English - Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies

The OACAS Practice Guide, Critical
Connections: Where Woman Abuse and Child
Safety Intersect shows that service providers
are looking for ways to support and ensure
safety of families without assuming that
separation is the first and logical choice.
To obtain a copy of the Critical Connections Practice Guide,
please visit:
http://oacas.myshopify.com/collections/publications
The experience that focus group members describe when their family is in distress is
shown in the model below. The key themes in the mainstream model are:
1. The family is divided into different services.
2. The woman is sent to victim services; the men often go into the Justice
system and the children go to child welfare agencies. Children are sometimes
separated from their siblings, are made Crown wards or go into foster care or
detention centres.
3. Families express an appreciation for the services that were culturally and
community based because they seem able to accommodate the family as a
whole unit.
4. Violence and neglect as manifestations of socio-determinants (e.g. poverty,
lack of employment, poor health, racism and discrimination) is better
understood and addressed by community based services (e.g. Healthy Babies,
Healthy Living; Life Long Care).
5. Cultural programming that affirms a person’s identity is seen as a key way to
support people to get stronger and find their way to an improved situation in
their life and in their family.
6. The current response system divides families and is not holistic.
Mainstream Approach to Responding to Violence in the Family
79