Young People in Out-of-Home Care

Findings from the Ontario Looking After Children Project

Robert J. Flynn, Meagan Miller, Tessa Bell, Barbara Greenberg, Cynthia Vincent

• Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780776638041
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Child abuse is typically considered to be the most severe form of early adversity to which children or adolescents can be subjected. Maltreated young people seen as at the highest risk are likely to be placed in out-of-home care for their own protection, including foster care, kinship care, group care, or independent living. Young People in Out-of-Home Care is based on more than two decades of applied research and evaluation, conducted since 2000, as part of the ongoing Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) Project.
The OnLAC project was based on a new child welfare approach known as Looking After Children, developed in the UK in the late 1980s and 1990s, to reform and improve services to vulnerable young people who were being looked after in out-of-home care. When launched in 2000, the OnLAC project "Canadianized" the UK approach and partnered with the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS) and some 20 children's aid societies in the province. Since 2007, the Ontario government has mandated that local societies use the OnLAC method to plan services and monitor outcomes.
Since 2000, the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project has gathered information on results and well-being from interviews with more than 35, 000 young people in care, their caregivers, and their child welfare workers. Y oung People in Out- of-Home Care presents major project findings and lessons that promise to improve young people's education, development, health, social and family relationships, mental health, and preparation for transition to community life.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Appendices
• Preface
• Chapter 1: The Convergence of Two Developmental Frameworks in Services to Young People in Out-of-Home Care
• Chapter 2: Developmental Assets
• Chapter 3: Health Conditions, Substance Use, and Psychotropic Medications among Children and Young People in Care in Ontario, by Indigenous or non-Indigenous Background, Sex, and Age
• Chapter 4: Education
• Chapter 5: An Educational Snapshot of a Young Person in Care, Using Assessment and Action Record Information
• Chapter 6: Cultural and Personal Identity
• Chapter 7: Family and Social Relationships and Social Presentation
• Chapter 8: Assessing Young People’s Mental Health from Their Level of Well-Being and Type of Residential Placement
• Chapter 9: Norms for the Canadian Casey Life Skills Assessment, Based on Assessment and Action Record Data for Ontario Young People in Care
• Chapter 10: Lessons from the Ontario Looking After Children Project for Improving the Outcomes and Well-Being of Young People in Care
• Appendices
• Index
• Health and Society
• Backcover