Ontario Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (OCANDS) is designed to be a provincial level system composed of the various child welfare agencies’ administrative data from across the province that also allows linkages to other systems (e.g. ONLAC, MAP system, Crown Ward system). OCANDS will enable Ontario’s child welfare agencies to generate timely and relevant evidence that can be used to more effectively manage and deliver services for the multiple and complex challenges faced by our most vulnerable children.
OCANDS is a child-specific, event-level, longitudinal database that has the capacity to follow children and families from initial report straight through to termination of services for crown wards and those on extended care and maintenance. In short, OCANDS contains the historical events associated with the life of a case at an agency. This includes: initial allegations, investigations, dispositions, corresponding decision-making tools (e.g., safety, risk, family strengths and needs, etc.), as well as child placement information (e.g., type and duration of each placement, etc.).
OCANDS has a web-based, dynamic reporting tool that will provide each participating agency with information about its performance on available measures, along with a comparison to the provincial norm.