What a CAS Kinship Assessment Checks and How to Prepare

If you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle or another family member being assessed as a caregiver, it can feel like you are the one under investigation. In a sense you are being evaluated, but the purpose is to decide whether the child will have a safe home with you.

This article walks through what Ontario's regulation requires a children's aid society to check, the timelines involved, and practical ways to prepare. What the society makes of what it finds depends on the facts of your home and family, so treat this as a general guide.

Where the assessment rules come from

Ontario's regulation sets out Family and Community Placement rules. They apply where a placement plan would put a child with a relative or a member of the child's extended family or community. A person's home can be a place of safety if the society has assessed the home and is satisfied the person is willing and able to provide a safe home environment.

Society practice also distinguishes between kinship service, for children not in a society's formal care, and kinship care, for children in formal care. The standards cover searching for kin, initial screening, a comprehensive assessment of the kin family, a service plan, and opening and closing a file.

What gets checked

When a placement is planned before the child moves, the society must evaluate the plan. It must establish the identity of every person aged 18 or older living in the home, interview the proposed primary caregiver, interview the child privately, and assess the home environment including its physical aspects.

There are also record checks. The society reviews its own records on every person aged 18 or older in the home, advises the caregiver of police record check and offence declaration requirements, obtains consent to disclose information (including from child welfare authorities outside Ontario), and searches the caregiver's name in the Child Protection Fast Track Information System. If the person lived elsewhere, it requests records from other child welfare bodies.

• Identity of all adults in the home.
• Interview with the proposed primary caregiver, and a private interview with the child.
• Home environment, including physical aspects.
• Society records for each adult in the home.
• Police record check or offence declaration requirements.
• Child protection record search, plus a request for records from other child welfare bodies if the person lived elsewhere.

Timelines you may see

In an emergency, the society may not be able to follow every step first. The regulation requires it to record the circumstances and reasons why specified procedures were not followed.

What can raise concerns, and how to prepare

The regulation does not give a list of automatic disqualifiers in the parts reviewed, so what counts as a concern depends on the worker's evaluation of whether the home is safe. The regulation points to who lives in the home, what the records show, and the physical home environment.

• Tell the worker honestly about every adult who lives in your home; each person aged 18 or older living there is checked.
• Be upfront about any past police or child welfare history. Records will be searched, so surprises are worse than explanations.
• Make sure the home has a safe sleeping space, working smoke alarms, and secure storage for medications and hazards.
• Think through how you would handle contact with the child's parents and what limits you would keep.
• Be ready to talk about the child's schooling, health needs and routines.
• Keep copies of anything you hand over and note the dates of visits.

Money and support, and what to do next

What help you can get depends on the child's status. For kinship service, where the child is not in society care, funding includes start-up funding of up to $1,000 for each new family and episodic funding of up to $1,000 annually for each child. There is no ongoing subsidy listed. If the child is in society care and placed with you as a place of safety, payments are not to exceed the regular foster care rate (approximately $900 per month).

If the child is not in society care, you may also look at Ontario Works Temporary Care Assistance, which has monthly rates of $274 for the first child and $224 for each additional child, with conditions. Caregivers apply for kinship funding by discussing it with their CAS caseworker. A lawyer can help if you are unsure about custody or about whether the society has treated you fairly.

Frequently asked questions