Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are not overrepresented in the child protection system.

By 2031, reduce the rate of overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (0–17 years old) in out‑of‑home care by 45%

Measuring progress of the application of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP): Proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care by type of placement; by relationship with caregiver

There are two measures for this indicator.

Measure 1 is the application of the ATSICPP: Placement element. The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 in out-of-home care who were living with relatives or kin or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 years in out-of-home care who were living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or non‑Indigenous relatives or kin or other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers, at 30 June

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 years in out‑of‑home care, at 30 June

and is presented as a percentage.

Measure 2 is the application of the ATSICPP: Connection element. The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 in out-of-home care who were living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relatives or kin or other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers:

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 years in out-of-home care who were living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relatives or kin or other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers, at 30 June

Denominator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0–17 years in out‑of‑home care, at 30 June

and is presented as a percentage.

National Agreement on Closing the Gap July 2020

31 July 2024

Contextual information

For all measures, a high or increasing proportion is desirable.

Name: Child Protection National Minimum Data Set (CP NMDS)

Frequency: Annual

Documentation (links): https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/health-welfare-services/child-protection/overview

Provider name: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Provider area: Child protection

2019

2023

State and territory and Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, by caregiver type.

Numerator divided by Denominator multiplied by 100.

Measures 1 and 2 align with indicators 1.1 and 2.1, respectively, of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP) indicators.

Counting rules

Both measures

Each child is only counted once. Age is calculated as at 30 June.

Includes (numerator and denominator):

• Children in out-of-home care at 30 June (including where a financial payment was offered but declined by the carer).

Excludes (numerator and denominator):

• Children for whom Indigenous status was non‑Indigenous or not stated.

Measure 1

Numerator includes children in out‑of‑home care living with:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relative/kin
• Other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carer (or caregiver) – including children living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of the child’s community or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family‑based carers
• Non‑Indigenous relative/kin.

Measure 2

Numerator includes children in out‑of‑home care living with:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relative/kin
• Other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carer (or caregiver) – including children living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members of the child’s community or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family‑based carers.

Both measures

Excludes (numerator):

• Children living in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family group homes or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander residential care.

Includes (denominator):

• Children in out‑of‑home care living in another care arrangement, including:
  • Other non-Indigenous carer – non‑Indigenous caregivers that are not relatives or kin
  • Residential care or family group home – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or non‑Indigenous residential care (including family group homes)
  • Independent living/living arrangements unknown – including where the caregiver type is not stated or unknown.

The ATSICPP indicators measure progress towards the implementation of the ATSICPP in child protection systems. There are five inter‑related elements of the ATSICPP: Placement, Connection, Prevention, Partnership and Participation (see Child Placement Principle | ATSICPP | SNAICC). This indicator reports two measures relating to the ATSICPP elements of:

• Placement – measure 1 provides a measure of placing children in out‑of‑home care in accordance with the established ATSICPP placement hierarchy. The placement hierarchy is designed to ensure the highest possible level of connection to family, community, culture and country is maintained for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child in out-of-home care.
• Connection – measure 2 provides a measure of maintaining and supporting connections to family, community, culture and country for children in out‑of‑home care.

The reporting scope is limited to children living in out‑of‑home care. Looking at who a child is living with is just one way of measuring the application of the Placement and Connection elements.

• Application of the Placement element also requires that active efforts are made to: find a child’s family; consult with a child’s family, community representatives and/or Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations to inform placement decisions; and to provide support to carers to maximise the success of the placement while minimising the chance of placement breakdown.
• For Connection, being placed with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander caregiver is more likely to improve the prospects of a child to maintain a cultural connection than placement with non-Indigenous relatives or kin. However, this indicator is not intended to suggest that placement with non-Indigenous kin is never desirable or in the best interests of a particular child.

The identification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is subject to the quality of Indigenous status variable in the CP NMDS.

There are currently no nationally consistent guidelines on how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kin are defined and/or recorded across states and territories. This may affect the comparability of disaggregations by caregiver type across jurisdictions.

For Tasmania, counts of children reported as being placed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander carers may be underreported due to the high proportion of caregivers with an unknown Indigenous status.

For the Northern Territory, counts of children living with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or non-Indigenous relatives or kin or other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander caregivers only include children for whom the process of making a placement decision was considered by caseworkers to be in accordance with the ATSICPP. This means there may have been a higher number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living with relatives, kin or other Indigenous caregivers than is counted in this indicator. All children who were not considered to be placed in accordance with the ATSICPP are included in the ‘in another care arrangement’ category, regardless of who they were living with.

Future reporting will seek to include the following additional disaggregations:

• age
• gender.