Child protection statistics 2005-06

Today

This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007

29/09/2006

Statistics on child protection are released today.

The findings are:

In 2005-06, there were 10,527 child protection referrals, of which 47 per cent were for boys and 51 per cent were for girls
Thirty-eight per cent of child protection referrals resulted in an inter-agency case conference in 2005-06. This compares to 36 per cent in the previous year
Over 80 per cent of children who were subject to a case conference were living at home prior to being referred. In 79 per cent of cases where the child's primary known/suspected abuser was known, the primary known/suspected abuser was the child's birth parent
Of the 3,996 case conferences, 70 per cent resulted in the child being placed on the local child protection register (2,791 children), compared to 69 per cent in the previous year (2,294 children)
In 2005-06, there have been increases in the number of registrations on to child protection registers in all categories of abuse/risk, except failure to thrive. Those registered because of sexual abuse are up 33 per cent from 2004-05, physical injury are up 24 per cent, physical neglect are up 20 per cent and emotional abuse cases are up 18 per cent
Fourteen per cent of registrations on to child protection registers in 2005-06 were of children who were known to have been previously on a child protection register
The number of de-registrations from child protection registers between April 1, 2005 and March 31, 2006 was 2,774. Over 70 per cent of these de-registrations were for children who had been on the register for less than one year

As at March 31, 2006, there were 2,288 children on Child Protection Registers, an increase of 6 per cent compared with the previous year. A similar number of boys and girls were on child protection registers, and just over 80 per cent of children are under the age of 11 years old.
At March 31, 2006, 45 per cent of all children on local child protection registers were registered because of physical neglect, 27 per cent because of physical injury, 16 per cent because of emotional abuse and 12 per cent because of sexual abuse