Ontario Helping More Children in Care Connect with Waiting Families
Province Provides Greater Support to Adoptive Parents
Ontario is making it easier for children and youth in the care of children’s aid societies to find forever families, while providing more support to adoptive parents.
To help more young people in the care of children’s aid societies find a permanent nurturing home, Ontario is funding up to 15 targeted adoption recruiters in partnership with Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, a successful adoption program run through the Dave Thomas Foundation. In addition, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is also funding four additional Ontario adoption recruiters.
The province is also making the adoption experience more effective and efficient by requiring children’s aid societies to expand their use of the AdoptOntario website so more children and youth can be matched with waiting families.
To help waiting parents and respond to the needs of adopted children and youth, Ontario is:
- Expanding the targeted subsidies program by extending the age of eligibility to, eight to 21 years (from 10 to 18 years), and updating the income threshold and subsidy amount to reflect current Statistics Canada data
- Investing in a provincewide post-adoption family support program
- Encouraging greater use of culturally appropriate placement options for First Nations children and youth.
For those youth who are still in care, Ontario is extending funding to their caregivers to provide a stable home if they require additional time to complete high school, from ages 18 to 21.
Matching more children with adoptive families and increasing supports for children in care is part of the government’s plan to build Ontario up so that all children and youth be given the opportunity to reach their full potential.
- Approximately 6,400 Crown wards in Ontario are eligible for adoption.
- On average, children become Crown wards at eight years of age.
- There is no cost to adoptive parents to go through the public adoption process with a children’s aid society.
- On September 1, 2011, the Building Families and Supporting Youth to be Successful Act, 2011 came into force, removing legislative barriers to Crown wards being placed for adoption.
“Our government is committed to supporting stronger families by helping parents provide stable homes to adopted children. We want children in care to benefit from a forever family, with all the opportunities young people need and deserve to achieve success. With these new updates to Ontario’s adoption system, we are giving a foundation for adoptive families to provide secure and loving homes to their child.”
“We are very pleased to partner with the Ontario government in finding more families for children – especially children who because of age or disability have a more difficult time finding permanent homes.”
“The initiatives announced today are a great step forward to increase the number of children and youth who will leave care with a family through adoption. It is very encouraging that our government is making this commitment to walk alongside adoptive and kinship families with the ongoing support they need to ensure that lasting permanency is achieved for our children and youth.”
Matt Iannucci
Minister’s Office
416-212-8851
For general inquiries from the public:
call toll-free
1-866-821-7770
NT5
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