Summary of the 2nd National Child Welfare Data Exchange Meeting

On February 27-28, 2023, WRMA’s Dr. Gila Shusterman attended and presented at the 2nd National Child Welfare Data Exchange Meeting in Montreal, in collaboration with Dr. John Fluke and Dr. Dana Hollinshead of the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. This meeting of Canadian provincial child welfare professionals and researchers explored the use of administrative data to monitor disparities in child welfare systems across provincial and Indigenous jurisdictions. Currently, Canada has no national child welfare information system, so this meeting also focused on strategies for developing information systems to inform initiatives to reduce disparities.

“As an NCANDS researcher, I was grateful for this opportunity to be reminded of the historical and current context into which every report of child maltreatment occurs and to hear directly from child welfare professionals who can share the experiences behind the numbers,” Dr. Shusterman said.

Along with WRMA colleagues Dr. Nicole Fettig and Juan Nunez, Dr. Shusterman has been working with Dr. Fluke and Dr. Hollinshead for the past several years on secondary analysis of NCANDS data with the support of the WRMA Research Initiative.

Here are Gila’s key takeaways from the event:

1. In Canada, as in the U.S., child welfare systems are reckoning with a difficult history and ongoing legacy of disparate treatment of minority families.

Treatment of Indigenous populations in Canada historically has been especially traumatic and sadly intentional. From the mid-1800s through the late 20^th century, government policy forcibly separated more than 150,000 Indigenous Canadian children from their families and placed them in assimilation-focused residential schools. Despite recent efforts to address these historic inequities, significant disparities have remained in the treatment of Indigenous children in Canadian child welfare. According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census, Indigenous children account for 53.8% of children in foster care but only 7.7% of the child population. [1] The Canadian government has undertaken a large-scale effort to seek reconciliation with Indigenous communities and reduce these disparities through reconsideration of “virtually all aspects of Canadian society.” [2]

2. Equitable and culturally responsive acquisition and use of data are key factors in Canada’s efforts to reduce disparities in treatment of Indigenous families and children.

The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015 mandated policy and practice changes to reduce disparities in treatment of Indigenous families and children. A consistent recommendation for monitoring and reducing these disparities is to improve data quality, availability, and partnerships both within and across jurisdictions and agencies. However, the provinces’ deep commitment to OCAP principles (ownership, control, access, possession) for Indigenous communities’ data limits government capacity to establish and enforce requirements for collection and reporting of these data. With this context, this National Child Welfare Data Exchange Meeting sought to explore methodological, contextual, ethical, and policy issues around collection and interpretation of child welfare data. The meeting also explored Indigenous child welfare agencies’ development of information systems that enable decolonized approaches to supporting children and families. [3]

3. International collaboration is valuable to share lessons learned.

As the only participants from the U.S. at the Data Exchange Meeting, we were honored to share our research and learn about the Canadian system’s history and current implementation.

Ours was also the only presentation that included data since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants shared that the reductions in reporting and increase in percent substantiations that we described were consistent with what has been observed in Canada, but they do not have the data to demonstrate this at the national level. Human services, including child welfare, are administered and funded entirely at the provincial level. The meeting showcased results of robust partnerships between provincial governments and universities for collection and analysis of child welfare data, with some similarities and some contrasts with the patterns we see in the U.S.

These conversations reinforced for me NCANDS’ value and contribution to our understanding of child maltreatment reporting nationally and over time. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is in the early stages of developing the Canadian Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS). Hearing about their experience reminded me not to take for granted the long and gradual process of initially obtaining case-level NCANDS data from all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, as well as the considerable efforts of the Children’s Bureau and our NCANDS Technical Team each year supporting states to submit their data and continuously improve data quality.

4. These crucial conversations should continue.

I am also aware that much work still needs to be done both in the U.S. and internationally. Fortuitously, a month following my trip to Montreal, I attended the Administration for Children and Families’ National Convening on Building an Inclusive Human Services System and had an opportunity to consider many of these same themes from the U.S. perspective. This federally sponsored national conference was devoted solely to exploring and championing efforts to include the voices of communities of color, LGBTQ+ people, tribal communities, rural populations, people with disabilities, and religious minorities in all aspects and levels of human services policymaking and program development. I’m hopeful that this event will inspire and reinforce efforts to improve equity and reduce disparities across human services systems.

[1] https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1541187352297/1541187392851

[2] https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf

[3] Esposito, T., Fallon, B., Trocmé, N., Caldwell, J., Saint-Girons, M., & Précourt, S. (2023). Summary report: Canadian child welfare administrative data knowledge exchange meeting. Public Health Agency of Canada: Ottawa, ON.

Dr. Shusterman’s participation in the Data Exchange Meeting was supported by the WRMA Research Initiative. WRMA has committed corporate resources to share WRMA staff expertise and promote research-based discourse on critical public policy topics. Any views or opinions reflected are those of the authors. No endorsement or recommendation by any current or former WRMA client or any government entity is implied or should be inferred.

About the Author

Dr. Gila Shusterman is a director of research and evaluation at WRMA. She is a social scientist with 30 years of experience in evaluation, applied research, and project management in the areas of child welfare, human services, and education. She has expertise in data analysis, reporting, and visualization. Dr. Shusterman’s background includes evaluation design and implementation in small nonprofit organizations as well as management and analysis of national human services data. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Brandeis University.