Ontario's Child Welfare Redesign Strategy
The Ontario government is redesigning the child welfare system by:
- focusing on the needs of children, youth and families
- creating stronger foundations to support families
- ensuring children, youth and families have a strong voice in decisions about their care
The redesigned system will focus on strengthening families and communities through prevention and early intervention services that are culturally-appropriate, community and family-based, and responsive to the needs of children, youth and families. It will provide children and youth in care with the supports they need to be safe, to succeed, and to thrive as they transition from care to adulthood.
Five Pillars to Create Change
The redesigned child welfare system will be built on five pillars that focus on:
- Enhancing child, youth and family well-being across ministries and human services sectors that address complex challenges while keeping children safe in family-based settings
- Improving service collaboration, equity and the quality of residential care
- Increasing supports and developing stable, lifelong connections for children and youth with a focus on education and employment opportunities
- Improving the adoption experience with a focus on family-based options over group care where appropriate
- Improving accountability and sustainability
Pillar 1: Supporting Child, Youth, Family and Community Well-Being
The redesigned system will provide higher quality, culturally appropriate and responsive community-based services, with a focus on prevention and early intervention.
- Ministries, service providers and community organizations will work together to meet the needs of families using holistic and strengths-based approaches, including sectors that interact with families such as schools, early-years programs, parenting programs, and health and mental health services
- Sectors will actively address the disproportionate referrals of Indigenous and Black families to child welfare and ensure they receive culturally appropriate supports
- Children, youth and families will be connected more quickly to effective social supports
- Through the Ontario Indigenous Children and Youth Strategy (OICYS) Indigenous children, youth and families will access prevention and early intervention supports that are culturally appropriate and reflect their customs, heritage, and traditions. This includes the implementation of Indigenous-led child and family services, as well as care being provided by the community wherever possible.
Pillar 2: Improving Quality of Care
The new system will improve the quality of care in residential placements and build capacity, diversity and enhanced training for staff and caregivers to better support children and youth. Family-based options will be prioritized over group care, where appropriate. This includes:
- Launching Ontario’s Quality Standards Framework – A resource guide developed to support residential services providers in delivering high-quality care.
- Launching Children and Young Persons’ Rights Resource, an online resource to help children and youth receiving services under the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 to know and understand their rights under that law.
Pillar 3: Strengthening Youth Supports
A central part of the redesign is ensuring children, youth, and families have a strong voice in decisions about their care. This will include a priority focus on supporting children and youth to succeed at school and graduate with their peers, setting them up for future success at work and in adulthood. This includes:
- Expanding access to education supports and employment projects for children and youth in care
- Dedicated, targeted supports to meet the distinct needs of children and youth and to respond to their cultural identity
- Shifting financial investments to new initiatives that better serve Indigenous, Black, racialized and 2SLGBTQ children and youth
Pillar 4: Improving Stability and Permanency
Children and youth deserve supportive and loving homes that respond to their needs and identities. The redesigned system will support children and youth through permanency, increased stability and family-based placements such as customary care, kinship and adoption. The system will offer a more consistent, responsive adoption experience for children, youth and prospective parents. This includes:
- Improved access to supports for family-based caregivers
- Kinship finding to connect children and youth in care with previously unidentified kin
- A campaign to recruit diverse foster/adoptive parents and retain those currently providing care
- Centralized adoption intake service and matching
- Adoption service standards and expanded post-adoption parent training and peer supports
Pillar 5: Increasing System Accountability & Sustainability
The redesigned child welfare system will be efficient, effective, and financially sustainable going forward. This will be achieved by:
- Developing a new accountability framework focused on outcomes and enhanced service collaboration
- Supporting children’s aid societies to implement shared services and back office functions, such as HR, IT and finance
- Developing options for a new, financially sustainable funding model that encourages prevention, early intervention and family-based care