³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

Principal Investigators: Nico Trocmé and Tonino Esposito
Funding Source: RBC Children’s Services Research & Training Program
Period: 2010-2019

The project entitled, "Gestion fondée sur les indicateurs de suivi Clinique," is a knowledge mobilization initiative between ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ’s Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF) and sixteen child protection jurisdictions across Québec, Canada.  The project draws its origins from a partnership between (CRCF) and Batshaw Youth and Families Centres. The proposed partnership was developed in order to (a) better understand the dynamics of child protection services and to (b) support the organization’s capacity to bring together questions of evidence to the forefront of management and service delivery decisions.  In spring 2009, three additional child protection jurisdictions joined the project: (1) le Centre jeunesse de Chaudière-Appalaches; (2) le Centre jeunesse de Montréal – Institut universitaire and ; (3)  le Centre jeunesse de Québec – Institut universitaire, along with l’Association des Centre Jeunesse du Québec (ACJQ). Two working groups were established which led to the development of a harmonization strategy in order to refine the treatment of the clinical administrative data and create a dashboard reflecting  shared concerns across youth protection jurisdictions. We are currently in Phase II of the project which include all 16 child protection jurisdictions in Québec. Data extraction, treatment and analysis is complete and in Fall 2011, the ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ and ACJQ research team has began a presentation series across all 16 child protection jurisdictions with the following specific objectives:  1) describe the service trajectories of children in the Québec child protection system; 2) describe variations in service trajectories over time and between child protection jurisdictions in Québec; and 3) describe the integration of service statistics to inform child protection service planning and policy development. The rate of (a) recurrence of maltreatment (b) placement in out-of-home care (c) placement instability (d) reunification (e) youth criminality and (f) family court appearances is reported for each child protection jurisdiction and the province using three longitudinal cohorts ranging from 34,339 to 99,278 maltreated children in Québec.