Ontario. Children's Aid Branch

• Children's Aid Branch

In late 1930, the Office of the Superintendent of Neglected and Dependent Children was transferred to the newly created Ontario Department of Public Welfare, where it became the Children's Aid Branch. The former Superintendent, J.J. Kelso, continued as Head of the Children's Aid Branch

At the time of the creation of the new branch, responsibility for industrial schools, refuges, orphanages, and training schools, was removed from the jurisdiction of the Children's Aid Branch and brought under a separate Inspector of Training Schools, Industrial Schools, Refuges and Orphanages. Responsibility for orphanages was later transferred back to the Children's Aid Branch.

In 1944, the Children's Aid Branch became part of the new Division of Child Welfare along with three other branches: Children's Institutions (formerly Orphanages); Day Nurseries (created in 1942 in response to wartime need and reorganized in 1946); and British Child Guests.

The Children's Aid Branch, along with the other three branches of the Division of Child Welfare, ceased to exist in 1951, when the division was replaced by the Child Welfare Branch.

The Children's Aid Branch of the Ontario Department of Public Welfare had responsibility for the protection and care of needy and neglected children in Ontario. Under the Children's Protection Act, the branch encouraged the formation of Children's Aid Societies across the Province and provided them with policy and planning advice. Under the Children of Unmarried Parents Act, the branch gathered information with respect to children born out of wedlock, provided advice and protection for the mother, and on the establishment of paternity arranged for a private agreement or affiliation order and the collection and payment of monies from the father on behalf of the mother and child. Finally, under the Adoption Act, the branch ensured that applicants for adoption met requirements to have custody of a child, and that consent of all parties was secured.

RAD: Rules for Archival Description, 2nd edn (2008)

2026-11-16: migrated to AtoM

MacTaggart, Hazel. Publications of the Government of Ontario, 1901-1955 (1964)

Annual Reports of the Department of Public Welfare, 1930-1952

Directory and Guide to Services of the Ontario Government, 1949-1952

Canadiana Name Authorities, 1996-12- 24

Archivist(s):
R. Anger; Solovitch