Territory Stories

NT Child Deaths Review and Prevention Committee annual report 2009-2010

Details:

Title

NT Child Deaths Review and Prevention Committee annual report 2009-2010

Collection

The Children's Commissioner Northern Territory reports; Reports; PublicationNT

Date

2010

Description

Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).

Notes

Date:2010

Language

English

Subject

Children, Aboriginal Australian -- Northern Territory -- Periodicals; Death -- Causes -- Statistics -- Periodicals; Children and death -- Periodicals

Publisher name

Office of the Children’s Commissioner Northern Territory

Place of publication

Casuarina

Copyright owner

Check within Publication or with content Publisher.

Parent handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/236802

Citation address

https://hdl.handle.net/10070/640686

Page content

Page 49 Figure 22: Rates of Suicide by Hanging, by Jurisdiction, Children aged 10 17 Years 2006-2009 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 3 Year Average R at es o f H an g in g s Qld NSW NT The rates of child deaths by hanging indicate that the NT may have a substantially higher rate than both Qld and NSW with the NTs 3 year aggregate rate of 18 being over 13 and 5 times higher than those of NSW and Qld respectively. The NT appears to have a higher child suicide rate than that of other jurisdictions in Australia. However, those rates are not as disproportionate with other jurisdictions as the rates relating to the child deaths by the means of hanging. When comparing rates involving the NT it should be noted that because of the low population numbers in the NT even rates of an aggregated period such as this can be volatile. Even in light of this these numbers, though only indicative, suggest that the NT has a considerable problem regarding this method of self-harm and that it almost exclusively affects young Aboriginal people. This is likely to be a specific focus of consideration for the committee in the coming year.