This study analyzed data from the 1998, 2003 and 2008 Canadian Incidence Study of reported child abuse and neglect (CIS) and compared the profile of children who were reported for an urgent protection investigation versus any other investigation or assessment. As a proportion of all investigations, urgent protection cases have dropped from 28% of all investigations in 1998, to 19% in 2003, to 15% in 2008. Results from the CIS-2008 analysis revealed that 7% of cases involved neglect of a child under four, 4% of cases involved sexual abuse, 2% of cases involved physical abuse of a child under four and 1% of cases involved children who had sustained severe enough physical harm that medical treatment was required. The other 85% of cases of investigated maltreatment involved situations where concerns appear to focus less on immediate safety and more on the long-term effects of a range of family related problems. These findings underscore the importance of considering the dual mandate of child welfare mandates across Canada: intervening to assure the urgent protection and safety of the child versus intervening to promote the development and well-being of the child.

Community accountability is a model through which to redress anti-Black racism in health care and to create community-based participatory research about the health of Black Canadians. This article provides a case example of a study undertaken by a Black community collective in Quebec made up of researchers, activists, service providers, business leaders and their allies who sought community accountability in making visible the impact of COVID-19 on local Black communities. The principles articulated within the Black emancipatory action research approach (Akom, 2011) are used to ground an analysis of our research-activist process in order to illuminate how knowledge gained through the collection of data can be used to help inform Black communities about the realities, needs and concerns of their members, to advocate for rights and entitlements, and to work towards community accountability in research that empowers Black communities, both in Quebec and elsewhere.

In 2019, three Black social work instructors simultaneously taught a required anti-oppressive practice (AOP) course to a cohort of undergraduate social work students. Through collective autoethnography (CAE), we sought to deepen our understanding of our experience within the classroom and how our identity as Black women was negotiated within the space. We used personal narrative essays and data from three autoethnographic conversations as the basis of our analysis. Three overarching themes emerged from the data and are discussed throughout the article: vulnerability and precarity, disembodiment from Black identity, and neutrality and objectivity. This study has special implications for Black female social work instructors teaching AOP. Its findings are relevant in determining how to dismantle anti-Black racism in social work education and practice.

L’expérience des familles Noires au sein des systèmes de protection de la jeunesse a rarement été examinée sous le regard du racisme anti-Noir. La perspective antiraciste à l’égard du système de protection de la jeunesse est presque absente au Québec. Cet article propose une réflexion critique sur les résultats obtenus lors d’une recherche effectuée sur la surreprésentation des enfants Noirs signalés à la Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ). Il cherche à comprendre comment le profilage racial, en tant que pratique institutionnelle, est opérationnalisé et maintenu dans le traitement différentiel des enfants Noirs.