Annual Report 2013/2014 Children's Commissioner Northern Territory
Tabled paper 1156
Tabled Papers for 12th Assembly 2012 - 2016; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT
2014-11-26
Deemed
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory under Standing Order 240. Where copyright subsists with a third party it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.
English
Tabled papers
Children's Commissioner Northern Territory
Darwin
application/pdf
Copyright
See publication
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C01756
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/273008
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/799659
61 61 average of 57.1 per 1,000 Aboriginal children (comparison rates based on 30 June 2013 data from AIHW 2014, p. 52). The finding that the NTs rate of placement is the highest in the country is largely due to the high percentage of disadvantaged Aboriginal children in the NT (41% of the total). However, the finding that Aboriginal children in the NT have one of the lowest rates of placement compared with their counterparts in all other jurisdictions, is harder to explain. On virtually every measure of wellbeing Aboriginal children and families are more disadvantaged than their counterparts in other jurisdictions, it might therefore be expected that more rather than fewer might be in need of statutory protection. Children in care by region As shown in Table 6, the number of Central Australian children in care as of 30 June was almost equal to the number in Greater Darwin, despite the much smaller population in Central Australia. Table 6: Number of Children in Care by Region, as at 30 June 2010 to 30 June 2014 Foster care places During 2013-14, DCF registered 172 new Places of Care (POC) or carers. In that same period the registrations of 130 existing carers lapsed. This reporting year the out-of-home care system experienced a net increase of 42 care placements. As at 30 June 2014 there were 414 POCs in the NT out-of-home care system, which is an increase of 10 per cent from the previous year. While this is a notable increase it does not equate to the increase (23%) of children who are in care over the past year. This would indicate that on average more children are Region 30 Jun 10 30 Jun 11 30 Jun 12 30 Jun 13 30 Jun 14 Central Australia 233 279 284 282 322 Greater Darwin 205 261 289 307 359 Katherine & Northern 100 113 127 158 241 Unspecified Region 35 4 4 1 1 TOTAL 573 657 704 748 923 Source: DCF 2014