Ms Paula Donohoe:

I thank the Deputy very much for her question. As a provider, I will say first and foremost that is part and parcel of what we do every day. It is part of our year. We are used to transitions. We regularly take children into the first place they might meet outside the family home. We work with children and support them, and also their parents, emotionally. Our role is quite large. We are professionally trained to deal with that on an ongoing basis. That training is there.

Resources have been made available to help during this closed period. I can speak for myself and some of my colleagues in saying that throughout this whole period, we have engaged very heavily with the children we care for through our Facebook engagements. We have been reading stories and connecting with them in other ways and they have not lost their connection with us. In fact, in my case, we did a virtual farm tour. We have tried to give them as close an experience as possible, virtually, to their schooling life. That has very much been part of our effort. We are best placed to support the children - as I have already been doing with my families - as we begin the process and journey of reopening next Monday. We will be there to support them in the way that we have been professionally trained to do, with the help of the additional resources that have been made available to us.