The emotional impact of 'contact': Ethan's experience and suggestions for professionals

Ethan’s in his early 30s now. He was in foster care from the age of five and then in children’s homes from the age of 11. In this conversation we speak about staying in touch with and seeing family members while in care. 

You'll hear the word ‘contact’ quite a bit - the word that was very much in use when Ethan was young. We hope this makes sense when you listen, while we know practitioners today increasingly recognise the importance of using language that suits the individual child, whether that’s 'family time' or something else. 

Ethan speaks about his experiences of different types of ‘contact’ – including visiting his parents in jail, supervised sessions with his grandparents and siblings, goodbye meetings with other siblings who were adopted, and unsupervised time with his parents as he got older.

He shares his thoughts on how professionals can support children and young people with the complexity of wanting and valuing connection with family, while dealing with what can be its extremely challenging emotional impact.

Ethan was speaking to Joanna Silman, senior content editor at Community Care Inform Children.

Community Care Inform subscribers can access additional resources and a written transcript of the podcast here: https://www.ccinform.co.uk/practice-guidance/podcast-transcript-the-emotional-impact-of-contact-ethans-experience/

You can watch the video interview Ethan did with Jenny Molloy spoke about his experience of being taken into care, and the social workers who made the biggest difference to his life here: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2023/10/26/choose-social-work-they-helped-me-escape-the-life-i-was-living-as-a-teenager/

Ethan believes strongly in the importance of sharing lived experience of different aspects of being a child in care to help improve practice with young people today and speaks at training events for social workers and other professionals. If you would like to get in touch with Ethan, please email [e-mail] and we can pass a message on.