Foster-to-adopt ... EI benefits

Foster-to-adopt parents eligible for EI parental leave

Laurie Monsebraaten, Toronto Star Social Justice Reporter
Working parents across Canada who foster children with an intention of adopting them will be eligible for EI parental leave benefits under changes being announced in Toronto Wednesday. The change comes in the wake of a Toronto Star story last summer about the Children’s Aid Society in St. Thomas, in southwestern Ontario, which is working to ensure every child removed from a neglectful or abusive home is moved only once. 
Under the agency’s pioneering “foster-to-adopt” program, if the child can’t go back home and becomes a Crown ward, the foster parents automatically become the adoptive family. The approach is aimed at stopping the harmful practice whereby vulnerable children bounce through numerous foster homes while child welfare officials determine if it is safe for them to return home. The goal is to ensure every child who becomes a Crown ward ends up in a forever family.    ...continued ...

To read the entire article as it appears in the Toronto Star, click here ... 
To learn more about Foster to Adopt, click here ... 
To visit the Goverment of Canada, Human resources and Skill Development article, click here ...

Elgin Foster-to-Adopt Model

One Child, One Placement: The Elgin Foster-to-Adopt Model By Deborah Ellison, PHD, and Dawn Flegel, MSW
as published in the OACAS Journal, Spring/Summer 2010 Volume 55 Number 2/3

Family & Children's Services of St. Thomas and Elgin operates as Elgin County's local Children's Aid Society.  For approximately 25 years, the agency has practiced a "foster-to-adopt" model when children enter care.  The model was developed as a result of a careful assessment of the adoption practices of the time and their impact on children.  This paper will discuss the development and evolution of the model and will present data on the model's effectiveness.  A discussion will also be presented outlining why, in our opinion, the current adoption direction in Ontario is not in the best interests of children.
please click here for the article

How One Town ...

  Laurie Monsebraaten, Toronto Star Social Justice Reporter
ST. THOMAS, ONT.—When the social worker told Jack VanNoord that she was taking away his 5 1/2-month-old foster child to be adopted by another family, the father of five had just one question for Children’s Aid:
“Are you running an adoption agency or are you acting in the best interests of the child?”
It didn’t seem right to VanNoord and his wife Coby to be uprooting the baby boy, whose inquisitive blue eyes and gummy smile had stolen their hearts in three short months with the family.
Today the VanNoords’ “courageous stand” is credited for sparking Ontario’s first foster-to-adopt program, where the goal is to ensure every child who comes into care is moved only once.        ... continued ...

To read the entire article as it appeared in the Toronto Star click here ...
To learn more about Foster To Adopt click here ...

Report on Bullying

Report on CAS Involvement in Bullying

The Report on CAS Involvement in Bullying is compiled for the Executive Directors of the three local CASs in response to a request from the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) Director’s Anti-Bullying Task Force.  The CASs were asked to describe what their involvement will be in the community and in schools in preventing bullying and then intervening when bullying is identified.