Developments in Canadian child welfare services during the last 20 years are discussed in this paper. The discussion is based on data gathered from provincial annual reports and public accounts, Statistics Canada publications and Health and Welfare Canada reports on homes for special care, and from the author's earlier study of the child welfare…

This paper reports findings of a retrospective longitudinal reconstruction of child welfare service activities in Canada. The first section discusses demographic developments and the child welfare services. It is reported that the increase in the number of children in care in the 20-year period from 1940 to 1960 was to some extent a reflection of…

Although workers and scholars concerned with the evolution of child welfare services have general hunches about the forces influencing the directions of service development, they have not had available to them any systematic data to verify or correct their impressions. This article attempts to provide a basis for making judgments about the recent…

This speech presents an overview of issues and trends in the provision of foster care and adoption services in Canada. The number of children "in care" in Canada (in foster homes, institutions, or adoptive homes) appears to have peaked around 1969 and declined thereafter. Information on contraceptives and the availaibility of abortions…

The key dependent variable in adoption research is the child's mental health, in the short and the long term. Defining mental health as the development of basic ego strength and a feeling of self-worth, which enable an individual to cope with stresses later in life, this book focuses on how well adolescents and young adults have fared in adoption.…