Hélie, S., Collin-Vézina, D., Trocmé, N., Esposito, T., Morin, S., & Cardin, J-F. (2024). Québec Incidence Study of Children Investigated by Youth Protection Services in 2019 (QIS-2019): Executive Summary. Montreal, QC: Institut universitaire Jeunes en difficulté.
This English-language summary of French-language ÉIQ-2019 report presents the study’s main findings as well as hypotheses that could explain why the rate of children investigated by Youth Protection (YP) services in Quebec has been increasing steadily over the last 20 years. Overall, the results suggest that a growing number of situations are being brought to the attention of YP services in Quebec, yet an increasing proportion of these situations are not being opened for ongoing services. In the same vein, several characteristics often associated with the complexity or severity of situations were found to be decreasing or stable over the period studied, in stark contrast to reports from the field that situations have been worsening for many years.
Please note that this cycle of the Quebec Incidence Study (ÉIQ) is different from previous cycles. Data collection was initially scheduled to take place in the fall of 2019 but was postponed due to COVID-19 and other events, while a special edition of the FN/QIS-2019, First Nations Component of the Quebec Incidence Study of Child Maltreatment and Serious Behaviour Problems Investigated by Child Protection Services in 2019 was made possible thanks to funding from Public Health Agency Canada and the Assembly of First Nations. In 2023, funding from the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services resumed and gave rise to the ÉIQ-2019, based on data collected as part of the FN/QIS-2019. Unlike previous cycles, the ÉIQ-2019 is mainly based on the extraction and analysis of administrative data from Quebec’s Direction de la protection de la jeunesse to estimate the rate of investigations in 2019 and to assess child protection investigations in Quebec over nearly two decades, despite the methodological changes inherent in the present approach.
The full report is available in French only: Étude d’incidence Québécoise sur les enfants évalués en protection de la jeunesse entre 1998 et 2019 (ÉIQ-2019): Rapport final.