Putting children and youth first

The government is strengthening Ontario's child protection system to help promote the best interests of vulnerable children and youth.

Changes to the Child and Family Services Act are intended to:

• give children and youth who are in the care of children's aid societies more opportunities to grow up in caring, stable homes
• help children's aid societies become more efficient, accountable and more responsive to the needs of children and youth.

We are doing this by:

• making adoption more flexible so that more children can be adopted while still keeping ties to their birth family and community after adoption
• creating more legal options beyond traditional adoption to help more children and youth in care be placed in a permanent home.
• supporting increased use of customary care arrangements so that Aboriginal children and youth can keep important cultural and family ties
• making it easier for relatives and members of a child's community, including grandparents, to care for children and youth who need protection
• requiring home inspections and child welfare and criminal background checks for all adults in the home where family or community members are proposing to care for a child in need of protection
• creating more opportunities to consider settling child protection disputes out of court through mediation or other alternative dispute resolution approaches, where appropriate.
• establishing performance standards and operating policies that children's aid societies have to follow
• strengthening risk assessment tools so that children's aid societies can determine if a child's safety is at risk
• creating a standardized client complaint process for people who disagree with a children's aid society decision, which includes the possibility of applying for review by the Child and Family Services Review Board.