Looking Beyond Resources: Relationships, Trust, and the Experience of "Support" for Black Families Navigating Ontario’s Child Welfare System

Background: Child welfare agencies are often framed as “all-purpose” organizations that are equipped to address a wide range of family needs through coordinating services and providing material support. However, for many Black families, the reality of encountering child welfare often occurs through unnecessary referrals, intrusive investigations, and surveillance that exacerbates mistrust across different yet interconnected systems. While child welfare agencies may offer services and material support as an intervention derived from an investigation, limited research has investigated how these “supports” are experienced by Black families. This manuscript examines the following research questions: 1) how do Black families experience the support provided or liaised by child welfare workers and 2) what conditions shape whether these supports are perceived as (un)helpful, insufficient, or harmful?

Methods: Utilizing Interpretive Phenomenology as a methodological approach, the Parenting Under Threat study investigates how child maltreatment referrals, investigations, and services delivered by Children Aid Societies shape the lived realities of Black caregivers and youth across Ontario (i.e., Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, London, Ottawa, and Windsor). The research team conducted one-hour individual interviews and focus groups with 33 Black caregivers and 3 Black youth from across Ontario, who had encountered the child welfare system between 2017 and 2026. The study aims to document these lived experiences and interrogate the institutional logics that sustain racial inequities, with the goal of informing more equitable and accountable policy and practice frameworks.

Findings: Three main themes were identified: 1) Child welfare professionals as a broker of material support; 2) The conditional nature of material support and trust; and 3) Disentangling the tensions between “wants” and “needs” for services. Caregivers described leveraging their encounters with child welfare to access material supports such as financial assistance, rental support, transportation, childcare, and referrals to community-based services. These supports helped address immediate socio-economic pressures, particularly where Black families faced barriers to accessing services through other systems. However, support was not experienced as consistent, neutral, or trustworthy. Access to material support was often dependent on child welfare professionals acting as gatekeepers, making support feel conditional in some circumstances. When workers were transparent, non-judgmental, culturally responsive, and willing to understand the unique context of Black family life, Black families were more trustworthy of the system and willing to engage in therapeutic services. Caregivers also noted that positive relationships were not limited to having a Black child welfare worker; non-Black workers who demonstrated a strong understanding of the Black community, self-awareness, were non-judgmental, and practiced from a strengths-based perspective were also able to build trust and rapport.

Conclusion and Implications: These findings suggest that child welfare agencies can play an important role in connecting Black families to material and service-based supports, but the value of this support is often shaped by relationships, trust, and how support is delivered. These findings point to the need for child welfare practice to move beyond surveillance-oriented responses toward more equitable and family-centred forms of support.