The purpose of this research is to explore through a critical lens the ways in which independence planning for crown wards is reflected in recording documents and the extent to which such documentation suggests the nature of continued involvement with the youth in such planning processes. Data were gathered by examining planning documents used by Child Welfare agencies in Ontario for crown wards. To accommodate the evolving emergence of themes and conceptual patterns revealed in the data, a grounded theory approach and constant comparative method was used as detailed by Charmaz (2006). Independence planning involved crown wards in developing visitation plans with members of the family of origin, and included goal setting pertaining to the development of social skills and acquisition of educational qualifications and instrumental skills. The planning documents lacked specific behavioural examples, contextual understanding, specific examples of the efforts undertaken by CAS workers and caregivers to support goals, and examples of discussions between workers and crown wards. Planning documents generally reflected little involvement of the crown ward. Planning and OnLAC documents require modification so as to allow for and encourage qualitative information and greater input from the crown ward. Such modifications ought to be understood by Child Welfare management in terms of making planning processes more useful and beneficial to crown wards and CAS workers. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

<p>Today, performance measurements have become a part of the dominant discourse across public, private, and voluntary sectors. Ontario’s child welfare system is one sector that has been influenced and impacted, with sometimes unintended consequences, by this institutionalized process of performance measurements. One of the measurements is Ontario’s Crown Ward Review (Audit) conducted by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. Annually, ministry officials who make up the Crown Ward Review Unit (CWRU) audit fifty-three child welfare agencies in Ontario, which take care of approximately 5400 Crown Wards (Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2011). According to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services (2011), the goal of the Crown Ward Review is “to determine that an adequate plan of care [has been] developed for each Crown Ward and is intended to stimulate improvement in the overall service delivery to children” (Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2011). It appears to not only be about the welfare for Crown Wards, but also about organizational goals. In other words, measuring accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency, as well as to provide transparency of its services appears to be a priority. This research project examines how the performance measurements of the Crown Ward Review have impacted case management for Crown Ward workers and Crown Wards in care.</p> <p>A critical analysis of performance measurements reveals that, for the most part, they have created numerous unintended consequences for Crown Wards, workers, supervisors, managers, Children’s Aid Societies, and the child welfare system as a whole. Overall, the study supports that a more comprehensive, clear, and coherent review process needs to be established and implemented across Ontario’s child welfare system.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)

<p>As child welfare practice in Ontario attempts to move toward increased partnerships with families, and recognition of the ways in which social work is implicated in perpetuating marginalities through the application of an anti-oppressive lens, direct social work practice with children lacks a similar critical discourse. Social work practice with children in care in Ontario occurs in the context of a guided practice model, Looking After Children, and within numerous audited standards and compliances. It is a bureaucratic and managerial environment which can constrain the social work agenda with children whose voices are easily silenced. This qualitative research study looks at the plans of care or social work recording for 10 Crown Wards in Ontario, in a search for a ‘real child.’ A critical analysis revealed that children are known in the recordings created about them in limited and prescribed ways. A “looked after” child is revealed: a child known according to the specific developmental dimensions of the Looking After Children model, and within “compliant” social work practice. What is lost is a child who exists in their child welfare record, in all of their complexities, contexts and relationships, while the social work relationship is rendered invisible.</p> / Master of Social Work (MSW)