Family Separation

Life-Path Interview 07

Purpose: Understand how separation from parents, children, siblings, partners, caregivers, or chosen family affected the person's life.

Approximate ages are fine. The participant may skip any question.

Participant code: ____________________ Date: ____________________

Interviewer: ____________________

□ The participant agrees to have these responses recorded and stored privately for Union support planning. Questions may be skipped. The participant can ask the administrator to review or correct the record, or discuss withdrawal.

1. First Important Separation

What is the first important separation from family that you remember?

Who were you separated from? Approximate age?

You do not need to explain private details about the other person.

Did you understand why the separation was happening?

2. Choice and Control

How much control did you have over what happened?

Did anyone explain things to you?

Did you know whether or when you would see the person again?

3. Immediate Effect

What changed afterward in home, school, money, daily routine, safety, behaviour, friendships, trust, responsibilities, or something else?

What did you miss most?

4. Repeated Separation

Did separation become something that happened repeatedly in your life?

How did repeated separation affect the way you form relationships?

5. Reconnection

Was there ever a successful reconnection?

What made it work?

Was there a relationship you were able to rebuild?

6. Family Beyond Biology

Who have you considered family even though you are not closely related?

What made them family?

7. Looking Back

What could adults or institutions have done to reduce the harm of separation?

What matters most when helping people reconnect?

8. Participant's Own Interpretation

Finish: "The separation that changed me most was..."

Finish: "Family, to me, means..."

Interviewer Notes

First major separation age: ____________________________________________

Relationship involved: ____________________________________________

Major consequence: ____________________________________________

Successful reconnections: ____________________________________________

Chosen-family supports: ____________________________________________