Our perverse reliance on prescribed standardized processes as proxies for quality in Ontario Children's Aid Societies: Towards the establishment of direct service and outcomes standards

The Ontario child protection system has, over the past 13 years, gone through two waves of reform but a recent government audit has highlighted ongoing concerns with performance and cost. In response, the Ontario Government set up a “Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare” to address these concerns. The Ontario reform strategy has introduced much standardization and a compliance regime to ensure service quality. In this article, the bona fides and costs of such a strategy are examined and the author proposes that continuous outcomes monitoring and a standard to safeguard direct service time to clients are essential if child protection services are to improve.

Research Highlights►Current policy sacrifices direct service time for compliance processes.►There is little research evidence to support standardization or compliance processes.►There is increasing evidence that monitoring outcomes improves effectiveness.►Improving effectiveness will require safeguarding direct service and monitoring outcomes.