In this series of Early Childhood Ireland’s podcast, we take a look at COVID-19 a year on, with 2 episodes looking at the impacts of the pandemic, on children, their families and the early childhood education sector. In this first episode Fiona Ferris, Deputy CEO and Head of Training with AsIAm, reflects on some positives and also some of the detrimental aspects of lockdown and restrictions on Autistic children and their families. She talks about the importance of relationships in education and concludes that relationships are desirable for adults, but essential for children.