Relationships

Supportive, long-lasting relationships are critical to the success of children and youth in and from care. Children's aid societies, caregivers^{footnote 4[4]}, and the ministry^{footnote 5[5]} need to commit to keeping children, youth and families as the central focus of their work and to provide them with guidance and support.

Short-term recommendations

It is essential and urgent that...

• ...every child and youth in and from care has permanent lifelong relationships that meet their personal and cultural needs.
  • Children and youth have stable homes.
  • Children's aid societies work to find permanency for every child or youth through return to the family home, kinship placements, formal customary care, adoption, or legal custody.
  • Children's aid societies provide the supports that parents or other caregivers need to keep children and youth in their homes.
  • Children's aid society boards of directors make permanency a key goal of their organizations.
• ...children and youth in care grow up with many opportunities to develop permanent, supportive relationships with caregivers, staff, community members and extended family.
  
  To support stable relationships
  • children's aid societies ...
    • match children and youth as quickly as possible to the best possible placement culturally, socially, developmentally that reflects the distinct nature of their identity
    • train caregivers and children and youth in conflict resolution skills and work with them to resolve issues
    • recruit caregivers from diverse backgrounds and those who want to foster older youth to reflect the needs of children and youth in care
    • support children and youth to maintain relationships with members of their families of origin, such as siblings, when possible
    • use kin searchers/family finders to help children and youth connect with family members
    • partner with community agencies to provide opportunities for children and youth in care to be matched with peer-mentors who have been in care or adult mentors from the community through formalized mentoring organizations that meet their individual needs (e.g. sexual identity and orientation, cultural identity)
    • whenever possible, keep children and youth assigned to the same children's aid society worker if they move residences
    • make relationships between children and youth and their workers a priority when determining service delivery models and caseloads
    • track data on placement stability to identify and address issues and concerns
  • the ministry...
    • make available the option and supports for youth to stay in their foster or group homes past the age of 18
  • caregivers...
    • help children develop the skills to form healthy relationships
    • treat children and youth in care as members of the family
    • support children and youth to remain connected to their families of origin when that is best for the child or youth
    • support children and youth to remain connected to their cultural and faith communities of origin; explore and develop their individual identities with respect to culture, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation and identity; and support them to be connected to the broader community in which they live
    • participate in plan-of-care meetings
    • encourage and support every child and youth to be physically active and to take part in extracurricular activities and hobbies
• ...children and youth in group care have consistent and stable relationships with group care staff.
  • for specific recommendations related to group care, please see the Group Care theme on page 19.

It is very important that...

• ...young parents who are receiving child welfare services are provided with consistent information and assistance (pre- and post-natal) to support them in caring for their children and to help create permanency for their families.
  • Young parents receive support to become good parents.
  • Youth eligible for Extended Care and Maintenance continue to receive supports if they become parents.
  • As a best practice, young parents and their children are supported in the community through the same plan of care.