Foster Care in Canada
What is foster care?
Fostering is the act of bringing a child into your family and providing them with life necessities as well as emotional support during a difficult and confusing time. Under the Child and Family Services Act, foster care is defined as the placement of a child or young person in the home of someone who receives compensation for caring for the child but is not the child’s parent. Ontario’s Children Aid Societies (CASs) work hard to keep families together and children at home. When children cannot remain at home because of serious concerns about their safety and protection, foster families care for the child until they can safely return home.
Foster families are very special because they give their time and love over and over again to the children and youth who need it the most.
Fostering is the act of bringing a child into your family and providing them with life necessities as well as emotional support during a difficult and confusing time. Under the Child and Family Services Act, foster care is defined as the placement of a child or young person in the home of someone who receives compensation for caring for the child but is not the child’s parent. Ontario’s Children Aid Societies (CASs) work hard to keep families together and children at home. When children cannot remain at home because of serious concerns about their safety and protection, foster families care for the child until they can safely return home.
Foster families are very special because they give their time and love over and over again to the children and youth who need it the most.
Children in Care - what's the problem?
What happens to kids who authorities determine can't live safely with their own parents or caregivers? Thousands of Canadian children are in this situation right now. Many go into foster homes, while others go into other types of out-of-home care on behalf of child welfare agencies. But we don't know how many, nor do we know how well they are doing.
Why? Canada does not keep reliable national statistics on kids in care, instead relying on provincial reporting. But each province has its own child welfare policy and its own definition of children in care, which may not include other types of out-of-home care, such as care from family relatives (kinship care) or group homes.
This matters, because it is difficult to know what to do -- how to improve outcomes for Canadian kids -- if we are not keeping track of what is going on. Some analysts say child welfare systems suffer from underfunding, staffing cuts and not enough foster families or resources to support them. But policy makers have a hard time deciding what to fund without statistics to measure possible outcomes. Also, reliable numbers can help provinces compare best practices for child welfare.
Instead, Canada's foster children story is a patchwork of data and news headlines reporting foster care crises where some children have died while receiving child services.
Why? Canada does not keep reliable national statistics on kids in care, instead relying on provincial reporting. But each province has its own child welfare policy and its own definition of children in care, which may not include other types of out-of-home care, such as care from family relatives (kinship care) or group homes.
This matters, because it is difficult to know what to do -- how to improve outcomes for Canadian kids -- if we are not keeping track of what is going on. Some analysts say child welfare systems suffer from underfunding, staffing cuts and not enough foster families or resources to support them. But policy makers have a hard time deciding what to fund without statistics to measure possible outcomes. Also, reliable numbers can help provinces compare best practices for child welfare.
Instead, Canada's foster children story is a patchwork of data and news headlines reporting foster care crises where some children have died while receiving child services.
Manitoba - Children in Care
