In 2023, the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect investigated almost 7,000 substantiated child maltreatment-related cases across 20 child welfare agencies, with over 90% involving children below the age of 15 (Fallon et al., 2025). Primary categories of maltreatment included exposure to intimate partner violence, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and neglect. These experiences often led to physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural functioning concerns (Fallon et al., 2025). When undergoing such difficult and confusing times, where safety is a concern, youth are placed into foster care until they can return home (OACAS, n.d.). Foster care can offer a supportive environment, serving as an opportunity for parents to address circumstances compromising their child’s wellbeing. In many cases, foster care is temporary, with children returning home once parents have improved as caregivers. In other situations, foster care provides a path to long-term safety and stability for those whose parents are unable or unwilling to meet the standards (OACAS, n.d.).

 

The project, in partnership with Wyndham House (non-profit organization, Guelph-Wellington), seeks to address critical service gaps in Ontario’s foster care system by facilitating a visioning exercise for a trauma-informed, staff-based, group home foster care program for youth with complex needs. To begin this project, we will investigate scholarly and grey literature (objective 1) to identify effective staff-based, group home foster care models, with attention to trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and developmentally appropriate approaches.

 

SCOING REVIEW AND RESOURCE CONSOLIDATION (Objective 1)

 

We will systematically search existing reports and research that speak to residential welfare and group home care models in the Global North. This phase will answer the research questions:

 

1. What do staff-based group home foster care models look like for youth?

2. How are trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and developmentally appropriate practices described and implemented within these models?

 

With the support of a research assistant, we will collect data on staff-based group home foster care models. These data will include academic and grey literature, policies, and organizational websites. The practical and contextual expertise of Wyndham House will contribute to the scoping review by supporting the collection and interpretation of data. Content analysis will be used to uncover approaches, areas of consensus and implementation barriers (Peters et al., 2021).

 

Sources

Fallon, B., Black, T., Lefebvre, R., Trocmé, N., Hélie, S., Crowe, A., Miller, M., Budau, K., Houston, E., King, B., Esposito, T., Fluke, J., Collin-Vézina, D., Parada, H., Provençal, J., Chhabra, N., Sawh, P., Chan, P., Chowdhury, R., … Wilson, L. (2025). Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2023 (OIS-2023). Child Welfare Research Portal.

https://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/23027%20OIS%202023%20v10f.pdf

 

Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). (n.d.). Fostering. Children's Aid and Child Protection. https://www.oacas.org/childrens-aid-child-protection/fostering/

 

Peters, M. D. J., Marnie, C., Colquhoun, H., Garritty, C. M., Hempel, S., Horsley, T., Langlois, E. V.,Lillie, E., O’Brien, K. K., Tunçalp, Ӧzge, Wilson, M. G., Zarin, W., & Tricco, A. C. (2021). Scoping reviews: reinforcing and advancing the methodology and application. Systematic Reviews, 10(1), Article 263. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-021-01821-3