National Child Protection Statistics. Did you know?
- Naomi Beutel, PhD
- Sep 6, 2017
- 2 min read
National Child Protection Statistics
1 in 33 children in Australia receives child protection services, with 73% being repeat clients.
Emotional abuse and neglect are the most common types of substantiated abuse and neglect.
Children from very remote areas are 4 times as likely as those from major cities to be the subject of a child protection substantiation.
1 in 3 children who were the subject of a substantiation are from the lowest socioeconomic areas.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over-represented and are 7 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to have received child protection services.
There are about 17,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care.
Nationally, the rate of children living in out-of-home care rose from over 39,000 in 2012 to over 46,000 in 2016. This increase may be a reflection of the cumulative impact of children entering and remaining in care. The number of children entering care has consistently outweighed the number of children leaving care.
Children entering out-of-home care are increasingly younger and remain in care for longer.
More than half of children in care are aged 9 years or under (54%). A further 32% are aged 10-14 years and 14% are aged 15-17 years.
Most children in care live in home-based care (94%). Of these children, 39% are in foster care, 49% are in kinship care, 5% in third-party parental care (guardianship to other person), and 1% were in some other type of home-based care. A small proportion of children (5%) are placed in residential care, where children primarily have complex needs.
Most children in kinship placements are living with grandparents (48%).
Evidencing the need for more foster and kinship carers, large proportions of carer households had multiple children placed. 52% of foster carer households and 40% of kinship carer households have more than 1 child placed with them.
Become a Foster or Kinship Carer
Are you interested in becoming a foster or kinship carer? Approved foster carers are every day members of the community, committed to the care and safety of children and young people.
For more information about becoming a Queensland foster carer call 1300 550 877 or visit https://www.qld.gov.au/community/caring-child/foster-kinship-care-how-to-become-a-carer
Report a Concern
Protecting children is everyone's business.
You should report your concerns to Child Safety if you reasonably suspect that a child may be in need of protection, or that an unborn child may be in need of protection after they are born. Contact Child Safety Services' Enquiries Unit on 1800 811 810 or visit https://www.communities.qld.gov.au/childsafety/protecting-children/reporting-child-abuse
If you have concerns about a child or family that do not require a report to Child Safety, there are other referral options available to enable support to be offered to the family to prevent their problems from escalating. Families who are at risk of entering or re-entering the child protection system can be referred to Family and Child Connect or an intensive family support service. Call 13FAMILY (13 32 64) to be referred to the closest office.
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