Poverty and Child Welfare
Kristina Nikolova
Introduction
Poverty generally refers to the lack of sufficient resources to obtain the necessities of life,
including food, clean water, shelter, and clothing (World Vision, 2023). However, more recent
definitions also extend to include access to quality health care, childcare, education, and
transportation in recognition of the negative impacts on health and well-being from being unable
to afford these crucial aspects of daily life. This PARTicle will provide readers with a summary
of the current state of poverty in Canada, the impacts of poverty on children and their caregivers,
and how the lack of a holistic governmental and programmatic response to address poverty has
resulted in the disproportionate overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous children in the child
protection system. The PARTicle will conclude with suggestions for child protection works and
caregivers on how they can recognize the effects of poverty and how to work to address the
impacts of poverty on families involved in the child protection system.
Poverty in Canada
Broadly, there are two ways to measure and understand poverty: absolute poverty and
relative poverty. Absolute poverty is whether individuals can afford the basic necessities of
survival, while relative poverty refers to whether people fall below the prevailing standards of
living in a given societal context (Hick & Stokes, 2021). Depending on which measure is being
discussed, poverty rates can vary widely. For instance, in 2017 the Government of Canada
implemented a new measure called the Market Basket Measure (MBM) to measure relative
poverty, which was supposed to account for the differences in cost of living based on location.
Based on the MBM, in 2017 only 9.5% of the population lived below the poverty line; however,
based on the Low-Income Measure (LIM), 13.9% of the population, or 4.8 million Canadians,
lived below the poverty line (Statistics Canada, 2017). The LIM measures absolute poverty
based on 50% of the median household income. That means that for a family of four living in
Canada in 2021, a minimum after-tax income of $54,704 is required to have sufficient means to
afford the basic necessities not just to survive, but to thrive (Statistics Canada, 2021a). How the
government measures poverty impacts not just the poverty rate, but also how much money is
invested in poverty alleviation strategies in Canada.
Regardless of how poverty is measured, we know that children are at a disproportionate
risk of experiencing poverty. While conservative measures like the MBM estimate that as of the
2021 Census, 8.1% of adults in Canada are in poverty, 9.1% of children under the age of 5, 8.5%
of children ages 6 to 10 years, and 7.9% of children ages 11 to 17 years lived in poverty
(Statistics Canada, 2021b). These number indicate a decline of 50% since 2015, but were
primarily driven by the enhanced Canada Child Benefit and temporary pandemic relief benefits.
It is uncertain whether these reductions in the child poverty rate will be maintained now that
pandemic relief benefits have been discontinued. Despite these reductions in the child poverty
rate, Canada still has the highest rate of child poverty among the 50 highest income countries in
the world (Hick & Stokes, 2021).
Not all families are at equal risk of experiencing poverty. The poverty rate for one-parent
female-led families with a child under 5 years of age was 31.3% in 2020 (Statistics Canada,
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2021b). Conversely, only 6.0% of two-parent families with a child under 5 years of age are
below the poverty line. Poverty is more prevalent in large urban centres, largely due to the
higher cost of living. The poverty rate in Canada is highest in Vancouver (11.2%), Halifax
(10.5%) and Toronto (10.0%), and lowest in Québec (4.8%), Saguenay (5.3%) and Oshawa
(5.3%) (Statistics Canada, 2021b).
Poverty is also very unequally distributed based on one’s race or ethnicity. Among
Indigenous people aged 16 and older living off reserves, about 89,000 (11.8%) were below the
poverty line in 2020 (Statistics Canada, 2022). This is a decrease of 6.8% from the 2019 rate.
Despite this decline, the poverty rate among Indigenous people remained approximately double
that of non-Indigenous people (6.6%). The poverty rate among First Nations people living off
reserve was 15.2% in 2020, down from 22.8% in 2019. Among Métis people, the poverty rate
was 9.4%, down from 13.7% in 2019. The poverty rate for Indigenous people also varies by
place of residence. Winnipeg has the largest Indigenous population of all urban centres in
Canada and sees 23.2% of First Nations people, 10.5% of Métis people, and 14.4% of Inuit
people living in poverty (Statistics Canada, 2021b).
Meanwhile, the situation on reserves is even worse. Based on the latest available data
from 20161, 47.% of First Nations people, 31.1% of Metis people, and 20.0% of Inuit people
living on reserve live in poverty (Statistics Canada, 2021c). Black Canadians are also more
likely to experience poverty (12.4%), with the prevalence of poverty varying by urban centre
(15.8% in Winnipeg compared to 9.7% in Montreal). Similarly, 10.8% of South Asian
Canadians and 15.3% of Chinese Canadians live in poverty (Statistics Canada, 2021b). The
poverty rate is highest amongst immigrant populations, particularly among refugees and recent
immigrants.
How does poverty impact caregivers’ parenting capacity?
Research on the social determinants of health has consistently demonstrated that an
individual’s place in society, including income and place of residence, determine that
individual’s quality of physical and mental health, which in turn impact their ability to finish
school and find or maintain employment (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2018). This means
that poverty itself impairs people’s ability to escape poverty, resulting in the concentration of
poverty in certain communities for generation after generation.
Canada’s long colonial history featured a multitude of policies designed to advantage
some groups over others. Laws like the Indian Act (strongly imposed Indigenous
disenfranchisement, limited Indigenous rights, and mandated the removal of Indigenous children
from their parents), Chinese Head Tax (later expanded to include Black Americans), bans on
Black, Chinese, and Indian immigrants throughout the 1900s (which continue to impact waitlists
and family reunification immigration to this day), and legal segregation in employment,
More recent data on poverty on reserves is not available as the Market Basket Measure, the
official poverty measure of the government of Canada, has been contested as being ineffective
for use on reserves. As a result, until a more relevant measure is developed, data on poverty
rates on reserves is not available for the same time periods as off reserve (Statistics Canada,
2021c).
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education, and service delivery until very recently (Decoste, 2013) have entrenched poverty
within the communities of Black and Indigenous People of Colour in particular.
Colonial policies also continue to impact service delivery. Institutions like the child
protection system are designed to address individual and family needs, while ignoring the wider
structural and societal barriers that prevent families from functioning. Therefore, understanding
the impact that poverty has on caregivers is crucial in order to ensure that families are not
blamed for factors outside their control.
One of the key drivers of poverty is the decreasing availability of full-time, living wage
work (Hick & Stokes, 2021). Canadian society is built on the assumption of a two-parent family
with a middle class income, benefits, and paid
The Feminization of Poverty
vacation and sick leave that enable parents to pay for
housing, childcare, extra-curricular activities, etc. for
Women and non-binary individuals
their children. However, the number of high paying
are more likely to live in poverty.
living wage work has been steadily decreasing, and
They are more likely to be single
more and more Canadians are falling into a group
parents and they are overrepresented
known as the working poor. They rely on minimum
in parttime and precarious work that
wage part time, temporary, contract, or precarious
lacks job security and benefits (Hick
work (e.g. “will call” shifts and 0 hours contracts)
& Stokes, 2021). To this day, women
that does include health and dental benefits, does not
continue to be underpaid compared to
have paid sick or vacation leave, and lacks job
men, even when working in the same
security. Often, working poor caregivers must hold
field. Racialized women are
multiple part time or gig economy2 jobs just to afford
particularly impacted as they earn 59
housing. This type of employment increases
financial stress for the entire family (Hick & Stokes,
cents for every dollar earned by a
2021) and limits the caregivers’ capacity to respond
non-racialized man (Hick & Stokes,
to any kind of additional stressor on the family such
2021). Women are more likely to
as a child illness (taking time off would result in
experience career disruptions due to
losing pay for the day) or illness of the caregiver (no
childcare or caregiving of family
benefits means limited ability to pay for prescription
members, and they continue to
medication or any type of mental health care). This
provide a majority of the unpaid
type of work also lacks any kind of employment
labour within the home. The
protection in the event of an economic downturn,
COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated
disability, illness, etc., and is not eligible for
existing inequalities and forced many
Employment Insurance (EI), meaning that if a
women to take time off work or
caregiver loses their work, even through no fault of
reduce their hours to accommodate
their own, they have no recourse for income
childcare and take care of sick family
replacement from the government (despite paying
into EI while they are employed; Hick & Stokes,
members (Hick & Stokes, 2021).
2021).
Most concerningly, parttime, temporary, contract, and precarious work is more likely to
be associated with health and safety risks leading to greater rates of physical injury and burnout
Gig economy work includes temporary employment by contract or freelance such as Uber,
UberEats, DoorDash, Instacart, etc. Gig economy work is not the same thing as selfemployment.
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(Hick & Stokes, 2021). Without adequate benefit plans to address injuries and mental health
impacts of the work, workers are forced to either continue jeopardizing their physical and mental
health or quit and hope they can find another job, leaving the family unit financially insecure. As
a result, physical and mental health issues go untreated, impairing caregivers’ ability to be
optimal parents to their children (Afifi et al., 2012). Caregivers with mental health issues are
two times more likely to use corporal punishment and other ineffective and potentially harmful
parenting techniques, than parents without mental health issues (Afifi et al., 2012).
By increasing family stress, poverty also increases the risk of intimate partner violence
between the primary caregivers. Intimate partner violence victimization not only impairs the
caregiver’s own physical and mental health, but also reduced their caregiving capacity and
increases the risk of emotional maltreatment, physical abuse, and neglect of the child (Westad &
McConnell, 2012).
It is important to recognize that the current social and political response to poverty is
insufficient to actually raise people out of poverty. For example, no province in Canada
currently provides social assistance sufficient to raise a family over the poverty line (Hick &
Stokes, 2021). All social assistance programs in Canada are designed to get back people into
employment without recognizing that the type of employment needed to raise the family out of
poverty is extremely difficult to find without retraining, further education, and improved labour
protection laws. Programs like Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Programs
(ODSP) are unable to cover the housing, medical, nutritional, and other basic needs of families,
because they assume that things like affordable housing, affordable nutritious food, and
affordable and flexible childcare are going to be widely available. For example, the widely
touted $10/day childcare program has waitlists over 12 months long that forces low-income
parents to either work shorter hours or to rely on unregulated childcare arrangements (Barry,
2023).
How does poverty impact children?
Poverty is associated with poor nutrition, poor health, poor education outcomes, and a
lack of safe shelter for children (Pascoe et al., 2016). Lack of nutritious food can impact child
development and result in obesity in children (Pascoe et al., 2016). The systems available to
respond to lack of food (e.g. food banks, soup kitchens) are based on donations and rarely have
the fresh foods required for optimal child development. This is particularly concerning as
children represent one in three service users of food banks in Canada (Food Banks Canada,
2019). Moreover, 80% of Canadian families who are food insecure do not actually use a
foodbank due to factors such as stigma, limited food selection, excessive eligibility rules, food
shortages, limited operating hours, and lack of transportation (Smith-Carrier et al., 2017).
Poverty, and lack of nutrition, is responsible for the higher rate of child morbidity and mortality
among children in low-income households compared to children in high income families (Pascoe
et al., 2016).
Poverty is also one of the key determinants of school success (Hick & Stokes, 2021).
Children growing up below the poverty line do not have time with their parents during their most
formative early years for crucial developmental tasks such as reading together and modeling
social interactions, and lack access to regulated childcare that could provide quality early
childhood education and care. As a result, these children consistently score lower in all levels of
education and are less likely to graduate high school than children who have not experienced
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poverty, and have lower ability to self-regulate and appropriately respond to stress (Early Years
Study, 2020).
The availability of free full-day kindergarten, and in particular Ontario’s pre-kindergarten
for 4-year-olds, is an important step in closing this gap, but research on early childhood
education indicates that two to four year olds also require high quality early childhood care in
order to reach the same level of cognitive, linguistic, and socio-emotional development as
children who have not experienced poverty (Early Years Study, 2020).
Material deprivation and poverty impact children’s socio-emotional development by
causing toxic stress. Toxic stress results due to the prolonged adversity caused by poverty in the
form of food insecurity, transient living, frequent moves, neighbourhood violence, family
turmoil, and overcrowding (Levin, 2017). This toxic stress then impacts socio-emotional
development and results in mental health problems, decreased coping strategies, and diminished
self-esteem and self-confidence (Lee & Zhang, 2021). These impacts on socio-emotional
development then translate to strained peer relationships, problems in school, and increased risk
of involvement with the criminal justice system.
Deficits in coping and self-esteem result in issues such as bullying perpetration,
aggression, and behavioural issues with caregivers and other authority figures (Lee & Zhang,
2021). Most importantly, these effects are not only present for children in the most
disadvantaged households, but also for those who experience relative poverty (for example, the
working poor whose households are just above the official poverty line and therefore do not
receive access to services for impoverished families; Lee & Zhang, 2021). In other words, any
level of material deprivation will impact child development and have lifelong effects.
Poverty and Disproportionality in Child Welfare Reports, Investigations, and Out of Home
Placements
Poverty and child maltreatment are strongly associated social issues, particularly for
neglect. A one-percentage point increase in the population’s unemployment rate is associated
with a 20% increase in reports of neglect (DeCao & Sandner, 2020), indicating the key role of
economic hardship on family functioning.
The child protection system is based on risk assessment through a forensic focus. As
such, the structural issues caused by poverty are not given sufficient attention when determining
risk and protective factors and developing safety plans. Qualitative research with child
protection workers in Ontario highlight this disconnect. As one worker states about working
with racialized immigrant families “they don’t have money often and they don’t fit certain
middle-class standards that the agency is based on” (Carranza, 2022, pg. 13). The negative
impacts of this approach is particularly evident when working with racialized families. A child
welfare worker commented “You work with every family in the same way, so on the surface, it
seems like it’s not racist, but at the same time you are not taking into consideration like any
different background or cultural differences and things like that” (Carranza, 2022, pg. 12).
Based on the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2019)
the most frequently occurring risk factors for families to be involved in the child welfare system
are mental health issues, few social supports, and intimate partner violence victimization (Fallon,
et al., 2021). As discussed above, all of these factors are more likely to occur in families
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experiencing poverty. Maternal mental health issues, intimate partner victimization, and a lack
of social supports are all most likely to occur for investigations of neglect, emotional
maltreatment, and exposure to intimate partner violence (Westad & McConnell, 2012).
According to the CIS-2019, at the household level, the most frequent risk factors for child
maltreatment are being on social assistance, running out of money for necessities, two or more
moves in the last year, overcrowded housing and unsafe housing conditions (Fallon et al., 2021).
These factors are all the result of limited financial resources available to provide for children and
are 2 to 3 times more likely to occur in Indigenous households (Fallon et al., 2021). As a result
of the higher rates of poverty in Indigenous communities due to the historical and current
policies and practices discussed above, Indigenous families are 8.5 times more likely to be
investigated for neglect, and 4.2 times more likely to be investigated for exposure to intimate
partner violence (Fallon et al., 2021). Indigenous families are then 4.7 times more likely to be
substantiated for maltreatment, 6.6 times more likely to be transferred to ongoing services, and
17.2 times more likely to experience child removal (Fallon et al., 2021). Unfortunately, these
disparities in the child welfare system response to Indigenous families have been present since
the CIS was first implemented in 1998 (Trocme et al., 2004), despite the recommendations of the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the policy and programmatic changes that have
occurred in the last 25 years.
Black families are also disproportionately impacted by poverty due to the intergenerational effects of colonialism, slavery, and racism in society, and at risk for involvement
with the child protection system. Black families investigated by child protection services are
more likely to be experiencing severe economic hardship, a key driver in the decision to provide
ongoing services or to place the child in out-of-home care (King et al., 2017). Black children are
also more likely to be placed in residential group home programs as opposed to kinship or foster
care (Mosher & Hewitt, 2018). Interviews with Ontario caseworkers and community facilitators
identified several key reasons for the overrepresentation of Black youth in child protection
services: lack of workforce diversity in child welfare, lack of community service supports,
poverty, racism, mental health issues, and disciplinary practices (Cenat et al., 2023). Of these
key issues poverty, racism, mental health, and lack of community service supports are all
interrelated and related to economic adversity as identified above.
Analyses of child maltreatment at the neighbourhood level have found that poverty is one
of the key determinants of substantiated child maltreatment investigations in Quebec (Turgeon et
al., 2022). Moreover, the greater the poverty of the neighbourhood, the more likely children
were to experience a substantiated investigation. While it is impossible to conclude from this
research that neighbourhood deprivation caused increased risk of child maltreatment, it is
nevertheless an important risk factor for maltreatment, particularly child neglect. A second
important finding of this study is that the more regulated childcare spaces available in a
community, the lower the risk of child maltreatment, even in the poorest neighbourhoods
(Turgeon et al., 2022). This finding indicates that quality childcare spaces can reduce the risk of
child maltreatment, even for families experiencing extreme poverty.
Programs to Address the Impacts of Poverty
A scoping review of the research literature on improving the child protection system
identified 433 articles on the topic (McTavish et al., 2022). More than half of the articles
identified the need for society and community-level initiatives as necessary to reduce child
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maltreatment rates (specifically poverty, racism, colonialism, and ableism). The other half
focused on institutions (the need for population specific services, the need for research and
evidence-based services), relationships (with families, with other organizations), and on
individuals (e.g. improving training for service providers) as key for improving the child
protection system.
The lack of adequate childcare for children experiencing poverty puts them at greater risk
for child welfare involvement. Increasing the number of affordable, regulated childcare spaces
in a neighbourhood can reduce the risk of child welfare involvement (Turgeon et al., 2022). The
federal government’s $10 a day childcare program is a step in the right direction, but more needs
to be done to ensure the implementation is successful. Current waitlists and lack of spaces limit
its ability to help families experiencing poverty (Barry, 2023).
The more social service programs that are available to families, the lower the risk of child
maltreatment in impoverished communities. A province-wide study in Quebec looking at all
maltreatment investigations between 2002 and 2010 found that the two strongest determinants in
whether a child would be placed in out of home care or not is the level of poverty and the amount
of health and social service spending within the region (Esposito et al., 2017). The greater the
amount of regional spending on health and social services, the lower the placement rate, even
when accounting for the type of abuse and the child and caregivers’ risk factors. This research
indicates that if the community supports are in place, the placement of children into out of home
care can be reduced or prevented.
However, social services on their own cannot reduce the risk of child maltreatment in
impoverished communities. Westad and McConnell (2012) argued that the child welfare
involvement of mothers with mental health issues could not be decreased only with effective
mental health care if alleviating poverty was not also part of the intervention plan. As a result,
human rights activists are increasingly pushing for universal guaranteed minimum income (also
known as universal basic income). With guaranteed minimum income, all individuals and
families who are below the poverty line receive adequate money to live on, regardless of whether
they work or are looking for work (as required by social assistance programs like Ontario
Works).
By preventing chronic and toxic stress, basic income programs are an effective antipoverty strategy that has significant positive impacts on recipients. Pilot programs of universal
basic income programs have found they reduced intimate partner violence and improved mental
and physical health of recipients (Forget, 2011; Gunaseelan, 2018). As well, they are able to
eliminate food insecurity and the overreliance on cheap, fast food that lacks nutrition, a key
component of ensuring optimal child development.
Another effective strategy for addressing the impacts of poverty on families is the
Housing First strategy. Housing First is a program that provides low-cost affordable housing as
well as mental health, addictions, and other social services to individuals and families
experiencing homelessness, or at risk of homelessness (Hughes, 2012). Rather than expecting
individuals to be deemed ready for housing by meeting sobriety or mental health requirements,
individuals and families are provided with housing first as well as supports to address their
mental health or substance abuse issues.
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A pilot by the Mental Health Commission of Canada from 2009 to 2013 in Montreal,
Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver, focused on Indigenous people, newcomers to Canada, and
youth (Goering et al., 2014). The pilot found significant improvements in the mental health and
substance use of program recipients, as well as preventing future homelessness. While the
evaluation did not consider any effects on child maltreatment, as noted by the CIS-2019,
homelessness, overcrowded housing, or unsafe housing are some of the household-level risk
factors that place children at risk of maltreatment (Fallon et al., 2021); therefore, a housing first
approach to families with children could be very effective in preventing chronic child neglect.
A housing first approach is also particularly important for youth who age out of care. In
Canada, youth aging out of care have much poorer economic outcomes than their peers and are
at higher risk of experiencing poverty (Bounajm et al., 2014). A systematic review of the studies
on youth who age out of care found that children who age out of care are more likely to be
unemployed or underemployed, to have low or no income, to experience homelessness or
housing insecurity, and to have health, mental health, and substance use issues (Gypen et al.,
2017). Current programing approaches to help prevent these outcomes includes supporting
youth’s independent living, extended health care, and tuition coverage; however, there is a lot of
variability between jurisdictions in the availability of these services so research on their
effectiveness in reducing youth poverty is scarce (Hick & Stokes, 2021).
Indigenous-specific research with First Nations women has found that a holistic cultural
and spiritual approach is necessary to address the needs of Indigenous women who experience
poverty (Native Women’s Association of Canada, 2017). The two main recommendations from
this research are that to reduce the social exclusion of Indigenous women that limits their social
supports are:
1) access to culture (including reliable and affordable transportation) to land for
ceremony and food sources; and,
2) access to services (including culturally specific services, access to Elders and
traditional teachers, and culturally appropriate health care and childcare).
As part of the access to services, Indigenous leaders call for the elimination of arbitrary barriers
to services (e.g. imposing standardized maximum income limits for necessary programs like
daycare and mental health supports), a collective and holistic approach to services (connecting
cultural knowledge to the administration of social services), and increased access to services
(making services accessible by reducing user fees, improving public transportation, and reducing
systematic racism) (Native Women’s Association of Canada, 2017).
Qualitative research on effectively working with Black families who are involved with
the child protection system in Ontario have identified several key components to improving
service delivery (Antwi-Boasiako et al., 2022). These include viewing Black families as experts
of their own lives, increasing the diversity of the child protection workforce, educating
newcomers to Canada about the child welfare practices, stopping harmful record keeping on
families, and partnering with community organizations (Antwi-Boasiako et al., 2022). As one
community service provider notes:
We know that the view of the Black community is that CAS is not on our side. They are
not here to help us. They are here to break our families. They are here to investigate,
interrogate and to apprehend, so I think CAS partnering with grassroot community
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organizations to kind of bridge the gap to move to a prevention model, to move to a
model like a wraparound model, working with what is already working (AntwiBoasiako et al., 2022, pg. 7).
Clearly there is a lot of overlap in the recommendations for service improvements
between Black and Indigenous People of Color, which is at least partially explained by a shared
history of colonialism, discrimination, and poverty.
Practice Considerations
Supporting Anti-Poverty Initiatives


Guaranteed minimum income and a housing first strategy are needed to actually begin to
address poverty and economic inequality in Canada (Hick & Stokes, 2021). Without
substantial financial investment from all levels of government, intergenerational poverty
and the effects of colonialism and racism will continue to disproportionately impact
Black and Indigenous People of Color. Individual and organizational advocacy for a
guaranteed minimum income and a housing first strategy is needed from all those who
want to decrease child maltreatment rates.
Increase the supports provided to youth transitioning out of care. To prevent the poor
economic outcomes of these youth, additional supports to complete formal education,
attain housing stability, and access mental health and addictions services are necessary.
Successfully graduating high school can decrease the risk of economic hardship by 50 to
75% (Coelli et al., 2007).
Decolonizing Child Welfare Practice

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Risk assessments and safety plans should consider the family’s racial identity and sociocultural background in order to recognize the historical and current discriminatory
institutional policies and practices that impact families. For example, a history of
residential school involvement will make a family appear resistant to child protection
service involvement when in fact it is an expected response to intergenerational trauma
brought on by the history of institutional cultural oppression.
Risk assessments should also take into consideration the types of economic hardship
faced by the family in order to better understand how aspects of poverty will place the
family at risk for neglect. Fallon et al. (2020) developed a clinical tool to screen for
economic hardship in child welfare-involved families during the COVID-19 pandemic
that can be used for post-pandemic assessment.
Implement the calls to action of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
Canada final report related to child welfare.
Implement Evidence-Informed Child Welfare Practice

Canadian research has consistently indicated that many of the families referred to child
protection services are referred so for risk only or for factors that can be addressed within
the community, such as corporal punishment or exposure to intimate partner violence
(Trocme et al., 2013). Despite these findings, in provinces like Ontario, a differential
response or alternative response model that provides different levels of services to
families facing chronic issues (such as poverty, intimate partner violence) has not been
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


implemented. Ontario only has a differential investigative model that adjusts the
invasiveness of the investigation, afterwards the system treats families the same. A
differential response model that focuses on community supports and poverty alleviation
for families would be more in line with the research evidence.
When working with children experiencing financial deprivation, the effects of poverty on
children’s socio-emotional development must be addressed with any service plan. The
socio-emotional impacts of poverty can present as mental health and behavioural issues
that could strain the child/youth’s relationships with caregivers, peers, and authority
figures. A trauma informed approach to working with these children is necessary to
ensure that they are not punished for behaviours that have resulted from their experiences
of toxic stress.
Improve the supports for children and youth leaving care. While policies that provide
reduced or free post-secondary education to youth leaving care are available, many youth
are not able to even finish high school so they are unable to benefit from these resources.
New child protection workers need additional supervision and guidance in order to
adequately recognize the structural issues, compared to experienced child protection
workers (McLaughlin, et al., 2017).
Conclusions
Poverty is a complex social problem with deep roots in Canada’s colonial and class-based
history. Material hardship causes chronic stress on children and families; children’s
development is negatively impacted while caregivers’ parenting capacity is decreased. Both of
these factors increase the risk of child abuse and neglect. Since racism and colonialism have
concentrated poverty within racialized, immigrant, and working-class communities these
populations are disproportionately represented within the child protection system. As a result,
there are no simple solutions to reducing the effects that poverty has on children and families or
decreasing the risk of child maltreatment. Without systemic changes to reduce poverty and
homelessness, individual-based interventions will only have slight or temporary effects for
individuals and families (McTavish et al., 2022).
Toxic stress from chronic deprivation impacts children’s brain and socio-emotional
development to such an extent that children, whether brought into care or not, are unable to
succeed in school within the current system, resulting in low academic achievement, and poor
economic opportunities. This perpetuates the intergenerational transmission of poverty and
places another generation of children at risk for maltreatment. Child protection workers and
caregivers need to provide extra support to children who have experienced poverty to address the
socio-emotional impacts of poverty, especially youth aging out of care.
Specific attention needs to be taken when working with Black and Indigenous families.
A history of structural oppression and discrimination has resulted in the overrepresentation of
Black and Indigenous children and families in the child protection system, which impacts the
trust and willingness to work with child protection workers of these families. A lack of diversity
in the child welfare workforce and the child protection system’s insufficiency in addressing
poverty can impede the development of a working relationship with racialized families or be
interpreted as resistance to change to new workers. A trauma informed anti-oppressive approach
needs to be undertaken when attempting to engage with families to ensure the child protection
system is responsive to their needs and cultural context.
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References
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punishment and mental disorders: Results from a nationally representative US sample.
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2. Antwi-Boasiako, K., Fallon, B., King, B., Trocme, N., & Fluke, J. (2022). Addressing the
overrepresentation of Black children in Ontario’s child welfare system: Insights from
child welfare workers and community service providers. Child Abuse & Neglect, 123,
105423.
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