Quebec

For more information, please see the information sheet on Quebec's child welfare system.

Overview

The Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services (Ministère de la Santé et Services sociaux) is responsible for providing protection services to children and youth in accordance with the mandate outlined in the Youth Protection Act. There are currently 16 Youth Centres (YC) and three multi-mission centres across the province. Both of these centres are responsible for services under the Youth Protection Act as well as the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002). In each centre, there is a director of youth protection (DYP) who is responsible for enforcing the Youth Protection Act. The DYP also has the powers of a provincial director under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In the youth protection system in Quebec, the intervention process consists of the following stages: receiving and processing a report (intake), evaluating the situation (investigation), orienting the child (intervention planning), and implementing interventions and reviewing the situation. These stages are carried out in separate administrative units, except for the evaluation and orientation stages which are carried out by the same workers.

There are several First Nations and Inuit child welfare agencies across the province which serve children living on reserve. First Nations and Inuit children living off reserve or in regions without a designated First Nations Child and Family Service Agency are served through local DYP offices. First Nations Child Welfare Agencies in Quebec are required to uphold the Youth Protection Act.

Statistics

Child Maltreatment Investigations in Quebec, 1998, 2008¹ and 2014²
	1998	2008	2014
Child population	1,658,480	1,549,200	1,521,298
Number of child maltreatment investigations	25,615	28,608	31,529
Incidence of child maltreatment investigations per 1000 children	15.44	18.47	20.72

Type of Child Maltreatment Investigation in Quebec in 2014²
	#	Rate per 1,000 children
No Risk or Substantiated Maltreatment	8,565	5.63
Confirmed Risk of Future Maltreatment	4,101	2.70
Substantiated Maltreatment	18,860	12.40

Categories of Substantiated Child Maltreatment Investigations in Quebec in 2014²
Category of Maltreatment	#	Rate per 1,000 children
Physical Abuse	4,457	2.93
Sexual Abuse	732	0.48
Neglect	6,127	4.03
Emotional Maltreatment	2,486	1.63
Behavioural Problems	4,364	2.87
Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence	4,790	3.15

Placement in Child Maltreatment Investigations in Quebec, 1998, 2008¹ and 2014²
	1998 #	1998 Rate	2008 #	2008 Rate	2014 #	2014 Rate
No Placement	16,776	10.12	24,238	15.65	27,221	17.89
Informal Kinship Care	-	-	780	0.50	1,664	1.09
Formal Placement	7,790	4.7	3,178	2.06	2,558	1.68
Type of Placement Unknown	834	0.50	340	0.22	--	0.04

Children and youth in out-of-home care in 2022 ³
Children in out-of-home care		Child (0-17) population	Rate per 1000
15,201		1,604,195	9.48

External Statistics Links

Child welfare services fall under the jurisdiction of provincial and territorial authorities, making it difficult to compile statistics at the national level.

The most notable variations between provinces include, mandate variation by jurisdiction with respect to the age to which children are eligible for service, differences in the length of time a child can receive out-of-home care and the definition of out-of-home care.

References

¹ Hélie, S., Turcotte, D., Trocmé, N., & Tourigny, M. (2012). Étude d’incidence québécoise sur les situations évaluées en protection de la jeunesse en 2008: Rapport final (p. 252). Montreal, QC: Centre jeunesse de Montréal-Institut universitaire. https://cwrp.ca/fr/publications/etude-dincidence-quebecoise-sur-les-situations-evaluees-en-protection-de-la-jeunesse.

² Hélie, S., Collin-Vézina, D.,Turcotte, D., Trocmé, N., & Girouard, N. (2017). Étude d’incidence québécoise sur les situations évaluées en protection de la jeunesse en 2014: Rapport final. Montreal, QC: Centre jeunesse de Montréal-Institut universitaire. https://cwrp.ca/publications/quebec-incidence-study-2014-eiq-2014-final-report.

³ Pollock, N., Ouédraogo, A., Trocmé, N., Hovdestad, W., Miskie, A., Crompton, L., Campeau, A., Tanaka, M., Zhang, C., Laprise, C., Tonmyr, L. (2024) Original quantitative research – Rates of out-of-home care among children in Canada: an analysis of national administrative child welfare data. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada (44)4. https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.44.4.02

Publications

Title	Authors	Year
Out-of-home placement and regional variations in poverty and health and social services spending: A multilevel analysis	Esposito, Tonino Chabot, Martin Rothwell, David W. Trocmé, Nico Delaye, Ashleigh	2017
Placement stability, cumulative time in care, and permanency: Using administrative data from CPS to track placement trajectories	Hélie, Sonia Poirier, Marie-Andrée Esposito, Tonino Turcotte, Daniel	2017
Quebec Incidence Study 2014 (ÉIQ-2014): Final Report	Hélie, Sonia Collin-Vézina, Delphine Turcotte, Daniel Trocmé, Nico Girouard, Nadine	2017
The placement trajectories of youth served by child protection for sexual abuse	Esposito, Tonino Delaye, Ashleigh Chabot, Martin Trocmé, Nico Collin-Vézina, Delphine Simpson, Megan	2017
Abused women and the threat of parental alienation: Shelter workers' perspectives	Lapierre, Simon Côté, Isabelle	2016
Analysis of the Trajectories of Young First Nations subject to the Youth Protection Act: Component 3: Analysis of mainstream youth protection agencies administrative data	De La Sablonnière-Griffin, Mireille Sinha, Vandna Esposito, Tonino Chabot, Martin Trocmé, Nico First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission	2016
Better understand to better serve: A province-wide knowledge mobilization initiative in child protection	Esposito, Tonino Trocmé, Nico Chabot, Martin Coughlin, Lorry Gaumont, Chloé Delaye, Ashleigh	2016
Building research capacity in child welfare in Canada	Trocmé, Nico Roy, Catherine Esposito, Tonino	2016
Characteristics of sexually abused children and their nonoffending mothers followed by child welfare services: The role of a maternal history of child sexual abuse	Baril, Karine Tourigny, Marc Paillé, Pierre Pauzé, Robert	2016
From maltreatment to delinquency: Service trajectories after a first intervention of child protection services	Laurier, Catherine Hélie, Sonia Pineau-Villeneuve, Catherine Royer, Marie-Noële	2016

Legislation

Links