National

Child welfare services fall under the mandate of provincial and territorial governments, including a rapidly expanding system of Aboriginal child welfare authorities. This section contains material related to federal initiatives concerned with child welfare services as well as statistics compiled at the national level.

All Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect reports can be found here.

Statistics

Child Maltreatment Investigations in Canada, 1998 and 2008*

  1998 2008
Child population 6,301,295 6,022,005
Number of child maltreatment investigations 134,566 235,842
Incidence of child maltreatment investigations per 1,000 children 21.36 39.16


Type of Child Maltreatment Investigation in Canada, 2008*

  Number Rate per 1,000 children Percent
Maltreatment Investigation 174,411 28.97 74%
Risk Investigation 61,431 10.19 26%


Primary Categories of Substantiated Child Maltreatment Investigations in Canada, 2008*

Category of Maltreatment Number Rate per 1,000 children Percent
Physical Abuse 17,212 2.86 20%
Sexual Abuse 2,607 0.43 3%
Neglect 28,939 4.81 34%
Emotional Maltreatment 7,423 1.23 9%
Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence 29,259 4.86 34%


Placement in Child Maltreatment Investigations in 1998 and in Child Maltrement and Risk Investigations in Canada in 2008*

  1998 Number 1998 Rate 2008 Number 2008 Rate
Informal Kinship Care 5,851 0.93 8,713 1.45
Formal Placement 11,003 1.74 10,886 1.81


Public Health Agency of Canada. (2010). Canadian incidence study of reported child abuse and neglect 2008: Major findings (p. 122). Public Health Agency of Canada. Retrieved from http://cwrp.ca/publications/2117

Publications
Filter by Publication Date Range
Title Year Sort ascending
Physical punishment of children: Assessing the validity of the legal definition of “reasonable force”
Durrant, Joan; Trocmé, Nico; Fallon, Barbara; Milne, Cheryl; Black, Tara; Petrowski, Nicole
2009
Mediation in child welfare
Knoke, Della
2009
The Police Reporting Behavior of Intimate Partner Violence Victims
Akers, Caroline; Kaukinen, Catherine
2009
Geographic location and short-term service dispositions in Canadian child maltreatment investigations: CIS-2003
Budau, Krista; Barniuk, Jim; Fallon, Barbara; Black, Tara
2009
Every Image, Every Child: Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse
Bureau de l’ombudsman fédéral des victimes d’actes criminels
2009
Journal Watch: An Inter-University Collaborative Learning Partnership
Gough, Pamela; Lajoie, Jules; Shlonsky, Aron; Trocmé, Nico
2009
Physical Punishment in Childhood: A Human Rights and Child Protection Issue
Watkinson, Ailsa M.
2009
The SDQ as a mental health measurement tool in a Canadian sample of looked-after young people
Marquis, Robyn A.; Flynn, Robert J.
2009
The Chief Public Health Officer’s Report on the State of Public Health in Canada, 2009: Growing Up Well - Priorities for a Healthy Future
Butler-Jones, David
2009
Substance Use among Adolescents in Child Welfare versus Adolescents in the General Population: A Comparison of the Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways (MAP) Longitudinal Study and the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey (OSDUS) Datasets
Wekerle, Christine; Leung, Eman; Goldstein, Abby L.; Thornton, Tiffany; Tonmyr, Lil
2009
Legislation

Child welfare services fall under the jurisdiction of provincial and territorial authorities as a result each province and territory has different legislation pertaining to child protection interventions. For more information click here.

The only child welfare regulations and legislation that apply to all provinces and territories are the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development First Nations Child and Family Services National Program Manual and the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child: