The Canadian child welfare system response to exposure to domestic violence investigations

Urgent Protection versus Chronic Need: Clarifying the Dual Mandate of Child Welfare Services across Canada

“…As a result, a third (33%) of the NIS-4 endangerment Child Protective Service cases met the NIS harm standard, whereas only one in eight (12%) of the CIS-2008 substantiated investigations met our urgent protection rating. The difference between the NIS and CIS can be explained in part by a broader inclusion of risk and exposure to intimate partner violence cases in Canada relative to the U.S. [50], which account for an important part in the overall increase in investigations in Canada [5]. A similar increase in investigations driven by cases of exposure to intimate violence had been documented in Australia [51].…”

“…From 1998 to 2008 the number of investigations that met one of these three criteria for urgent protective investigation has remained virtually unchanged, at a little over six investigations per 1000 children. In contrast, other maltreatment related investigations have more than doubled, going from a rate of 15.39 investigations per 1000 children in 1998 to 33.13 investigations per 1000 children in 2008, an increase that has been driven by investigations of children exposed to intimate partner violence and risk assessments where there were no specific abuse of neglect allegations [4,5]. As a result, the proportion of investigations that met our urgent protection classification has dropped from 28% in 1998 to 15% in 2008.…”

“…In Ontario, the largest Canadian province and the only jurisdiction for which earlier data are available, the number of investigation investigations nearly tripled from just under 47,000 in 1993 to close to 129,000 in 2008 [2,3]. This expansion has been driven by a broadening of child welfare mandates, in particular with respect to the inclusion of: (1) emotional maltreatment [4]; (2) exposure to intimate partner violence [5]; (3) cases where risk of future maltreatment is the primary concern [6]; as well as by (4) professionals becoming more aware of the emotional and cognitive effects of child maltreatment [4,5,7,8].…”

Child Welfare Involvement of Mothers with Mental Health Issues

“…By using the rescaled sample weights, the influence of the final CIS weight (annualization by regionalization) was maintained while reducing the actual number of observations to the original sample size. This rescaled weight is used to avoid inflating the significance of statistics as a result of the high number of cases (Black et al 2008).…”

“…On average, the surveys were completed approximately 30 days after the initial referral (Black et al 2008). Data were checked twice for completeness and consistency, once by a member of the research team on-site, and once when the data was entered into the database.…”