Ms Heather O'Shea:

On that, we have been providing support to a mam and her child over phone contact. The child was telling mammy about what was going on, that she needed support with this and that and then it reached the six-minute mark. Fortunately, where we doing the phone call, I was able to run out and ask for two more minutes but the difference was that phone call would have just been cut. The child would have been so distressed due to what she was talking about and mam would have been equally distressed, going off and being isolated, whereas we got the two extra minutes and were able to wrap it up nicely. The following phone call was not distressing for either mam or child. My fear is that either mam or child would avoid the next phone call because it was so distressing and upsetting, whereas the child still felt they were heard and supported by mam. We could wrap it up in a nice way so mam felt she was a mammy and the child felt mammy was there for her, which is huge.