Article content

What happens to kids who authorities determine can’t live safely with their own parents or caregivers? Thousands of Canadian children are in this situation right now. Many go into foster homes, while others go into other types of out-of-home care on behalf of child welfare agencies. But we don’t know how many, nor do we know how well they are doing.

Why? Canada does not keep reliable national statistics on kids in care, instead relying on provincial reporting. But each province has its own child welfare policy and its own definition of children in care, which may not include other types of out-of-home care, such as care from family relatives (kinship care) or group homes.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Marni Brownell & Neeta McMurtry: We know that Canada has one of the highest rates of kids in care in the world. What we don't know may be worse Back to video

This matters, because it is difficult to know what to do — how to improve outcomes for Canadian kids — if we are not keeping track of what is going on.Some analysts say child welfare systems suffer from underfunding, staffing cuts and not enough foster families or resources to support them. But policy makers have a hard time deciding what to fund without statistics to measure possible outcomes. Also, reliablenumbers can help provinces compare best practices for child welfare.