Accounting for the increase of children in care in western Australia: What can a client information system tell us?
- Resource Type
- Academic Journal
- Authors
- Bilson A; School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, United Kingdom; School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Heath Sciences M431, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Electronic address: andy@bilson.org.uk.; Cant RL; School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Heath Sciences M431, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia. Electronic address: rcant@sse.com.au.; Harries M; School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Heath Sciences M431, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia; School of Occupational Therapy and Social Work, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Western Australia. Electronic address: maria.harries@uwa.edu.au.; Thorpe DH; Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YD, United Kingdom. Electronic address: d.thorpe@lancaster.ac.uk.
- Source
- Publisher: Elsevier Science Inc Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 7801702 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1873-7757 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 01452134 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Child Abuse Negl Subsets: MEDLINE
- Subject
- Language
- English
This paper analyses a fourteen-year period of Western Australian data from the client information system of the Department for Child Protection and Family Support. Western Australia saw a large increase in the number of children in state care similar to trends across Australia as a whole. The study shows the following trends: changes in response to 'referrals' with particular increases in the number of findings of neglect and increasing proportions of these followed swiftly by entry to care; changes in patterns of entry to care with more children under one-year-old entering; increased length of stay of children in care; and, the high incidence of Aboriginal children entering and remaining in care. The data demonstrate unequivocally that increased 'referrals' are not associated with increased substantiations of harm or 'acts of commission with dangerous intent', but that neglect assessed early in the lives of children was the major precipitant for entry to care and particularly so for Aboriginal infants.
(Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)