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
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
What Canadian Youth Tell Us About Disclosing Abuse
Ungar, Michael; Tutty, Leslie M.; McConnell, Sheri; Barter, Ken; Fairholm, Judi
2009
Why Addressing the Over-Representation of First Nations Children in Care Requires New Theoretical Approaches Based on First Nations Ontology
Blackstock, Cindy
2009
Men's and women's childhood sexual abuse and victimization in adult partner relationships: A study of risk factors
Daigneault, Isabelle; Hébert, Martine; McDuff, Pierre
2009
Protection of Children from Physical Maltreatment in Canada: Evaluation of the Supreme Court’s Definition of Reasonable Force
Durrant, Joan E.; Trocmé, Nico; Fallon, Barbara; Milne, Cheryl; Black, Tara
2009
Differentiating between substantiated, suspected, and unsubstantiated maltreatment in Canada
Trocmé, Nico; Knoke, Della; Fallon, Barbara; MacLaurin, Bruce
2009
Exploring taboos: Comparing male- and female-perpetrated child sexual abuse
Peter, Tracey
2009
Are we doing enough? A status report on Canadian public policy and child and youth health, 2009 edition
Canadian Paediatric Society
2009
The robust association between childhood physical abuse and osteoarthritis in adulthood: Findings from a representative community sample
Fuller-Thomson, Esme; Stefanyk, Maria; Brennenstuhl, Sarah
2009
National Child Welfare Outcomes Indicator Matrix (NOM)
Trocmé, N., MacLaurin, B., Fallon, B., Shlonsky, A., Mulcahy, M., Esposito, T.
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: