Children's Aid Societies: Differential Response and Wraparound Prevention Trial

The purpose of this study is to assess the cost-effectiveness of this Differential Wraparound model, in 5 Children's Aid Societies within Hamilton-Niagara Region, in preventing maltreatment cases from either becoming ongoing protection cases, or the children ending up in out-of-home of out-of community placements, as well as reducing the amount of time in Children's Aid Society care as compared to usual Children's Aid Society risk assessment and protection service alone.

The number of children in child welfare care has increased from 10,000 in the early 1990s to over 18,000. Ontario spends over $1.1 billion a year on direct child welfare services, more than twice as much as spent in the late 1990s, with the majority of these resources spent on investigation instead of treatment. In response to this situation, Differential Response models, sometimes called alternative, multiple or integrated system responses, have been implemented in the US, Australia and Canada and are all at the beginning stages of systematic evaluation. These models will help prevent maltreatment cases from becoming ongoing protection cases, or the children ending up in out of home or community placements, and reduce the amount of time in Children's Aid Society care. This research will show the benefits and costs of a Differential Response approach to Children's Aid Society care, specifically in the Hamilton-Niagara Region

Clients of CAS going on to protective custody cases

Inclusion Criteria:

• Parent of children and youth, living in Hamilton and surrounding areas.
• Newly referred substantiated cases going on to protective services.
• English & non-English speaking.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Safety threat
• Non-substantiated cases not going to protective services.