Placement in out of home care during investigations in Ontario in 2018

The Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect 2018 (OIS-2018)1 is the sixth provincial study to examine the incidence of reported child maltreatment and the characteristics of children and families investigated by child welfare authorities. [...] This Information Sheet compares investigations in which there is an out of home placement during the investigation to those where there is not a placement for the following factors: the child demographics, child functioning issues, primary caregiver characteristics, family household characteristics, and characteristics of the investigation. [...] Detailed findings comparing investigations in which there is an out of home placement during the investigation to those where there is not a placement are presented in Table 1 in the appendix. [...] Investigations where the primary reason for investigation was risk only represented a slightly higher proportion of cases resulting in a placement (38.9%) compared to those where there was no placement (37.5%). [...] The worker could decide that the child was at risk of future maltreatment (confirmed risk), that the child was not at risk of future maltreatment (unfounded risk), or that the future risk of maltreatment was unknown.