New research, detailed in 'Child protection Australia 2013–14' (the Child Protection Report) released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (the AIHW), shows more children are receiving child protection services. Overall, there has been a 6% rise since 2012-13 in the number of children who have been involved with the child protection system in some way.
The Report once again draws attention to the disparate and inconsistent child protection regimes currently in place across all States and Territories.
As we wrote in our article on the results of last year's report, although the Child Protection Report provides useful statistics and benchmarks, the high number of reported cases cited, in addition to the high prevalence of cases being reported in the news, should continue to be a source of concern for many.
The Mandatory reporting laws for child sexual abuse in Australia: A legislative history (the Mandatory Reporting Report), a 2014 report prepared for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse (the Royal Commission), provides a history of mandatory reporting laws in Australia. According to the Mandatory Reporting Report, such laws have been in place for at least 44 years. South Australia first enacted mandatory reporting laws in 1969. The last State to enact such laws was Western Australia, in 2009.
Mandatory reporting laws provide avenues for a child who is in need of protection to come to the attention of child protection services through access to mandatory reporters such as doctors and teachers. Reports of concern about a child may also be made by organisations, the children themselves, their parent(s) or another relative.
The Mandatory Reporting Report calls the legislative development of reporting laws across Australia 'piecemeal' and 'irregular'. Reporters and their reporting duties have changed, and associated penalties have gone up and down. Worryingly, there remains today different reporting thresholds in each State and Territory. In Queensland, recent legislative amendments have created an array of overlapping and convoluted reporting laws, as detailed in our article.
Approximately 143,000 children in Australia received child protection services between 2013-14. This represents a 6% rise in children receiving child protection services (up from 135,193 children in 2012-13). This statistic is a mixed indicator. On the one hand, it may indicate that more children are in need of protection, but on the other hand it may indicate better detection rates.
Alarmingly, almost three in four (73%) children involved in the child protection system were repeat clients. The most commonly reported type of abuse was emotional abuse (40%), followed by neglect (28%), physical (19%) and sexual (14%) abuse.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continue to be over-represented, being seven times more likely than non-indigenous children to receive child protection services.
Across Australia, the Police provided the most notifications to child protection services (24%). Notifications from school personnel were the second most common source of notifications. This is not surprising, given the amount of time that children spend at school, and the mandatory reporting requirements of each State and Territory. Nationally, only 0.3% of notifications came directly from the child involved.
The National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009–2020 sets outcomes in respect of child protection which should be the focus and attention of each State and Territory government. Although admirable, the achievement of these outcomes is not guarantaeed and to date, uniform, or at least consistent child protection laws have not yet been agreed on. The Child Abuse Royal Commission is due to report in 2017 - two years after it was originally scheduled to deliver a final report. Although the task of investigating child abuse is important, the delay is double-edged. The Royal Commission is examining the prospect of uniform child protection laws in each State and Territory, however in practical terms a uniform scheme will require consultation and agreement between the States and Territories.
An extra two years of inconsistent, confusing and in some respects ineffective, child abuse reporting policies and practices means two years during which each State or Territory may be failing children in need of protection.