Services to Children in Need of Protection
Performance Indicators
A response to a Child Protection report may include a Family Development Response (FDR), an investigation, a Youth Service Response, or a non-protective response such as offer of support services or referral to community agency. Over the past several years MCFD has increasingly focused on using FDR by working in collaboration with families to address child protection concerns and using investigations for situations when evidence is required to determine if a child needs protection. This report presents data and outcome indicators that support the appropriate use of FDR as an alternative to investigation.
4.00 Family Preservation Rates
Rationale
Evidence has shown that children and youth have far better social, health, education, and economic outcomes when they live safely with a family – a parent, family member or extended family, or in a home with permanent caregivers – than they do in government care. The strategic direction of the ministry is to invest in supports to help preserve families, while continuing to ensure the safety of children and youth.
As at March 31, 2023
The percentage of Family Preservation shows the percentage of children who were not admitted into care within 12 months of Investigations and FDR. The March 2023 Family Preservation rate is based on children who had closed Investigations and FDR between April 2021 and March 2022.
There is a gap between Indigenous Family Preservation and Non-Indigenous Family Preservation. In March 2023, the Indigenous Family Preservation rate is 6 percentage points lower than the Non-Indigenous Family Preservation rate in the province. This gap has shrunk from 9.2 percentage points in March 2017 to 6 percentage points in March 2023.The ministry strives to improve Indigenous Family Preservation and reduce the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child welfare system.
4.16 Relative Use of Admissions into Care and Admissions to Out-of-Care (OCO)
Rationale
When appropriate, OCOs are a best practice. The well-being of children and youth is, overall, better when children and youth can continue to live with their extended families. Sometimes children and youth can be placed in OCO options as a substitute for admission into Care.
OCO includes the following agreements and court orders:
Extended Family Program Agreements
Interim Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 35(2)(d)
Interim Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 35(2)(d) – Consent
Temporary Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 41(1)(b), 42.2(4)(c), 49(7)(b), 54.01(9)(b)
Temporary Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 41(1)(b), 42.2(4)(c), 49(7)(b), 54.01(9)(b) – Consent
Extension to Temporary Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 44(3)(b)
and Extension to Temporary Custody with Other under Director’s Supervision – s. 44(3)(b) - Consent.
Since early 2018 there was a significant increase in the trend. The upward trend in this indicator is attributed to a significant drop in the number of Non-Indigenous and Indigenous children being admitted into Care, an increasing number of Indigenous children admitted into Out Of Care (starting in early 2020 MCFD admits more Indigenous Children to Out Of Care than In Care), and a relatively stable number of Non-Indigenous children being admitted into OCO over time (based on a rolling twelve month period).
For the province and the majority of SDAs, there was relatively greater use of OCO options for Indigenous children than for Non-Indigenous children in March 2023. The Admissions into OCO Placements per 1,000 Admissions into In Care Placements ranged from 434 in East Fraser SDA to a high of 1906 in Northwest SDA, with the provincial average of 913 in March 2023.
Currently, a protection report is least likely to become an admission into Care in Kootenays SDA (probability 2.9%), and most likely in North Central SDA (11.5%). North Central SDA (10.4%) is more likely to utilize admissions into OCO as a response to a protection report than any other SDA, while Vancouver/Richmond SDA (1.8%) is the least likely to utilize an OCO admission as a response to a protection report.