Services delivered: Children at Risk of Exploitation (CARE) units

Component: provincial initiatives

Legislation: Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 (CYFSA)

Service objective

To provide funding to children’s aid societies participating in a prototype to strengthen youth supports and provide early intervention, prevention and child protection services to children and youth who are victims of sex trafficking.

Service description

The program/services funded by the ministry will reflect the following features.

Program/service features

Specific types of programs/services include

• CARE Units pair child protection workers with police officers to identify, investigate, locate and engage and protect children and youth who are at high risk
• victims of child sex trafficking, as well as investigate offenders
• CARE Units will be culturally responsive to the needs of a diverse population of children and youth and will refer First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children and youth to the CARE Unit Indigenous Liaison worker program operated through the Indigenous societies
• Indigenous Liaison workers will determine the services that will be provided to First Nations, Inuit and Metis children and youth at high-risk of sex trafficking

CARE Units will also

• Assess and investigate referrals related to concerns that a child or youth’s safety and well-being is at risk due to sex trafficking in accordance with the Ontario Child Protection Standards (2016)
• Use child welfare standardized assessment tools and the Sexually Exploited Youth (SEY) Risk Assessment Tool provided by the ministry to assess the likelihood that a child or youth is being sex trafficking and in need of protection
• Locate children and youth at high risk of sex trafficking and return them to their placements or caregivers in addition to supporting the child’s primary case worker or caregiver by providing information and referrals to anti-human trafficking resources and services
• Liaise and work with societies to support the needs of located high-risk children in care
• Spend time in the community locating and engaging youth who are at high risk of being sexually exploited
• Work with guardians, children’s aid societies (societies), anti-human trafficking and children and youth service providers, local police services and OPP, as appropriate
• Identify and gather intelligence on trafficking, ensuring valuable information is shared with police services and societies, as permitted

Program goals

The goal of CARE Units is to

• Identify and locate children and youth who are at high risk of being sexually exploited and trafficked. High risk means the child is entrenched in trafficking
• Prevent high risk children and youth from being further exploited and trafficked
• Intervene and provide support and resources to children and youth who are being sexually exploited and trafficked
• Investigate traffickers and provide intelligence to appropriate police services and children’s aid societies to support the safety of children and youth. The policies and procedures that are developed by the Service Provider shall comply with the confidentiality provisions relating to children who are the subject of a child welfare proceeding under the Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, 2017 and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, including Part 6, when the information and records relate to young persons as defined by the Youth Criminal Justice Act

Target population

• children and youth ages 12-17 referred for being at risk of sex trafficking
• child and youth in the care of the child welfare system
• children identified as high-risk, or repeatedly reported missing
• Services will align with the following guiding principles
• Whole-of-Community: Community-led and cross-sectoral and/or cross-ministry approaches that develop/enhance shared responsibility and accountability for child, youth, family well-being
• Equity and Evidence Driven: Informed by data and evidence and priorities embedding an equity and anti-racism lens across policies, programs and initiatives in order to achieve better outcomes for equity seeking communities

Ministry expectations

The transfer payment recipient will be expected to monitor and evaluate activity(ies), performance and to confirm that program objectives and deliverables are being met as per a program and evaluation framework that will be approved by the ministry.

The transfer payment recipient will be familiar with the requirements of the Anti-Racism Act and the Standards, applicable privacy legislation, and other legislative obligations relating to collecting, using, disclosing, de-identifying, managing, disposing, and reporting information, as well as establish protocols for privacy breaches and management response to security incidents.

Reporting requirements

The service and expenditure data will be reported on an Interim and Final stage in a supplementary report-back template that will be provided by the ministry.