When there are serious concerns about the safety of a child at home, they may need to enter the care of the Children’s Aid Society and may be placed in a foster home, kinship home, or customary care home.
Foster Parents
Foster parents provide a temporary home for children who are in our care. They encourage a child’s growth and development through the stability of a caring home and family environment. Foster parents play an important role in a child’s daily life. Foster parents work with us as part of a team to develop a plan for each child in care. When a child comes into care, we work with that child’s parents and family members to assist them in mitigating the protection concerns to ensure the child can safely be returned home. The goal of foster care is that the children are to be reunified home. When it is not possible for the child to safety return home, we look for kinship options for the child. There are circumstances where children do remain in foster care long term or have a plan to be adopted.
Kinship Parents
A kinship care provider is a caregiver who, like a licensed foster caregiver, is required to attend a provincially mandated pre-service training program and participate in a home study. Kinship care families receive the same financial and emotional support from a children’s aid society as foster families.
Customary Care
Customary care arrangements are intended to reflect First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples’ unique practices of caring for your children and youth. One of our core goals is for every child and youth to have a safe, loving, and stable home, surrounded by their culture and community.
Customary care arrangements often involve children and youth being cared for in their home community or with kin. This allows them to remain closely connected to their families or extended families as well as their heritage, cultures and traditions helping build a sense of belonging, safety and security. This is preferred to placing children in other settings that could be far away from their home, culture, and support networks.
Customary care is a traditional system of care for children and families, where all community members have a collective responsibility for the well-being of others. Customary care is an approach that prioritizes prevention and community-based support, so that families can live in a good way.