Updates

A new study reveals that thousands of kids across Canada have experienced parental incarceration — and that number is likely an underestimate.

Developed by a team of researchers from across the country, the CHIRP (Children with IncarceRated Parents) study is the first in Canada to systematically estimate the number of children impacted by parental incarceration. Nicole Catherine, Associate Director of the Children’s Health Policy Centre, was a co-investigator.

The research team identified nearly 170,000 children across five Canadian provinces who experienced parental incarceration between 2015 and 2021. They found that approximately 1 in 100 children (1.2%) per year in Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan had been affected.

This study sheds light on a vulnerable population of young people made statistically invisible by a lack of data.

Parental incarceration undermines children’s rights — particularly their rights to family life and to have their best interests upheld. This underscores the need for policies that prioritize children’s best interests, including in sentencing, maintaining parent–child contact, and strengthening supports for affected children.

Parental incarceration is also considered an adverse childhood experience, and research shows that children who experience it tend to have worse mental and physical health than their peers. In order to support these children, policymakers and communities need access to valid data about them.

But prior to this study, there were no credible estimates of the number of children affected by parental incarceration in Canada.

According to the authors, this data gap has hindered “policy and program development, and public, political, and media interest” in these children.

The study stresses that even the statistics used to compile it have limitations, and the findings should be treated as minimum estimates — meaning many more children may be affected.

“While further research is needed to fully quantify the prevalence and burden of this adverse childhood experience, these minimum estimates can be used to raise awareness of the issue of parental incarceration in Canada,” the study concludes.

“Evolving evidence, including this study, is instrumental to advancing work to measure, prevent, and mitigate the harms associated with parental incarceration for children and families.”

Read the full paper to learn more.

Researchers from the Children’s Health Policy Centre (CHPC) have developed an innovative framework to generate early evidence for a made-in-BC childhood health and prevention program.

Designed for the province’s new Enhanced Family Health Program (EFHP), the monitoring and evaluation framework provides guidance to senior leaders on where to invest resources to have the most positive impact on new mothers and their children.

“With any new child-maternal health initiative, it’s crucial to have a monitoring and evaluation system for looking at outcomes and making sure we’re heading in the right direction,” says Nicole Catherine, Children’s Health Policy Centre Associate Director and lead researcher on the project.

“And it’s even better to generate evidence sooner — while waiting for evidence of impact on longer-term child outcomes. That’s what this rapid framework is designed to do.”

The EFHP will be launched this year as a province-wide health promotion and prevention initiative embedded in the public health system.

The EFHP builds on learnings from BC’s previous investments in early prevention, including the BC Healthy Connections Project and Fraser Health’s Enhanced Family Visiting Program. These nurse-home visiting initiatives provide intensive support from pregnancy through early childhood.

Now, the new EFHP will expand supports to hundreds more underserved BC children and mothers each year.

“We were thrilled to collaborate with our partners in the BC Ministry of Health and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) – Child Health BC and Perinatal Services BC to develop this framework,” says Catherine.

To build the framework, CHPC researchers, along with government and public health leaders, first identified three priority child outcomes for the program: lowered rates of maltreatment, a reduction in mental-health problem behaviour and improved cognitive development by age two years.

“These are crucial early markers of long-term well-being and, as we’ve seen in our research and other published reviews, may respond to interventions like EFHP,” Catherine explains.

Catherine and the CHPC team then identified three early indicators associated with those priority child outcomes. They are now actively partnering with PHSA partners to implement the rapid evaluation framework.

“Our goal was to focus on a few early indicators to generate early evidence, to guide program leaders in adjusting the program as needed and making changes proactively,” she says.

“This approach really suits BC’s EFHP because it makes the most of available resources and will help deliver more effective programs more quickly for children and families.”

Learn more.

At the Children’s Health Policy Centre, we are deeply saddened by the tragic events that occurred recently in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. We share in mourning for those injured and killed — many of them children. We hold the families, students and community of Tumbler Ridge in our thoughts, and with others, we will keep working for a better world for children everywhere.

Children’s Health Policy Centre member Christine Schwartz recently appeared on CBC News: The National to discuss how funding effective prevention programs can reduce youth substance misuse.

The news segment highlighted research showing that PreVenture, a school-based substance use prevention program, produced a 35% reduction in the annual increase in the odds of teens developing substance use disorder, compared to a control group.

The segment featured community advocates and experts, including Schwartz, who say policymakers should invest in evidence-based substance use prevention programs.

Schwartz and the team at the Children’s Health Policy Centre have long called for investment in programs such as PreVenture. Such interventions are badly needed to reduce the harms of substance misuse for young people in Canada.

Watch the full CBC News segment to learn more.