The Management of Children Admitted to Child Welfare Services in Ontario: A Review and Discussion of Current Problems and Practices *

Abstract

Children coming into the care of the Ontario Child Welfare System are generally older and more seriously disturbed. Foster parents and Children's Aid Societies have had to change in order to meet the needs of these troubled children. While the efficacy of foster care continues to be debated, there are ways to improve in-care management including: ways of preventing drift, appropriate assessment of parenting capacity, minimizing emergency placements, and more energetic and focused casework which deals appropriately both with the deficits and distortions internalized in the child as a result of previous damage and with the ongoing interactional stresses operative within the foster family system. The advantages of planned over emergency placements are discussed. The child separated from natural parents will mourn. Foster parents’ and workers’ roles in assisting the Work of mourning in foster children are discussed. Soon after admission to care, the practicality of restoration to the natural family must be assessed, and management should then aim towards restoration or towards freeing the child for adoption or planned permanent foster care, should that represent the least detrimental available alternative. The family court system as presently constituted frequently and unnecessarily undermines rather than protects the adjustment and development of vulnerable children. Mechanisms by which this occurs and some proposed solutions are suggested. The paper concludes by suggesting that the traditional low priority given to child welfare services by governments is unlikely to be altered unless mental health professionals succeed in eliciting considerably more community support for adequate social services than is currently available.