Request for proposals: Child welfare policy paper

Child Welfare: The System We Need

The purpose of this policy paper is to answer the following questions using the lens of our social policy framework as a guide: 

1. What would it take for every child in Nova Scotia to live in a home and a community free of poverty, violence and harm, that allowed them to reach their full potential? 
2. What would it take to create a child protection system that embraced the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, as well as the calls from the Black and Indigenous Nova Scotians for reform as enshrined in Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in the inquiry into the Home for Colored Children? 

The audience for this paper is Nova Scotians who are searching for quality and effective alternatives to our current child welfare system. This paper is also for system administrators and decision makers who make incredibly tough and challenging decisions daily about the child welfare system. 

Our goal is that this paper generates a process of critical self-reflection that allows Nova Scotians to create space for new approaches to child welfare. We need a new way of thinking about child and family well-being. It is our hope that this paper will spark discussion and action towards this goal. 

For more detail about this project, including background and proposal guidelines, please read the full request for proposals.

To bid on this project, please send your proposal to our Executive Director/Registrar Alec Stratford at alec.stratford@nscsw.org no later than 5 p.m. ADT on August 20, 2021.