Shining Light in the Shadows: Navigating the Holiday Season with Care for Children in Need

Shining Light in the Shadows: Navigating the Holiday Season with Care for Children in Need

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Introduction

The festive season is often portrayed as a time of joy, togetherness, and celebration. For many, it represents warmth, family traditions, and a sense of belonging. However, for children in care, this period can bring a very different reality. Rather than comfort and excitement, the festive season can amplify existing challenges and highlight emotional gaps that are present throughout the year.

Children In Care

For children in care, those living in foster homes, group homes, or residential facilities the festive season can intensify feelings of loss and difference. With heightened focus on family gatherings, shared traditions, and togetherness, this time of year can act as a stark reminder of what they may be missing. Instead of bringing a sense of excitement, this season is overshadowed with overwhelming evidence of being different or left out. This in turn may lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation presenting themselves or intensifying during the holidays.

Many children in care have experienced trauma, instability, or disruption in their early lives. As a result, the absence of familiar faces, routines, and relationships can feel particularly unsettling. Festive periods may trigger painful memories of neglect, abuse, or separation, or evoke grief for relationships and family connections that are no longer present. For some, it may also stir memories of happier times with their birth families, deepening a sense of loss.

The festive season often brings significant changes to daily routines. Schools close, contact arrangements may change, and regular support services can be reduced. For children who rely on structure and predictability to feel safe and regulated, these disruptions can increase anxiety, emotional distress, or behavioural challenges.

Additionally, the closure of contact centres during holiday periods can mean reduced or cancelled contact with biological families, further intensifying feelings of separation and isolation. Within residential settings, staffing levels may also be affected as staff take annual leave. This can limit consistency of care and reduce opportunities for meaningful one-to-one support, leaving children feeling overlooked or disconnected at a time when emotional reassurance is most needed.

Children in care often carry complex and conflicting emotions during the festive season. They may feel grateful for the care and safety they receive, while simultaneously longing for the familiarity and comfort of their birth families. Navigating these competing feelings during a season that places such strong emphasis on family unity can be emotionally exhausting.

Offering Support to Children in Care

Recognising these challenges is essential. With thoughtful, intentional support, the festive season can become a more inclusive and emotionally safe time for children in care. Key ways to offer support include:

• Creating Inclusive Environments

Foster carers and care settings can help by creating inclusive celebrations that recognise and respect each child’s individual experiences. Avoiding assumptions about what the festive season “should” look like, and allowing children choice and voice in how it is marked, can help them feel valued and understood.

• Strengthening Support Networks

Encouraging connection with trusted adults—such as key workers, mentors, therapists, or advocates, can provide vital emotional containment during this period. Community organisations and outreach programmes can also play a key role in offering continuity, activities, and opportunities for positive connection throughout the holidays.

• Practising Empathy and Understanding

Empathy is fundamental. Acknowledging children’s feelings and validating their experiences can significantly support emotional wellbeing. Changes in behaviour during this time may reflect unspoken sadness, grief, or confusion rather than defiance, and should be met with patience and compassion.

• Maintaining Stability and Therapeutic Support

Where possible, maintaining elements of routine and predictability can provide a sense of safety. Increased access to trained professionals, counsellors, or therapeutic staff who understand the emotional impact of the festive season can be invaluable. Consistency, reassurance, and emotional availability are key protective factors during this time.

Conclusion

The festive season should be a time of compassion, inclusivity, and care for all children. For children in care, this period can highlight vulnerabilities and increase the risk of emotional distress or placement strain. These challenges reinforce the need for thoughtful planning, enhanced support, and trauma-informed approaches throughout the holiday period.

By recognising the unique experiences of children in care and responding with empathy, stability, and understanding, we can collectively help to make the festive season a safer, more supportive, and more hopeful time, ensuring no child feels forgotten or alone.

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