Permanency for Children & Youth in Care
Case Data and Trends
Permanent, stable relationships are a major determinant of whether children feel safe and secure and therefore, of well-being overall. Permanency is achieved by leaving the care of the Director of Child Welfare through family reunification, adoption or permanent transfer of custody under the Child, Family & Community Service Act (CFCSA).
Children and youth may be in care through a court order for protection reasons or through either a Voluntary Care or Special Needs Agreement with parents. With 73% of all reasons for care indicated, neglect is the largest reason for care, particularly for Indigenous CYIC (76%) and Non-Indigenous CYIC (65%).
As at March 31, 2025
CYIC in Care for at least six months have a Care Plan that details specific aspects of care tailored for each CYIC. MCFD standards require this plan to be updated annually. The Care Plan Current & Complete Rate is the proportion of CYIC whose care plans meet this standard. MCFD is working towards higher Care Plan current and completion rates.
Rarely is a CYIC placed into a hotel (in 2023/24, it was one day in every approximately 4,060 days of care). This is usually because of emergency shortages in available resources. For the twelve month period April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024 there were 23 children placed into hotels. Placements by Service Delivery Area and Indigenous Family Service Agencies were:
Notes:
The number of placements is greater than the number of children because some children had multiple stays in a hotel at different times.
Reasons for Hotel stay1 are:
No resource available (22 children/youth).
Resource was located too far away (2 children/youth).
No suitable rental available (1 child/youth).
Of the 25 hotel placements: 12 were for one night, 4 were for two nights , 3 were for 7 nights, 4 were between 8-14 days, and 2 were over 31 days/one month).
Of the 23 children and youth placed in hotels, 21 or 91% are Indigenous.
Number of children and youth placed in hotel by age: 0-5 years old = 5 children/youth, 6-12 years old = 7 children/youth and 13-18 years old = 11 children/youth.
The legal status of the 23 children and youth in hotel placements were: Removal status = 8, Interim Custody Order = 1, Temporary Custody Orders = 0, Continuing Custody Orders = 12, Support Needs Agreement = 0 and Voluntary Care agreement = 2.
The total number of days for hotel placements by SDA and ICFSA: Vancouver Island SDA = 2, Central Interior East Kootenays SDA = 6, Okanagan West Kootenay SDA = 28, North Coast Bulkley-Nechako SDA= 8, North Central/Peace Region SDA = 97, Northwest Inter-Nation Family and Community Services ICFSA = 32 and Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society ICFSA = 122.
As of January 1, 2024, data tracking is primarily focused upon hotel stays that occur when there is a lack of available foster caregivers or resources.
The number of CYIC in December 2024 was 4,843. The recent numbers of CYIC are amongst the lowest since 1990, 30 years ago. The following chart shows that the number of CYIC has been falling steadily since its peak in June 2001 (10,748). MCFD has strived to keep children safely with their families when possible, i.e. prevent admission into Care and, when a child needs to come into Care, MCFD works to reunify the family when safe to do so, or seek other forms of permanency such as living with extended family or adoption. MCFD is working to further reduce the number of CYIC, particularly for Indigenous CYIC.
Youth Agreements (YA)
Most youth aged 16 – 18 that need residential services from MCFD are appropriately served through a YA rather than being in care. In contrast to CYIC, most Youth Agreements are for Non-Indigenous youth, partially contributing to the over-representation of Indigenous CYIC.