No Safety without Status: Enhancing Child Welfare Responses to IPV in Immigrant Communities

Oct 14, 2025, 16:59 PM

Recently, Peel CAS Managers Maresa Gervais (Family and Intimate Partner Violence - FIPV Team) and Danielle Ungara (Child Welfare Immigration Centre of Excellence – CWICE) attended and presented at a conference hosted by Western University. The event, Innovations in Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Trauma and Violence-Informed Health Promotion, took place in Toronto on October 1-2, 2025. The Knowledge Hub brought together many presenters from across Canada, including colleagues from The Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada and FIPV partners in Peel Region.

Our presentation explored a unique approach in responding to FIPV, using an integrated child welfare and immigration lens. We examined how our teams’ ongoing collaboration and utilization of immigration assessments enhance safety, support, and permanency for immigrant and refugee families impacted by FIPV. We highlighted that survivors of FIPV, who also experience unresolved or precarious immigration status, face unique vulnerabilities. In a recent study of our wraparound services, we identified that survivors with no immigration status experience heightened risk of isolation, fear of deportation, and have limited access to services; this compounds the trauma experienced by both children and their caregivers.

CWICE has a unique mandate at the intersection of child welfare and migration-related issues; centering child welfare systems, immigration law, international trends, and transnational family dynamics. The Centre’s mandate includes conducting evidence-based research, developing policy frameworks, and facilitating training to promote best practices approaches. In service, our staff address these challenges through embedding consultation of immigration issues into child welfare practice, ensuring that child protection responses are not only trauma-informed and culturally responsive but also grounded in legal and immigration realities. As well, both FIPV and CWICE continue to build community partnerships that include legal clinics, community organizations, and cultural agencies, which help to ensure faster responses to family needs.

As the global movement of people accelerates, children and their families increasingly experience complex intersections of migration, family separation, and cross-border legal systems. The Knowledge Hub Conference offered a critical opportunity for frontline practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and advocates to engage deeply with these challenges. By showcasing our work at the conference, it reflects our commitment to addressing one of the most pressing challenges facing children and families in today’s world.

Earlier this year, Peel CAS announced the expansion of the Safe Centre of Peel, into Mississauga. Our FIPV teams are busy working collaboratively with several partners. They will soon open the doors of the newest Safe Centre of Peel, within our Peel CAS building in Mississauga, Ontario.

As we continue to innovate, collaborate, and expand service to meet needs, we help create child welfare systems that are agile to meet the unique needs of families. Through an integrated lens, we are reshaping how systems respond to immigrant and refugee families experiencing violence, ensuring interventions are both protective and empowering.