The Educational Outcomes of Children in Care in Manitoba

This report presents descriptive and statistical analyses regarding children placed in the care of Manitoba Child and Family Services (CFS). Referred to as “children in care” in this report, these children have been removed from the care of their original families because of a situation where authorities have deemed their family unable or unfit to look after them properly. Children can come into care for a variety of reasons including abuse, neglect, illness, death of a parent, addiction issues or conflict in their family, disability, or emotional problems.

This report was conducted by the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) at the request of Manitoba Health, Healthy Living and Seniors and the Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet (HCCC). MCHP was asked to “identify factors that contribute to the educational success of children in care in Manitoba” and to make recommendations regarding what schools, school divisions, and the provincial Department of Education and Advanced Learning could do to contribute further to the educational success of children in care.

In order to fulfill this request, MCHP identified five main objectives for this report:

1. Describe the characteristics of children in care in Manitoba.
2. Describe the educational outcomes of children in care in Manitoba.
3. Identify factors that are associated with positive (and negative) educational outcomes for children in care in Manitoba.
4. Provide information on programs that improve educational outcomes for children in care.
5. Provide recommendations on how educational outcomes for children in care can be improved in Manitoba.

Objectives 1 to 3 were addressed using information in the Population Health Research Data Repository (the Repository), housed at MCHP. Because the data at MCHP do not include information about specific programs operating in classrooms, schools, or school divisions, to address objective 4 we searched the literature to find information on programs that have been successful at improving the educational outcomes for children in care.