Child Protection

The Kawartha-Haliburton Children’s Aid Society provides child protection services to children and families within the Counties of Peterborough and Haliburton and the City of Kawartha Lakes.

The focus of the Society is on child safety, well-being and permanence. We are guided by the Child and Family Services Act as well as the Child Protection Standards in Ontario. The Society believes that all families have unique strengths and that planning with families should be family-focused and child-centred.

The Society works with families on a voluntary and a mandated basis. Our Child Welfare Workers are trained professionals that will work with you, your children and your extended family in a collaborative manner to develop a plan to address child protection concerns.

The Family Preservation Program

Our agency's primary mandate is to provide child welfare services to children and families who have been identified as an “at risk population for child abuse or neglect.” In 2007, we introduced to the agency The Family Preservation Program, consisting of the “access program” and our in-house “applied behavioural therapy program” which is designed to create an evidence-based family intervention program internal to KHCAS. This program utilizes prescribed applied behaviour analysis interventions with the common outcome of promoting permanency, protection and well-being for children either within their family of origin or within their kinship/fostering/adoptive family.

The Family Preservation Program is a multi-treatment approach to reducing the likelihood of child maltreatment by providing directed treatments to high-risk families and those under child protective services, including skills to address ecological determinants that would encourage more positive outcomes in different domains of functioning. The services are delivered directly to clients in their homes and/or alternative care settings. The advantage to this approach is that parents are given the opportunity to learn new skills in a natural environment.

Program Areas

• Biological Family Preservation
• Child and Family Reunification
• Foster Family Preservation
• Kinship/Kith or Customary Care Preservation
• Adoptive Home Preservation
• Family/Child Visitation
• Transitioning to Adulthood or adoptive home from group home
• Behavioural Assessment of Parenting Skills
• Parent Skills Training
• Environmental Skills Training
• Home Routine Training
• Infant Care Skills Training
• Parent-Child Interaction training
• Triple P: Positive Parenting Program

Referral Process

• The family must be involved with KHCAS.
• The case manager, in collaboration with the supervisor, will submit a referral.
• We review referrals monthly to determine applicability.
• Family-Child Visitation will be scheduled once referral is received.
• Once a decision is made a meeting is held with the worker to determine needs and strengths.
• There is an assessment phase, which involves direct and indirect assessment measures. Following that is an intervention phase (determined by assessment) and a maintenance phase. All phases are designed to meet the needs of the family. These can vary from a few weeks to a few months.