If something has happened
My child told me something.
You do not need to get this perfect. Here is what helps in the next hour.
Reading this on a shared device?
Leaves immediately for a weather site. You can also press Esc three times on any page here. Afterwards, clear this page from your browsing history, or use a private window next time. If you think somebody monitors your device, use a friend's phone or a library computer instead.
Say these things
Out loud, in these words if you can. They matter more than anything else on this page.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I believe you.”
“This is not your fault.”
“I am going to get help.”
Try not to do these things
Do not interrogate
You are not investigating. Let the child use their own words and stop when they stop. Repeated or leading questions can make it harder for a child to be helped properly later on, so ask as little as you can bear to.
Do not promise to keep it secret
You can promise to help. You cannot promise silence, and promising it and then breaking it damages the thing you most need to protect — their willingness to tell you again.
Do not confront the person
Especially not in front of your child, and especially not if it is somebody you live with or love.
Try not to react with visible panic or anger
Children read a grown-up’s distress as evidence that they have caused a problem, and a child who thinks they have caused a problem stops talking. If you need to fall apart, do it somewhere else, afterwards. You are allowed to. You will need to.
Do not ask why they did not tell you sooner
Delay is ordinary. Most children who are harmed do not tell anybody at the time, and many tell nobody for years. A delay is information about how frightening it was, not about whether it happened.
Who to call
Build gate — must be completed before this page is published
The contact details below are placeholders. Every number, service name and link must be verified against the official source, dated, and re-checked quarterly before this page goes live. Publishing an out-of-date crisis number is worse than publishing none.
Remove this panel only when the pre-launch checklist item CRISIS-01 is signed off.
| If | Contact |
|---|---|
| A child is in immediate danger | Emergency services — 911 |
| You suspect a child may need protection (Ontario) | Your local Children’s Aid Society. In Ontario, anyone with reasonable grounds to suspect a child may be in need of protection has a legal duty to report directly. You do not need proof and you do not need to be certain. [VERIFY: local CAS name, telephone number and link before publishing] |
| A child or young person wants to talk to somebody | [VERIFY: current national helpline name, telephone number, text service and link] |
| Online sexual exploitation of a child | [VERIFY: national reporting tipline name and link] |
| You are outside Ontario | [VERIFY: provincial/territorial child-protection directory link] |
More on reporting and getting help →
If you are not sure anything happened
You do not have to be sure. Reporting is not accusing. In Ontario the duty to report is triggered by reasonable suspicion, not by certainty, and it is not your job to work out whether it is true. It is your job to pass it to the people whose job that is.
Waiting until you are certain is the most common way this goes wrong, and it is completely understandable, which is why it is worth naming.
What happens next
Knowing the shape of it makes it less frightening. In general terms: you contact the child-protection service, they decide whether to investigate, and if they do, trained specialists talk to your child — not you. This is why you were asked not to interrogate. Their account needs to be theirs.
Your job through all of it is simpler and harder than investigating: keep being the person who believed them.
If the person is somebody you love
This is the part almost nobody writes about, and it is the part most people need.
Most children who are harmed are harmed by somebody known to them — a relative, a family friend, a partner, somebody trusted and often genuinely liked. If that is where this has landed, the disbelief you are feeling is not a character flaw. It is the ordinary human response to something that does not fit.
Two things can be true at the same time. You can love somebody, and a child can still need protecting from them.
Your child told you because they thought you would help. You are allowed to be devastated.
Make the call anyway.
A note about this page
This page restates official guidance in plain language. It is not legal or clinical advice, and it does not replace the reporting duties and procedures that apply where you live. If anything here conflicts with your child-protection service or your professional obligations, follow them, not us.