2025–2026 Services delivered: child welfare redesign prototype

Component: Child welfare - community and prevention supports

Legislation: Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 (CYFSA)

Service objectives

The purpose of the Child Welfare Innovation and Change Program (CWICP) is to provide short-term funding to Transfer Payment Recipients (TPRs) that are leading projects that support the development, implementation and measurement of innovative evidence-based and promising service models to support the government’s commitment to improve Ontario’s child welfare system, including better outcomes for diverse children, youth and families.

Service description

The program/services funded by the ministry will reflect the following features:

The TPRs will develop and manage the time limited projects with a goal of improving outcomes for diverse children, youth and families across Ontario.

People Served

• Children, youth and families who are involved in the child welfare system, including equity deserving populations.

Program/service features

The TPR will complete the following activities throughout the full duration of the time-limited CWICP funding:

Program goals

• To increase awareness of existing evidence-based and promising innovative service models currently being utilized across the province to support children, youth and families.
• To build a body of evidence on service models that can support improved outcomes for children, youth and families and the broader child welfare system.
• To increase cross-sector collaboration and integrated service delivery between the child welfare system and broader systems of care, to enhance access to early intervention, culturally appropriate and wrap-around focused supports for diverse service users.
• To share key findings with the child welfare and allied sectors to inform their own service delivery models and support scaling up promising practices across the province, while maintaining projects over the long-term.
• To address disproportionalities and outcome disparities within the child welfare sector, by embedding equity and anti-racism within program-related service models, including meaningful engagements held and partnerships developed with diverse communities (such as Indigenous, Black, racialized, LGB2SQ ^{footnote 1[1]} and Francophone communities, and children, youth and families with disabilities and complex special needs), where relevant.

Ministry expectations

The TPR is responsible for the following activities:

• Overall administration and delivery of the project, including:
  • Creating workplans and project materials, and engaging in activities to support the development and implementation of the project.
  • Development and implementation of a measurement approach based on the theory of change guiding the project, including outputs and outcomes with measures/indicators, that can be reasonably achieved during the funding period and identifying what outcomes are anticipated over the longer term.
  • Ongoing engagement with project partners, and community organizations where necessary, to support the ongoing successful implementation of the project.
  • Identifying opportunities to share key takeaways and lessons learned with broad sector partners.
• Building a future sustainability plan for the project, which will continue to be refined throughout the lifespan of the project, including:
  • An approach to integrating the project into existing service and program delivery models, and to continue to fund the project using internal allocations/external opportunities following completion of CWICP funding.
  • The development of a plan for scaling up the project in other communities in the province.

Reporting requirements

The TPR will be expected to monitor and evaluate activities, performance and to confirm that project objectives and deliverables are being met.

The TPR will submit required reports, financial and service data on an interim and end-year basis through Transfer Payment Ontario (TPON) in accordance with TPON deadlines. Please refer to your final agreement for report back due dates and targets.

The TPR will provide the following information in the interim and year-end reports to the ministry:

• A narrative report on project progress, including an overview of measurement results and key findings/lessons learned to date, to the status of the future sustainability plan and any updates/modifications that have been made to it, and any variances from planned activities, timelines and outcomes, including mitigation plans for the reporting period.
• Financial reporting including variances with the approved budget and an explanation of variances for the reporting period.
• Submission of supplementary materials as requested by the ministry.

The service and expenditure data will be reported on at an Interim and Final stage in a supplementary report-back template that will be provided by the ministry.