Service Data

Intake and Assessment

The number of cases opened for assessment increased in the last fiscal year with an uptick of 14 per cent over the previous fiscal year. This may be explained by the continued return to post-pandemic activities and increased visibility of children and youth in the community.

In addition, the pandemic has continued to have an impact on children, youth, and families which may, in part, explain this increase. For example, mental health profiles have continued to evolve and are becoming more complex.

Ongoing Services

The provincial direction towards increased engagement of kin and our clinical approach of Signs of Safety and Family Finding/Family Engagement has reduced the number of children and youth under the age of 18 admitted into care—a number that has overall been trending downward by 22.8 per cent over the past five years. In the previous fiscal year, a marginal increase of 2.6 per cent is noted. This may be explained by the increase in volume of investigations and ongoing cases.

Children and Youth in Care

The provincial direction towards increased kinship services and our Signs of Safety and Family Finding/Family Engagement service approaches have reduced the number of children and youth under the age of 18 admitted into care—a number that has been decreasing by 29.7 per cent over the past five years and by 9.8 per cent over the previous fiscal year.

Cultural Identity of Children and Youth in Out-of-Home Care

We seek to identify the ethno-cultural, social and language identities of all service recipients, to meet their needs and determine the efficacy of initiatives addressing disproportionality and overrepresentation of racialized children, youth and families using CASO services.

CASO actively engages with community partners who serve people with diverse ethno-cultural and social identities to ensure families and children receive services that are meaningful, helpful and honour their diverse needs.

Figure 4 outlines the data regarding the ethnicity of children and youth in out-of-home care in the past four fiscal years in comparison to the general population of Ottawa (Census, 2021). This includes in care as well as those in kin service and formal customary care arrangements, and those youth receiving Ready Set Go services.

Of concern is the higher percentage of children and youth in out-of-home care of African and Caribbean descent and those who are First Nations, Inuit and Métis, relative to other ethnicities. There are several initiatives underway to ensure we better serve children from diverse communities and to partner with those communities to enhance our knowledge and understanding of their challenges and needs.

While 19.7 per cent of the children and youth in out-of-home care are from African and Caribbean communities, 29.8 per cent of those children and youth are in care. The largest percentage of children and youth in out of home care are receiving Ready Set Go services at 38.8 per cent. This number is impacted by the implementation of the Ready Set Go program on April 1, 2023, which extended the age at which youth can receive services to 23. The previous program (Continued Care and Support for Youth) provided services to the age of 21. As well, 20.7 per cent of youth are in kinship service placements, so while they are in out-of-home care, they are placed with family or friends known to them.

In the figure below, the data regarding Indigenous children and youth in out-of-home care is stratified by placement type. Thirty-six per cent are in in-care placements. The second largest group of Indigenous children and youth are those in kinship service placements at 30 per cent, followed by those who are receiving services within the Ready Set Go program (17 per cent). While the number of Formal Customary Care Agreements (FCCAs) is low at 5 per cent, there are barriers to creating FCCAs. For example, we have determined that 50 per cent of First Nations children and youth who have in-care placements do not have an identified community so that eliminates them from being eligible for an FCCA.

Resource Services

At CASO, specialized workers focus on service delivery in the areas of:

• Family Finding/Family Engagement
• Foster care
• Kinship
• Adoption

In 2020, we began work on a strategic initiative focused on reducing the use of group care. Last year, our overall percentage of group care used increased slightly from 9 per cent in the previous fiscal year to 13 per cent. The usage of society foster care remained the same (19 per cent), and there was a 2 per cent reduction in use of OPR foster care. The slight increase in the use of group care may be a result of the decrease in the number of available foster family homes across the province thus leaving fewer placement options for children and youth, as well as an increase in the complexity in the profile of the children and youth who require out-of-home care.

Our journey towards reducing group care and promoting family-based care is, however, making progress. While the overall percentage has increased marginally, we’ve witnessed positive shifts in society foster care and a consistent decrease in OPR foster care over the past few years.

Furthermore, the proportion of youth participating in the Ready Set Go program that began on April 1, 2023, was 57 per cent for this past fiscal year. This is primarily a result of the increased age of service from 21 to 23 years of age.

Kinship Service

The purpose of kinship service is to facilitate the provision of care and support in a manner that is consistent with family and community traditions for those children unable to remain with their family due to protection concerns. A kinship service family participates in a screening assessment that assesses the family’s ability to meet the safety and well-being needs of the child or youth. Though not a requirement, a kinship service provider could have a biological relationship to the child or youth. Examples of kinship service providers include grandparents, family friends, coaches or teachers. Kinship service is preferred over in-care arrangements such as foster care or group care whenever safely possible.

The use of kinship service has increased by 11 per cent over the previous fiscal year and has increased by 32 per cent since 2019-2020. This is a positive trend because overall numbers of children in care have largely declined, which would suggest that CASO is actively searching for and leveraging kin service as a least intrusive placement option when children and youth aren’t able to safely remain in their homes.

Permanency

CASO has focused on increasing permanency for children and youth since 2006. This involves a significant shift in beliefs and practices that place the emphasis on concurrent planning, from first involvement at the investigation assessment phase. This entails equal attention be given to a child or youth’s immediate safety needs as well as long-term care arrangements. Everyone involved in the planning process must:

• Believe that families can develop and maintain the capacity to care for their children given the appropriate supports.
• Move quickly when a child or youth requires out-of-home care to identify and engage interim care providers within families and their communities (kin).
• Search for potential kin who may commit to providing permanency through adoption or legal custody early in the case planning and continue searching on an ongoing basis for as long as the child or youth is in care if they cannot return home.
• Realize that age or special needs should not be a barrier to permanency for any child or youth.
• Make use of tools such as genograms, mobility and connectedness mapping with children, youth and families to assist in developing their support networks to:
  • Support them in times of crisis in order to keep the child safe while remaining at home;
  • Help the child feel connected to a strong identity rooted in their own history;
  • Offer practical supports to the child such as tutoring and mentoring;
  • Provide interim or permanent care to the child/youth; and,
  • Be creative in accessing financial subsidies and community-based resources to address specific needs of children/youth, thus removing barriers to establishing permanency.

CASO continues to pursue adoption and legal custody orders as permanency options. Figure 9 illustrates the permanency options achieved by type: adoptions, legal custody that was granted under CYFSA Section 102 (an order where the child or youth does not have Extended Society Care status) and legal custody granted under CYFSA Section 116 (the child must have Extended Society Care status).

As placement of children and youth in kin homes for interim care occasionally leads to permanency in that family, the work of assessing and supporting kin families is closely aligned with that of adoption. This year, there was a notable increase in adoptions and legal custody orders over the previous fiscal year: there was a 9 per cent increase in sec. 102 legal custody orders and an 80 per cent increase in adoptions finalized, although as indicated the chart below the numbers remain quite small.