Child Abuse in Canada: Laws and Rehabilitation Programs

Running head: CHILD ABUSE IN CANADA
Child Abuse in Canada
Name of the Student
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Aboriginal Children Exposed to Family Violence is a discussion paper that has been
prepared for the purpose of Native Women’s Association of Canada by Advocate Valerie
Nicholls on 29th February, 2008. Paper was written with an intention to address the violence
faced by the children of Aboriginal communities in Canada. Recent studies have shown that in
Canada children aged between 5 to 14 years are subjected to abuse as a result of family violence
(Nicholls, 2008). The violence on Aboriginal women created serious impact on the children. It
can be observed that in most of the times, Canadian children has witnessed that their mothers of
being abused which created serious impact on them psychologically. It has been emphasized that
children are often considered as direct victims of abuse in their families. However, the child is
often abused in a family both physically and mentally by using forces like beating and
threatening thereby creating a state of fear in their minds (Lacharité, 2014).
The Child Family and Community Service Act is a current law that has been introduced
in Canada for the addressing the issues related to child abuse. It can be stated that the provisions
of child protection services are delegated under this Act by the Minister. The provisions are
delegated to the child protection social workers across the province for the purpose of carrying
out the work effectively. The purpose of the Child Family and Community Service Act is to
provide appropriate solution to the victims of child abuse in need. However, it was required on
the part of the general public to provide assistance in this regard as much as possible. According
to the Act, if it occurred to anyone that a child has been abused and neglected and needs to be
protection then it has to be reported to the Director or to a delegated social worker. It is essential
that such reports must be investigated by the community service workers from time to time
before taking any appropriate action. The actions which the community service workers must
implement should include providing appropriate provisions in support of family services,

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protecting the child from being abused from relatives and other members of the family and
supervising the proper maintenance of child in the household (Zannettino & McLaren, 2014). It
is worth noting that the social workers are entrusted with the delegated authority of the Director
to arrange foster homes for children in need and for those who approaches the ministry for help.
In this regard, the Act has facilitated the development of specialized residential groups
and facilities in order to improve the condition of children under care. It can be observed that
recently, the child protection services across Canada has facilitated the development of 429
ministry offices including a number of Aboriginal agencies which has been delegated to the
community service workers (Ungar, 2015). On January 29, 1996 the Child, Family and
Community Service Act came into being however; the Act is current to March 14, 2018. The
Child Family and Community Service Act have been formulated with an intention to restructure
the approach of the province towards child welfare and development (Lewallen et al., 2015). It is
important to note here that the Act was enforced in Canada by ratifying the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol t the Convention of the Rights of the Child. In this
regard, it can be stated that in 2002 the Criminal Youth Justice Act was enacted by the
government of Canada by replacing the Young Offenders Act (Trocmé et al., 2014). Therefore, it
was emphasized that as Canada is a member of the United Nations Convention on the rights of
the child and young persons and therefore the rights and freedoms of young persons are depicted
in the Child, Family and Community Service Act (Martin, 2014).
The penalties and other rehabilitation programs that have been imposed by the Child,
Family and Community Service Act can be emphasized. According to the Child, Family and
Community Service Act, the penalties and rehabilitation programs for child abuse has to be
separate. Various rehabilitation and reintegration programs have been implemented in order to