Enhancing Safety and Quality of Care for Children and Youth Across Ontario

Ontario is releasing a new plan to strengthen residential services — including foster care, group care, custody and respite care — to provide children and youth with safe and healthy places to live, support their growth and help them reach their full potential. Ontario released Safe and Caring Places for Children and Youth: Ontario’s Blueprint for Building a New System of Licensed Residential Services, a multi-year plan for comprehensive reform to improve the quality of care, enhance the oversight of services and ensure that children and youth have a voice in helping to plan their care.

Short-term actions in the Blueprint include: Increasing the number of unannounced inspections of licensed residences; enhancing the use of data such as serious occurrence reports to improve oversight; enhancing scrutiny to confirm licensed residential settings are compliant with required Fire Code regulations; establishing Intensive Site Review Teams to conduct enhanced inspections, including interviews with staff and youth; supporting children and youth to understand and exercise their rights and have a say about their homes; implementing quality of care standards informed by young people to improve the daily experiences of children and youth; working with Indigenous partners, young people and other stakeholders to immediately explore options to replace the term “residential”

Long-term actions in the Blueprint include: service system planning and management to help make sure the right services are available to children and youth at the right time and as close to their community as possible, particularly in northern Ontario; enhanced collection and use of data to improve the monitoring of placements and better support continuity of care; a workforce development action plan, including exploring the establishment of minimum education requirements, so that all children and youth are cared for by qualified, well-trained and responsive staff  and strengthened oversight and accountability by modernizing the licensing, compliance and enforcement framework

Ontario is also working with First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous partners, through the Ontario Indigenous Children and Youth Strategy, to co-develop Indigenous-specific and culturally appropriate strategies and approaches to better serve their children and youth.

Supporting children and youth and helping them reach their full potential is part of our plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives.