21 May 2010
Vulnerable children need the highest quality care
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reported that during 2008 - 2009 across Australia, over 200,000 children were the subject of one or more child protection notifications; almost 33,000 children were the subject of one or more substantiations and over 35,000 children were on care and protection orders. In 2009, approximately 34,069 children were living in alternative care arrangements such as home based care (including foster care, kinship care and residential care). This compares with approximately 31,161 children in 2008 (an increase of 9.3%). Nationally, the number of children in out of home care in Australia has increased each year since 2005 where there were approximately 23,695 children in some form of alternative family care. The Institute of Health and Welfare identified that these figures are reflective of a number of factors- - an increase in the number of children being placed in out of home care and a decrease in the number of children leaving this type of care
- increasingly complex family situations of children associated with parental substance abuse, mental health and family violence
Of the 34,069, it appears that the largest number of out of home care placements were in NSW (15,211), Queensland (7,093) and Victoria (5,283). Of the total children living in alternative care arrangements, a majority of these were placed in home based care whether this be in kinship care arrangements (15,497) or foster care (16,043). A small proportion of children were placed in residential care (1,628) followed by family group homes, independent living or other (equating to approximately 500 in total). The importance of high quality alternative care arrangements cannot be ignored and is essential, as the future lives of children who need to be separated from their biological parents for long or short periods of time depend on our commitment to them and their nurture. While improvements continue to be made further investment in services remains a number one priority.
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