This report was published by the Research for Social Change Lab, Trent University.

HERE’S HOW THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THIS REPORT:

This report synthesizes the preliminary findings from a series of ethnographic interviews conducted with senior staff at the Children’s Aid Society — Toronto (CAS-T) over the course of 2021 and 2022. The interviews are one component of the Research for Social Change Lab’s ongoing project on the data systems that govern and shape the delivery of child protection services in Ontario, as well as the legislative and policy contexts that these data systems operate in.

In this report, we first review our research design, including our guiding questions, methods, and concepts, before sharing preliminary findings from our data collection to date.

Our research project is called “Data Justice for Youth.” We chose this title to affirm our commitment to recognizing young people and their families as rights holders and focusing our research on making child protection service delivery more equitable. During our interviews, we were struck by the way senior staff at CAS-T shared these commitments. Staff were keen to discuss the agency’s strategic priority to champion diversity, equity, and inclusion across their work.