“What’s even worse than our white guilt is our shame” is the feedback I heard from white child welfare workers after I published my article “White Guilt: How to move into responsibility for white child welfare workers.” As child welfare workers, making mistakes in our practice can
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The Dave Thomas Foundation, through its Wendy’s Wonderful Kids (WWK) program, provides grants to adoption agencies and Children’s Aid Societies to hire and train recruiters to find permanent homes for those children and youth in Canada’s foster care system. Tell us a little bit about yourself. My name is Jocelyne Raymond. I
Read more →Trauma informed practice has become popular within the social services and has recently entered Ontario child welfare. At One Vision One Voice (OVOV), we think trauma informed practice can be helpful in moving us away from a pathologizing, over- medicalizing and blaming lens upon people’s behavior; by asking
Read more →In reading current social work literature, it is clear that the Ontario child welfare system is recognized as systemically racist. There is a lot of discussion regarding the system’s gross over-representation of Indigenous and African Canadian people. The literature also points to the reality that it is white people
Read more →Canada established National Child Day twenty-five years ago in recognition of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. What does National Child Day mean to Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario? Child safety and well-being is the primary focus for Children’s Aid Societies, so National
Read more →On October 24, Children’s Aid Societies will launch their annual campaign, Ontario Dress Purple Day, to raise awareness about every child and youth’s right to safety and well-being. This year the campaign will include a focus on the role that the broader social and economic environment plays
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It’s been nearly one year since the children’s aid societies of Ontario acknowledged and apologized for the harmful role child welfare has played historically, and continues to play, in the lives of Ontario Indigenous children, families, and communities. Children’s Aid Societies have spent the past year working
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OACAS and Children’s Aid Societies welcome the Chief Coroner’s Expert Panel Report, “Safe With Intervention: Report of the Expert Panel on the Deaths of Children and Youth in Residential Placements.” We are deeply saddened by the deaths of these young people in residential care. Many parts of
Read more →Talking about and confronting race is often difficult. Why is this the case for so many of us who are white, and what can we do about it, to address racism? For over 20 years, I have worked to understand racism within social work practice, and helped
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The African Canadian Child Welfare Provincial Advisory Council (PAC) is a group made up of African Canadian community members tasked with providing recommendations and advice to the board, executive leadership and staff of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) on all child welfare matters affecting
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