Complain to the Ontario Ombudsman

As of May 1, 2019, the Ontario Ombudsman’s Children and Youth Unit is responsible for looking into concerns about services received from a (CAS). They can:

  • answer questions
  • provide information about the rights of children and youth
  • conduct investigations
  • address complaints from young people and adults

They do not deal with complaints about individual social workers or lawyers.

As of May 1, 2019, the Ontario Child’s Advocate is closed.

If you have questions or want the Ombudsman to look into a situation, call them at 1-800-263-2841 or 416-325-5669.

You can make a complaint by phone from 8:30am to 5:30pm or by filling out a Complaint form.  All complaints are confidential.

Staff at the Ombudsman’s office will contact you if they need more information. If your issue is one they can help with, the first step is to try to resolve your complaint without an investigation. Most complaints are resolved this way within 2 weeks. If your complaint cannot be resolved informally, the Ombudsman can start an investigation. CAS will be given a chance to respond.

The Ombudsman doesn’t have the power to order CAS to do anything. But they can write a report that says what their investigation found and make recommendations about how CAS can improve their services.

You will be told about the outcome of your case. The Ombudsman also publishes the results of their investigations in Annual Reports.

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