CAS study reveals stark racial disparities for blacks, aboriginals

The disparities are quite striking and like all studies, force questioning into the reasons why, including implicit bias:

New research that for the first time calculates disparity in Ontario’s child protection system has found that aboriginal and black kids are far more likely to be investigated and taken into care than white children.

The figures are especially stunning for aboriginal children. They are 130 per cent more likely to be investigated as possible victims of child abuse or neglect than white children, and 15 per cent more likely to have maltreatment confirmed.

Aboriginal children are also 168 per cent more likely to be taken from their homes and placed into care.

The huge disparity is “symptomatic of the system that’s failing our kids,” says Steven Vanloffeld, executive director of the Association of Native Child and Family Service Agencies of Ontario.

The study also found that black children are 40 per cent more likely to be investigated for abuse or neglect than white children, and 18 per cent more likely to have maltreatment confirmed. But the likelihood of going into care is lower. Black children are 13 per cent more likely to be taken from their homes and placed with foster parents or in group homes.

Of the dozen specific ethnic and racial categories examined, only black and aboriginal children were taken into care at rates higher than white kids.

The study was presented to more than 70 senior children’s aid society officials at a June 7 meeting in Toronto.

The disparity study calculated the relative likelihood of certain groups being involved with the child protection system. It differs from the study on disproportionate representation revealed by an ongoing Star investigation, which found that on a September day in 2013, 42 per cent of kids in the care of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto had at least one parent who is black. Only 8 per cent of the city’s under-18 population is black.

The disparity results coincide with mounting outrage about the disproportionate number of aboriginal and black children in care. Parents and leaders in these communities have for years blamed discrimination and a lack of services for struggling families.