Call for proposals for projects aimed at preventing and addressing child maltreatment

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is inviting eligible organizations to submit applications for funding for projects that prevent and address child maltreatment.

Overview

Child maltreatment is a serious and prevalent public health issue, with both immediate and long-term health and social impacts that affect children, families, and communities across Canada. Child maltreatment is also a risk factor for violence in relationships later in life. Preventing child maltreatment and its health impacts is a crucial measure to enable physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing throughout the life course.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) supports health promotion interventions to prevent and address child maltreatment and its impacts. These can include, for example, interventions that:

build skills and knowledge for safe and healthy relationships
identify and address factors that put families and children at risk of child maltreatment
address community and societal-level factors to prevent child maltreatment
equip service providers with evidence-based training and resources to help prevent child maltreatment and its health impacts

Objectives

The overall objectives of this call for proposals are to:

prevent and address child maltreatment by delivering and testing health promotion interventions to support children, families and caregivers
build and share evidence of effective approaches to prevent and address child maltreatment
build the capacity of service providers to prevent and address child maltreatment

Applicants are invited to apply for funding for a project that addresses at least one of the following two key action areas:

Deliver a health promotion intervention that prevents or addresses child maltreatment
Equip service providers to prevent, recognize and respond safely to child maltreatment, through training, resources and or other supports and mechanisms

In addition, all projects must incorporate the following key action area:

Integrate a rigorous intervention research protocol to test the effectiveness of the intervention

Funded projects will be expected to incorporate the following principles:

Embed health equity in both the implementation and research components of the project
Implement trauma and violence-informed, culturally safe and anti-racist approaches to support the wellbeing of children and their families/caregivers
Build multi-level and multi-sectoral collaborations
Build and share evidence about effective approaches
Include aspects of the project that will be sustained and continue over time

Funding

Applicants can apply for up to $1,500,000 in total per project.

There are often higher costs associated with living and travelling in remote or northern areas. Applicants may apply for up to an additional 35% of the maximum budget for activities in these areas if all 3 of these criteria are met:

The work plan includes activities in a remote or northern area
The budget includes costs for activities in a remote or northern area
The application supports costs that are higher due to activities in a remote or northern area

Applicants will be expected to leverage in-kind and financial contributions that will contribute to the project's development, implementation and research. A specific matched funding ratio is not required.

Duration

Projects can last for a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 5 years.

Applicants outside of Quebec should plan a start date of April 1, 2026.

Organizations from the province of Quebec that are subject to the Act Respecting the Ministère du Conseil exécutif (Act M-30) should plan a start date of July 1, 2026.

Applicants

Eligible applicants include:

Canadian not-for-profit organizations
Canadian organizations and institutions supported primarily by provincial and territorial governments (regional health authorities, schools, post-secondary institutions, etc.)
Canadian research organizations or academic institutions
Indigenous governments and Indigenous not-for-profit organizations

Applicants and collaborators must have the necessary experience and knowledge to deliver the project. Together, applicants must demonstrate the following:

Expertise in intervention research
Experience working on child maltreatment issues and
Organizational and operational capacity to manage the proposed project activities and budget

Special consideration for underserved or disproportionately affected populations

While this call for proposals is open to projects addressing child maltreatment in any population in Canada, PHAC is committed to promoting equity and reducing health disparities. Special consideration will be given to proposals for projects that are designed to meet the needs of groups who face barriers to accessing supports, groups who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, and groups who are disproportionately affected by child maltreatment. These include but are not limited to:

populations in remote or northern areas
First Nations, Inuit and Métis
2SLGBTQI+ people
persons with disabilities
newcomer, immigrant and/or refugee families
racialized families
fathers/male caregivers
official language minority communities
families facing multiple complex challenges (for example, poverty, substance use, risk of child welfare system involvement, etc.)

Projects working with First Nations, Inuit or Métis populations

PHAC recognizes the importance of supporting Indigenous-led interventions and research. Projects reaching First Nations, Inuit or Métis populations as a primary audience should be led by Indigenous organizations or research teams, or by organizations or research teams that provide evidence of meaningful and culturally safe collaboration with First Nations, Inuit or Métis communities.

How to apply

To apply, email us to request an application template at chpv-pscv@phac-aspc.gc.ca with the subject line "Child Maltreatment Call for Proposals".

To apply for this call for proposals, the application template must be requested by May 14, 2025.

Applications must be submitted by 11:59 pm Pacific Time on May 28, 2025, using PHAC's application template.

PHAC anticipates supporting up to 25 projects with an envelope of up to $5 million per year.

Virtual information session

We recommend you attend the virtual information session to learn more about this call for proposals. Register for the Zoom session in advance:

March 26, 2025

Contact us

need accommodations due to a disability
have any questions related to this call for proposals

Email: chpv-pscv@phac-aspc.gc.ca

Glossary

Child maltreatment

Physical, sexual or emotional abuse, neglect, and/or exposure to intimate partner violence, experienced by a child by a parent, caregiver or other person in a relationship of responsibility, trust, or power.

Health promotion intervention

A set of actions and practical strategies delivered over a period of time that:

produces identifiable and measurable positive health outcomes
builds personal knowledge or skills; strengthens community capacity; and/or creates supportive environments
can work at the individual, community, organization or system level
promotes health equity

Note that for the purpose of this call for proposals, interventions can take place before, during or after child maltreatment occurs. Interventions can prevent child maltreatment from ever taking place, prevent the recurrence of maltreatment, or can prevent/address health and social impacts of maltreatment.

Intervention research

The use of scientific methods to produce knowledge about implementing interventions. The intervention research approach aims to build knowledge about:

how the intervention process brings about change
the context in which the intervention worked best and for which populations

It can include qualitative and quantitative measures from different methodological approaches, including Indigenous frameworks.

Intervention research requires planning and delivering the intervention with research questions in mind. It should be incorporated into a project from the outset. We encourage using methods to assess the impacts of the intervention after its implementation. Researchers must be part of the project team from the proposal development stage through to the project's implementation, if funded.

Remote or northern areas

A remote area may include the following elements:

infrequent flights
no roads in or out
only a forestry truck road
only road access in winter

A northern area is 1 of the 3 territories or an area being above the:

53rd parallel in Manitoba
54th parallel in Quebec or Ontario
50th parallel in Newfoundland and Labrador
54th parallel in Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia

Latitude and longitude finder (LatLong)

Sustainability

The ability for aspects of the project to continue over time. For the purpose of this call for proposals, sustainability may take different forms, such as:

sustaining knowledge
sustained collaboration
sustaining the effective delivery of the intervention

Trauma and violence-informed

A practice that recognizes the connections between violence, trauma, negative health outcomes and behaviours. This approach integrates knowledge of the impacts of violence and trauma into all aspects of an intervention, and fosters:

safety
respect
empowerment

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Date modified:: 2025-03-05

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