The Leaders of Opportunity Fund is an application for the creation of a Canadian Child Welfare Data Lab. This lab will provide a timely response to the critical need for knowledge in the area of child abuse and neglect in Canada by building the capacity for researchers to study child welfare service trends over time and to compare policies and impacts between jurisdictions. Over the next three years, the child welfare data lab will be developed to house two types of datasets: (1) the periodic cross-sectional research datasets from the Canadian Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect and (2) administrative datasets that allow for longitudinal study of children’s service trajectories and associated outcomes, such as rates of recidivism and academic achievement. Construction of the Lab is being completed in the Fall of 2008.