2024–2025 Services delivered: Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC)
Component: Child welfare - community and prevention supports
Legislation: Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 (CYFSA)
Service objectives
The key objective is to assist societies in identifying a child’s strengths and needs, developing his/her plan of care, and collecting data on the progress of children in care.
Service description
The transfer payment recipient will use funds to
- Provide societies with assistance for the ongoing use of OnLAC as per the requirements of the Ministry’s policy Children’s aid societies (societies) are required by policy directive CW 003-20 to use OnLAC for developing plans of care for children and youth who are in the care of a society or in customary care for longer than one year
- Provide societies with support to access and interpret the society-level data inform the field of the progress of the OnLAC program
- Continue work with the University of Ottawa to support the use of the Tele Form scanning software by societies already utilizing this system
- Continue to work with the Viewpoint organization to support the use of this software by societies
- Work with societies and the Viewpoint Organization to enhance and deepen the engagement with children and youth, caregivers and society staff to complete the Assessment and Action Record (AAR) on-line via the Viewpoint software
Program/service features
The services are directed at providing societies with assistance for the ongoing use of OnLAC for conducting developmental and strengths-based assessments and case planning for children and youth who have been in care for a year or more, and annually thereafter as per the requirements of the Ministry’s policy directive.
Individuals served include children and youth in society care, either by court order or agreement, or subject to a customary care agreement, for a continuous period of 12 months.
OnLAC includes an assessment tool, the Assessment and Action Record (AAR), for assessing the child’s needs, planning their care and monitoring their outcomes, and is used by societies with all children and youth who have been in care for one year or longer. The AAR is completed annually in conversational interviews by the child welfare worker, the child or youth (if age 10 or over) and the caregiver. The AAR tracks a child’s progress in seven life dimensions: health, identity, family and social relationships, emotional and behavioral development, self-care skills, and education.
The AAR is used at the case level to develop an individual child’s Plan of Care, at the management level to provide outcome data that can assist a society in developing needed services and programs for all children in care; and at the ministry level providing key marker outcome data to support continuous improvement in policy and program design. The OACAS subcontracts with the U of O to provide data aggregation and research support for the OnLAC program.
Program goals
To provide societies with assistance for the ongoing use of OnLAC for conducting developmental and strengths-based assessments and case planning for children and youth as per the requirements of the Ministry’s policy directive to enhance the quality of care children in care receive and improve their outcomes.
Ministry expectations
The transfer payment recipient will
- Maintain the Canadian license for OnLAC. The transfer payment recipient will sub-contract with the University of Ottawa (U of O) to provide data analysis and supports to individual societies in the use of OnLAC
- Ensure compliance with the license through OnLAC end-user agreements with societies, which include terms for the use of OnLAC budget and contract management with the U of O
- Communicate with and report to the Executive Leadership Section
- Work with societies, including Indigenous societies, regarding the signing of OnLAC end-user agreements and that they are secured and monitored in accordance with the requirements of the license
- Work with societies who have identified barriers respecting use of OnLAC
- Provide OnLAC materials to societies as necessary (AARs, Supervisor’s Guide, Youth Booklets, annual and longitudinal individual society and aggregated provincial reports)
- Participate on and provide administrative support to the Caring for Children and Youth Community of Practice (SAFE, PRIDE and OnLAC) and its subcommittees
- If requested, host workshops for societies to build internal capacity for local data analysis
- If requested, analyze data and provide a report to ANCFSAO and One Vision, One Voice that specifically addresses the priorities of those groups
- Identify an expert at the U of O, known as the Principal Investigator of the Looking After Children Program to carry out the following services
- Consult on the OnLAC project 1 day a week from the University of Ottawa Oversee of the Provincial data analysis
- Attend the Community of Practice meetings
- Participate in the Request for Research Sub Committee of the Community of Practice
- Submit articles or presentations concerning the Looking After Children Program
- At the request of the Ministry, participate in meetings and other activities which relate to the integration of OnLAC data, including the development and implementation of the child welfare Data, Reporting and Analytics Platform and advise on the development and implementation of a refreshed child welfare outcomes-based performance measurement framework
- Provide to the Ministry, upon request, a detailed list of spending within budget line at the transfer payment recipient and the U of O
- Provide the Ministry with timely access to aggregated OnLAC data and analysis from the U of O on an annual and ad-hoc basis, upon Ministry request
- Communicate with Ministry staff in quarterly meetings or as required, regarding reports, sharing findings, review outcomes and achievements and other issues as necessary
- Invite the Ministry to participate as an observer at working groups or committee meetings for Special Projects so that the Ministry may receive updates on progress with the activities undertaken
- If requested, develop and implement a plan to review OnLAC, including the AARs
- Continue to work with the Viewpoint Organization and societies regarding societies’ use and implementation of the ViewPoint software to complete AAR Specifically, OACAS will ensure that the ViewPoint Organization will continue to promote the adoption of its software to additional societies
- Provide advice to societies on security updates
- Provide technical advice and assistance to societies, as required, on modifications/enhancements, including uploading new AARs, removing AARs from worker lists, adding new staff members, amending database in response to society re-organization; and
- If requested, participate in discussions with OACAS regarding the future use of the ViewPoint software to complete AARs
The transfer payment recipient will ensure that the U of O
- Collects the individual non-identifiable AARs for each child from each society
- Ensures that personal information is protected by securing the information, restricting access, and safely storing and retaining data
- Scans, cleans and verifies AARs information
- Analyzes the data for each society and then aggregates the data provincially; and
- Provides individual society OnLAC databases for the current fiscal year to all societies that have submitted AARs
- Produces and provides the following aggregate annual reports to OACAS for the current fiscal year
- Ontario Looking After Children Provincial Report; and
- OnLAC-Derived Performance Indicators Provincial Report
- Produces and provides the following confidential society reports to all societies that have submitted AARs for the current fiscal year
- Ontario Looking After Children Report (includes the comparison of the society to the provincial norms); and
- OnLAC-Derived Performance Indicators Report
- Delivers Developmental Assets e-learning module webinar
- Participates on the Caring for Children and Youth Community of Practice and subcommittees of the Community of Practice as required
- When requested, assist societies in analyzing and interpreting their own data
- Works with the Viewpoint Organization to ensure the online AARs are coded correctly and the AARs can be extracted from the Viewpoint secure server efficiency
- Ensures that AAR forms/fillable forms/templates are updated and provided to OACAS for distribution to societies prior to January 1 of each calendar year
- At the request of the Ministry, participates in meetings and other activities which relate to the integration of OnLAC data, including the development and implementation of the child welfare Data, Reporting and Analytics Platform and advise on the development and implementation of a refreshed child welfare outcomes-based performance measurement framework
- At the request of the Ministry, participate in meetings and other activities related to a review of AAR
- Submits articles and or/deliver presentations regarding the OnLAC Program
Reporting requirements
The transfer payment recipient is expected to monitor and evaluate program performance and to confirm that program objectives and deliverables are being met. At each reporting period, provide a service data report on the objectives, services, and outcomes.
The report must include
- Names of reporting societies
- Number of AARs submitted by each society
- Number of AARs processed by the U of O End-user agreements not signed by society
A progress update on the Viewpoint activities in the province, including the following
- Societies receiving ongoing support from the ViewPoint Organization to use the software; and
- Societies exploring use of software to complete AAR with the Viewpoint Organization
On an annual basis, provide a report which details activities conducted by the transfer payment recipient in support of the initiative, including a report on the review of the AAR and the ViewPoint activities at the end of each year.
The report should include:
- a list of the societies completely using ViewPoint to administer AARs (i.e., for all age groups)
- a list of societies partially using ViewPoint to administer AARs a list of societies new to using ViewPoint in the fiscal year
The Transfer Recipient should also submit the following on an annual basis
- The University of Ottawa annual report which includes reports on aggregated children in care outcomes data and analysis from the U of O which highlights themes arising from the aggregated data and provides comparison to the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth
- An annual summary of the Community of Practice (SAFE, PRIDE, and OnLAC) which includes a summary of the issues discussed and resolved as well as work accomplished by the Community of Practice and its subcommittees
- A description of the process by which a researcher can apply to have access to the aggregate data
- A listing of who has received access to the aggregate data
- A list of societies that have not signed end-user agreements
- If requested, copied of the University of Ottawa and/or transfer payment recipient journal articles and presentations and conferences and other venues
- A copy of the OnLAC licenses(s)
The following service data will be reported on at an Interim and Final stage. Please refer to your final agreement for report back due dates and targets.
Service Data Name | Definition |
---|---|
# of societies reporting AARs (all formats) | Total number of societies reporting AARs in all formats. |
# of AARs submitted by societies | Total number of AARs submitted by societies. |
# of persons receiving access to aggregated OnLAC data (all types - e.g., PhD students, researchers) | Total number of persons receiving access to aggregated OnLAC data. |
Ontario looking after children (OnLAC): Ministry-funded agency expenditures | Total ministry-funded expenses for the transfer payment recipient to administer and/or deliver this service in the reporting year (cumulative). |