Our Mandate
Our mandate is guided by the Ontario Child and Family Services Act.
Mission Statement
The Frontenac Children's Aid Society, in partnership with our community, protects children, strives to enable youth, strengthen families and prevent child abuse.
Vision Statement
We envision a future in which children, youth, families and communities in Kingston and Frontenac County have the internal capacity and community supports required to fulfil their hopes and achieve health and wellbeing.
Who Are We?
The Children's Aid Society (CAS) of the City of Kingston and County of Frontenac is a non-profit agency working in the local community to provide services and supports to children under the age of sixteen and their families. Established under the authority of the Child and Family Services Act, CAS's have a legal responsibility to investigate concerns relating to the safety or well-being of children, and to provide services that protect children and support families. Our staff are professionally qualified and trained at the university level, and have additional specialized training in Child Welfare. We are a member of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies.
What is Child Welfare Transformation?
Child welfare transformation is a part of the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to create a flexible, sustainable and outcome oriented service delivery model. When MCYS was created in October 2003 part of the commitment was that the ministry would focus on the addressing of key goals so that Ontario children would be:
- Safe from harm
- Healthy and active
- Ready to learn at all ages
- Valued, involved and responsible
- Economically secure
This graphic is a representation of the guiding principles and resulting strategies that together are expected to achieve the creation of an effective, sustainable system that protects children at risk of maltreatment and improves their quality of life — the goal of child welfare transformation.
In order to create the legislative environment to support these changes Bill 210, an act to amend the Child and Family Services Act was passed and proclaimed November 30, 2006. Regulations to support changes in practice were also developed.
Legislative amendments to CFSA are in five areas:
- Permanency planning for children
- Openness in adoption
- Court processes: Alternative Dispute Resolution, ordering of Assessments
- Enhanced provision for services to Aboriginal people
- Client Complaints
In practice CAS's will now be responding to needs of children and families in different ways:
- Kinship care — we are working with families to identify relatives who can assist them in caring for their children when help is needed.
- Permanency initiatives including adoption and legal guardianship — are being developed in our agency. The opportunities for children who cannot return to their families, to be with other family members or former foster parents on a more permanent basis are being explored.
- Differential response — our response to referrals will be tailored to the situation. We will work to develop partnerships with families and their supports to resolve child protection concerns.
- Alternative dispute resolution — involves using other methods than courts to resolve differences between us when there are concerns about the safety and well being of a child. The use of mediation and family group decision making will begin to happen over the coming year.
- Single information system — is a project for the provincial CAS's to develop an electronic system integrating the information systems of all agencies to form one system. Work is underway in a pilot phase.
We are in the transition phase, working to develop our programs, services and skills to support our work within the Transformation framework. We will update you as we progress in our journey.