Contact or family time can be either direct or indirect. It is important that when using the terms direct and indirect contact you are clear about what this means. Direct contact is where the child spends time face to face with their family. Indirect contact includes phone calls, Skype or FaceTime (etc.), letters, birthday cards and Christmas cards. Contact or family time provides opportunities for looked after children and young people to stay in touch with their family, friends and other people who are important to them. Sometimes it is called just ‘contact’.
Unsupervised contact means that the contact takes place with no-one else there who has a specific role to facilitate, support or supervise the contact. Facilitated contact is where some support is provided for the contact such as a room in a Contact Centre or a Children’s Centre; and where possible, staff might greet everyone beforehand and pop in to ask if anything is needed. This would need to have been agreed with the setting prior to arranging the booking of the room.
