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Protecting children FAQ

Sometimes a child who is being abused will tell an adult. If this happens to you:

  • Stay calm.
  • Listen to the child.
  • Let the child know you believe him or her.
  • Reassure the child.
  • Tell the child it is not his or her fault.
  • Do not promise to keep it a secret.
  • Do not say everything will be fine – it may take a while before it is.
  • Contact the Children’s Aid Society of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.

You can contact The Children’s Aid Society of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. We accept calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A trained Child Protection Worker will take information from you and determine how best to respond to your concerns. For more information, see our section Reporting your concerns.

  • If you have been abused or neglected or are afraid.
  • If you find the pressures of family life hard to live with and you are afraid you may take it out on your children.
  • If illness, death, separation, drugs and/or alcohol are causing a family breakdown.
  • If you need help regarding a pregnancy.
  • If you are a teenager experiencing serious conflict in your family.
  • If you are aware of a child or youth under the age of 16 who may be abused or neglected or at risk of being abused or neglected

For more information, see our section on Understanding abuse and neglect.

Yes, you can. All contacts with the agency are taken seriously, regardless of whether you provide your name or not. Providing your name, however, allows for the Child Protection Worker assessing the matter to be able to contact you, if needed, in order to clarify information. You should know that you can consult with a Child Protection Worker about a family you are concerned about to determine whether a report should be made. For more information, see our section What happens when you call.

We are here to help, so we encourage you and all families to self-refer if you are in need of help and support. The Children’s Aid Society of SDG does not become involved in every situation that we receive information on. We often suggest other services in the community that would be more appropriate in assisting you. For more information, see our section Reporting your concerns.

Contrary to popular perception, there is no specific age at which a child can be left unattended. The Child and Family Services Act states that parents of children under the age of 16 years, must make reasonable provisions for their care. This requires parents to ensure that if they leave their children at home alone, that they have made appropriate efforts to ensure their children’s safety. This requires a common sense approach, for instance, ensuring youth have emergency phone numbers, are mature and responsible, and are not left for long periods of time without adult supervision.

For more information, see our section on Understanding abuse and neglect.

Although the Criminal Code of Canada allows parents to use reasonable force to punish their children, the Children’s Aid Society of SDG does not condone physical forms of punishment. It is the position of this agency that other forms of discipline are more successful and less harmful in managing children and youth’s behaviour. The Society does respond to situations where physical punishment in an inappropriate or excessive manner has been reported. This type of punishment could lead to a child being injured and, consequently, criminal charges could be laid by the police against the caregiver.

For more information, see our section on Understanding abuse and neglect.

Young children sharing the same room is often a necessity for many families. However, once children reach the age of six or seven, they naturally become conscious about their bodies and differences between the sexes. As children mature and begin to reach puberty, there is a need for privacy. Sharing a room with a sibling of the opposite sex can make a school aged child embarrassed and uncomfortable. Different sleeping arrangements should be made as the children age.

The Society does supervise access visits, but only with families that are currently receiving services, and only if the children are deemed unsafe in the care of their caregivers. Other supervised access visits can be arranged either through the York Centre in Cornwall or by using relatives or members of the community.

The Child and Family Services Act permits the Children’s Aid Society to be involved with children only before their sixteenth birthday unless they are in the care of the Society. To help obtain services for youth over sixteen years of age, consult community services such as Single Point Access.

The Children’s Aid Society of SDG does not become involved in issues of custody and access unless it affects the child or youth’s physical safety or emotional well-being. When this is not the case, we recommend that legal advice be sought on these issues.

We encourage you to try to resolve the issues with your assigned Child Protection Worker and his or her supervisor. If you continue to be dissatisfied at any point in this process, you may File a formal complaint.

Fostering and adoption FAQ

The Children’s Aid Society of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (SDG) is the legal guardian for all children in their care, including medical decision-making. For more information, see our section About our children and youth.

The agency does recruit for foster parents with different skill sets and abilities. Foster parents who are identified as caring for infants or teens are offered training specific to the age group of children placed. Some foster parents are equipped and trained to care for children with significant medical needs. Others have special skills and education in parenting children with more difficult behaviours. For more information, see our section Finding the right family. 

Caregivers participating in the foster or foster-to-adopt program are not paid a salary. At the end of the month, they receive financial compensation to cover general expenses associated with caring for a child. The money received by caregivers is non-taxable.

Subsidies for adopting parents may be available for children with special needs. Also, since June 2012, the government of Ontario provides financial subsidies to eligible parents who adopt or take legal custody of Crown wards ten years of age and over or siblings.

Foster parents receive ten weeks of training during the home study process and additional training after being approved. For more information, see our section Training and support.

Priority is always given to reuniting children with family or extended family. Caregivers have the opportunity to be involved in a child’s life and may be considered for adoption, if it is in the child’s best interest. For more information, see our section Could you be a Caregiver? 

As a foster caregiver you will be required to be actively involved, committed and supportive of contact between children and their biological families. Communication between children and their families could occur by telephone, email and visits. If there are any safety concerns, the child’s family will not know where you live.

One significant role of a caregiver is their commitment to support children by accompanying them to appointments, being present at their school events, and attending agency training and meetings, etc. If the caregiver does not have a license, it is their responsibility to find an adult who is available and committed to helping them in this way. This person will require a G license, the standard $1,000,000 insurance coverage, a police check and proof of insurance. This will be addressed at the beginning of the application process.

The child is part of your family and should be included in your family vacations. Under the right circumstances and with the proper preparations, arrangements can be made so the child can be included in your holiday. If you are travelling outside the country, the agency will need adequate time to prepare documentation. If it is not possible to take the child on vacation, other arrangements can be made for the child’s care.

Here are some helpful tips for keeping our teens safe online:

  • Find good usernames and passwords that are hard to guess.
  • Keep your true identity secret when creating your screen name; do not include personal information like your last name or date of birth.
  • The internet has a great memory… So keep its memory of you clean!
  • Never post words, pictures, videos, emails, blogs, comments or tweets that could compromise you or loved ones in any way.
  • Be extremely careful about meeting someone in person!
  • Don’t agree to meet an online friend unless you have your parents’ permission.
  • Unfortunately, sometimes people pretend to be people they aren’t.
  • Remember that not everything you read online is true.
  • Place the computer in a well-trafficked area in the home where the whole family can use it.
  • Be wary of cyber bullying.

There are no waiting lists. Therefore it is essential that the Children’s Aid Society of SDG have families prepared and ready to accept children into their homes on very short notice. As every child’s ethnicity and circumstances are different, we need diverse families to help out in many different ways. This is why we constantly recruit new families to help children on a temporary basis through fostering and on a permanent basis through adoption. Being part of our team not only means physically taking children into your family but being prepared and ready to receive that ‘special’ child when they need you the most. For more information, see our section About our children and youth. 

Absolutely! The matching process is essential in placement for a child to succeed. The Society considers many factors when approving a home, and matches with gender, age, language and cultural needs in mind. For more information, see our section Finding the Right Family. 

The commitment is not for everybody. Successful foster parents will tell you that it is very important to work collaboratively with the Society and to know your own abilities and limitations. In general, you get back far more than what you give. Our understanding of children is far more sophisticated than ever before. The Society provides staff support to help you work with the children to promote their natural resiliency to overcome difficulties they experienced before coming into care. Our goal is to provide permanency for children with careful planning, whether it is toward reunification with their biological families, or with adoption, legal custody or customary care. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy!

We hope that you will consider this opportunity to love and protect a child. There is no greater public service.

Contact the Children’s Aid Society of SDG at 613-933-2292 and ask for the Screening department to make a foster care application.