Who is your Children’s Aid

Your Children’s Aid believes that children are the future and deserve to grow up in a loving and caring environment.

While child protection is everyone’s responsibility, Ontario's Children’s Aid has the very important, legal responsibility to keep children safe throughout the province. It is our job to protect children from abuse and neglect and help parents and caregivers build healthy families so that children and youth have a safe, nurturing place to grow up. But we can’t do this alone. We rely on the public to be watchdogs for our children – to keep them safe and protect them from harm.

Children's Aid is legislated, under the Child and Family Services Act (CFSA), to:

  1. Investigate allegations of abuse and neglect
  2. Protect children where necessary, provide guidance, counseling and other services to families for protecting children and for the prevention of circumstances requiring the protection of children;
  3. Provide care or supervision for children assigned to its care; and
  4. Place children for adoption.

Each year, Children’s Aid in Ontario responds to more than 155,000 calls from concerned members of the community about the possible abuse and neglect of children and youth. With the sole responsibility for children and youth in our communities, we have to be available night and day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

There are 53 Children's Aid Societies (CASs) that provide services to diverse communities across Ontario, including Francophone and First Nations. Each community has unique needs that are met by our well-trained and highly skilled team of child welfare experts.

We believe in the inherent strength of families, so whenever possible, we will work with families to keep children safe at home. When children cannot be cared for safely by relatives, we offer a variety of substitute care programs, including foster care and adoption of Crown wards (permanent wards of the province).

Each child is unique and may have different needs, but every one of them deserve to grow up in a loving and caring environment.

About OACAS

OACAS is a membership organization representing CASs in Ontario. The Association has served its members, the community, the public and the government in a variety of ways since 1912. The Association is funded through membership fees, government grants and other revenue producing activities and is governed by a Board of Directors of the membership. OACAS provides system support to its member societies to assist and enhance their role in the community. Today, OACAS provides service in the areas of advocacy, government relations, communications, youth in care, information management, education and training and member outreach.

For more information about the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, visit www.oacas.org, email info@oacas.org or call 416-987-7725.

Click here to find your nearest Children’s Aid.

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