us we need to find our grounding and in order to find our grounding to have that to feel safe, we need to get the facts and we need to get those from experts. Sonia, young people are often described as digital natives, the ones who really know what they're doing digitally. But how good are they really at understanding what they see online? I mean, those three were impressive that we just heard. But are all children as good at spotting what's not fact as they were? No, no, of course they're not. And a lot depends on their age.

And research also shows, I'm afraid, it does depend on the education or the kind of privileges that their parents have. So there's a lot of inequalities that affect people's literacy skills. And I think a lot of adults watching children can be taken in a bit by how quick they are to find things and how confident they are in using different devices. But that doesn't mean that they necessarily have the skills to tell fake from fiction. And the National Literacy Trust found that children like adults can often really struggle. So only a minority can tell what's fake story from what's a true story. So, you know, so some

media education, some guidance in checking the facts is really needed by everybody, but including children. Rhoda, how do you advise parents to help their children cope with what they're seeing? Yes, I think there are two parts to this. I think one is obviously the practical part. So BBC Bite Size, the Fact or Fake campaign is online now. It's got some great resources on there.

You can sit down and actually watch and read with your children to actually give them the practical tips about how to recognise what might be fake news around the stories and how to check the sources, for example. Then the other side of that is the emotional picture. So obviously, all of us, you know, adults are feeling incredibly anxious and incredibly worried. And so children and young people must be feeling even more so. So dealing with that emotional situation with your children, so sitting them down, having a family conference and trying to

plan and create a plan. We're finding it difficult to control things. If we can sit down and talk to our children, give them a clear plan, a clear strategy around what's going to happen in the house and how people are going to do things in the house, what the current situation is and the advice from the government. I think giving them those

facts and that grounding in their day-to-day lives, giving them a sense of continuity, which is really important, but also more general things emotionally. So keeping it simple, realising that your reactions and your emotions will project onto them. So being aware of how you behave and how you respond when you're watching the news around them, for example. And also letting them know that you are there for them. it's what are their questions what can you help them with and can you together sit down

online and use a trusted source and to actually work those questions through and actually come up with some clear concrete answers for them sonia how sensible would it be to try and restrict restrict their access? It's interesting that this whole new situation in which children are suddenly at home and not at school coincides with the moment when we've been saying, let's, you know, we've been worried about screen time and we've been trying to reduce how much time children spend in front of screens. So suddenly the digital technology looks like it has a lot of answers to entertain children and to inform families so you know what what researchers have been really arguing for quite a while now is it it just isn't about the amount of time that children spend with the screen and and this is the wrong time for families to try to to limit that but

what really matters is for children and parents together to discuss, you know, what is a good experience on the screen? What is really, you know, why is something entertaining or what can they learn from? Or are there screen activities they can do together and then kind of agree what are the other things that are still available to them, whether it is, you know, playing with siblings or maybe in the the garden so it's not the time to be worrying about screen time but it is a great time

to really focus on what is on and what you can engage with that is productive just one word sonia journalists are always taught to check their facts and check their sources how can parents and children be sure that they're checking the source of what they see online so i'd like to add to what rada said about going online with children and say ask children to explore because they do know you know they don't know everything but give them the the the kind of task of detection if you like uh what is the url um are other sources reporting the same information is there a spelling mistake in that what looks like good news uh can you find out why it looks so amazing and you know because if it looks so amazing it's probably not you know charge the child to kind of play the role, a bit of information detective for the family.

And I think they'll feel empowered and it might be helpful because kids love looking for health information online. And they, you know, they would love that responsibility, I think. I was talking to Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Radha Modgill. On the homelessness discussion, Penelope said, I feel for everyone in this situation, but no one has mentioned the landlords in all this. I have one property and if my tenants couldn't pay the rent, I would have no income. Not all landlords are greedy, grasping people that they're made out to be. We all need help. Someone who didn't want us to use their name said,

I live in East Wittering, West Sussex, and I've always been dismayed at the number of empty holiday homes during the winter when homeless people need accommodation. Also, an empty bungalow at the bottom of my garden has been going to rack and ruin for 10 years. How is this possible? At least holiday homes could be rented out by the council, which could monitor the residents to ensure the holiday homes are not damaged. It's very unfair, as the woman speaking on the radio this morning could have one of them and bring the villagers here back to life

in the winter. At this moment, the place seems to be a retirement home for rich people. Emma Roberts on Twitter said, Could all this, with Airbnbs sitting empty, help the single mother homelessness crisis? Help out in this time of crisis, maybe get some low rent from government for the empty Airbnbs. And Patricia said, Can I suggest that the government visit the prefab concept? Built temporarily, these were very popular and lasted for a long time.

There are many lovely buildings now designed for holidays like Hebridean homes. We built our own and it's been inhabited now for nearly 10 years. It cost, without a water system, about £20,000. And then on the fake news discussion, Josie said, Thanks to Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Rodin-Woodgill for highlighting the importance of experts and young people particularly having the tools to navigate news. Coronavirus is a killer, but fake news can be even worse. Wise words from a young person.

Newswise tweeted, our partners at Literacy Trust found that only 2% of children have the skills to spot if a news story is real or fake in their report on fake news and critical literacy. Jenny said this may sound like what Basil Fawlty called the bleeding obvious, but among the talk of screen time with stay-at-home kids and the uses that the internet can be put to, let's not forget books. The bookshops are open and if closed books can be ordered online, ideal opportunity to see how their elders pass time when stuck at home with illness or rain. Rocchio said, I totally disagree with the idea that it's not the time to limit screen time. I would say, based on my experience, there's absolutely no reason to increase it and more than ever to stop your children becoming totally

addicted to it. Share time with your child. The screen is the worst replacement for a parent. We're having a fantastic experience so far with a year four and a toddler with home schooling, a nice routine, plenty of breaks, exercise routines that we do together, and two hours of fresh air in the garden throughout the day, playing with them. No screens involved, except to connect 15 minutes with classmates and download school packages. And Caroline wrote, instead of complaining about what children watch online, why not steer them towards something which is both fun and educational? Many zoos have webcams where you can watch the animals live. Some cathedrals have set up webcams, links on their websites, to observe the peregrines which nest there. Winchester, where I live, had one camera and has now added another, facing in the opposite direction. The female has laid at

least one egg and is currently sitting on the nest. There are also many live webcams which are situated on shipping lanes. I often watch ships passing through the Panama Canal or in city centres all over the world. Looking at the footage from these could spark all sorts of discussions. Now, tomorrow we'll be discussing why we choose the clothes we do.

In a new book, Dress for Life, an American fashion psychologist, Dawn Curran, explains how our clothing is the connective tissue between the physical and emotional. She joins me to discuss how our clothes do the talking. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.