Services delivered: Pathways

Component: provincial initiatives

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

Service objectives

To provide post-adoption training to children’s aid society (society) adoptive parents to develop the knowledge and skills they need to respond to the challenges related to the development, psychological, emotional or behavioral issues presented by their adopted children as a result of early trauma, loss, deprivation, maltreatment, or multiple placements as part of their history.

Service description

Pathways to Permanence 2: Parenting Children who have Experienced Trauma and Loss Curriculum (Pathways) is a formal post-adoption family support training program for adoptive families who are parenting children from care who have experienced trauma and loss. The program builds on the pre-adoption training received during the adoption process. Pathways is aimed at providing adoptive parents with the knowledge, skills and tools needed to recognize, identify, and address challenges and behaviours of their children that often emerge after the finalization of the legal adoption process.

The Pathways program is a comprehensive curriculum that consists of eight modules delivered in a classroom setting or online. To complete the curriculum, participants need to take all eight modules over the course of eight days for a total of 24 hours (i.e., 3 hours per module over 8 days). Parents who adopt children and youth in extended society care (i.e., formerly Crown wards) through societies are eligible to register for Pathways training. Parents are eligible for training from the point of adoption placement of the child in the home (i.e., also referred to as the start of the adoption probationary period). This includes kin and foster parents from the point at which they transition from kinship or foster placement to adoption placement of the child in the home.

Program/service features

Training is directed at families who adopt children and youth in extended society care through societies.

The program will:

• provide training to prospective and adoptive families beginning at the point of placement and
• provide information to adoptive parents on the importance of, and how to establish parent support groups

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

Program goals

• provide specialized knowledge to adoptive parents to help them develop their capacity and skills to meet the needs of their children
• increase the number of adoptive parents trained to meet the needs of their children

Services will be

• Reflective and responsive to child/youth, family and community strengths and needs
• Accountable to the child/youth, family and community
• Sensitive to the social, linguistic and cultural diversity of families and Indigenous communities
• Staffed by individuals with the appropriate range of skills and abilities necessary to effectively develop and deliver training to meet the needs of children, youth and families

Ministry expectations

The transfer payment recipient must

• manage and promote the Pathways program as a post-adoption training curriculum for parents who adopt through children’s aid societies (societies)
• recruit and deliver post-adoption training to adoptive parents
• deliver the Pathways curriculum to adoptive parents in all five regions of the province through at least 30 Pathways offerings in-person or online and/or as agreed with the ministry
• as part of the 8th Pathways training session, provide information to adoptive parents, including Francophones, on how to create adoptive parent groups, and inform adoptive parents about post-adoption supports available through Adopt4Life to help them respond to the challenges of their adoptive families
• direct Pathways participants to Adopt4Life for support with parent support groups and other supports (e.g., one-to-one supports)

Services excluded

The transfer payment recipient will not: Use ministry funding approved for the Pathways program to: deliver additional training to develop leadership capacity of parent support group leaders; create parent support groups, including for kinship parents who have not adopted children in society care; and host or facilitate parent support group meetings.

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, a service data report on the project objectives, services, and targeted outcomes.

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.