What killed Block Parent? How paranoia drove the red-and-white sign from the neighbourhood

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“They mobilized around this and then it sort of caught on because everyone realized this common purpose of child protection,” said Kim Varma, a professor in the Department of Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-author of Guardians of the Community: The Block Parent Program of Canada.

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“At the time, many women were at home and could provide the volunteer workforce behind this kind of an approach. The buy-in from everyone was really seamless at the time.”

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The circumstances of that era were well suited to the idea. Volunteers were abundant. Police worked alongside them. Schools promoted the program to families. A local Labatt employee connected the women with the brewery’s marketing department, which designed the red-and-white sign that would become familiar across Canada.

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The first pilot launched in five London elementary schools in the fall of 1968. Though it drew on similar initiatives that predated it in the United States, Block Parent’s rise was uniquely Canadian.

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The idea soon moved beyond London, reaching Hamilton in 1969, Sarnia in 1971 and St. Thomas in 1972, before crossing provincial borders with a program in Edmonton in 1973. By 1976, Block Parent had reached Manitoba, Quebec and British Columbia.

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Over the next two decades, the program became increasingly difficult to miss. In 1981, the Block Parent flag even flew over Rideau Hall; Lily Schreyer, wife of then-governor general Edward Schreyer, was a Block Parent.

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But its presence was most visible at street level. The red-and-white signs appeared in windows across the country, backed by an expanding network of local committees, police services and school boards. Children were taught what the sign meant and how to use it.

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Tara Mondou, who grew up in Waterloo, Ont., area, remembers a Block Parent home along her route to school.

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“Every time you left school, if you were worried about bullies or someone chasing you, you always just knew that the Block Parent was there,” she said.

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By the early 1990s, more than 1,000 Canadian communities were participating in Block Parent; it had become the largest volunteer-run child safety program in Canada.

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But the conditions that had allowed Block Parent to flourish were already beginning to change.

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Decline of Block Parent

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In most Canadian communities today, it’s rare to see a Block Parent sign. The program is not totally forgotten — a regular stream of would-be Block Parents still reach out to its president, but it has lost the critical mass that made it possible.

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“Not a week goes by that I don’t get an email or a phone call from somebody wanting to be a Block Parent,” said Linda Patterson, president of the national Block Parent board. But in much of Canada, there is no longer a local organization to join.

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The decline can be traced to a series of changes in Canadian life: fewer people at home during the day, a shrinking volunteer base, growing concerns about liability and screening and, eventually, new technology that has given parents other ways to keep track of their children.

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The program was built around a volunteer base that looked very different by the turn of the 21st century. In its early years, many Block Parents were mothers who were home during the day. With more women in the workforce, fewer people were available to provide a safe house or run local committees.

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At the same time, becoming a Block Parent was becoming more complicated. By 2001, police checks were required for every member of a participating household over the age of 12, and in some cases fingerprinting was also required.

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There was also confusion about what was expected from volunteers. “That was one of the biggest misconceptions, that you would have to leave your home and help someone or let them in your home,” said Patterson. Block Parent protocol is that the child is not supposed to enter the home, but wait outside on the porch.