Establishment of the inquiry
The committee's areas of interest
Structure of report
Conduct of the inquiry
Acknowledgements
Key concepts
Key out-of-home care trends and statistics
Figure 1.1 – Number of children in out-of-home care, 2004–05 to 2013–14
Figure 1.2 – Rate of children in out-of-home care per 1000 children aged 0‑17 years in the population across jurisdictions at 30 June 2014
Figure 1.3 – Number of children in out-of-home care by placement type, 2004–05 to 2013–14
Figure 1.4 – Proportion of children in main types of care across jurisdictions, 30 June 2013
Figure 1.5 – Proportion of children in out-of-home care at 30 June per 1000 children aged 0–17 in the population by Indigenous status, 2004–05 to 2013–14
Figure 1.6 – Rate of children in out-of-home care by Indigenous status across jurisdictions, per 1000 children in the population, 30 June 2014
Figure 1.7 – Proportion of children in out-of-home care by Indigenous status and jurisdiction, 30 June 2014
Figure 1.8 – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children placed in accordance with the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle by type of care, 30 June 2014
Figure 1.9 – Real expenditure on out-of-home care services, 2004–05 to 2013–14
Figure 1.10 – Real expenditure per child ($), out-of-home care services, 2013–14.

Current out-of-home care framework
Table 2.1 – State and territory child protection inquiries
Table 2.2 – Out-of-home care legislative framework
Figure 2.1 – The child protection process in Australia
Figure 2.2 – Proportion of children on care and protection order at 30 June 2014 by type of order
Figure 2.3 – Proportion of children in out-of-home by type of order across jurisdictions, 30 June 2014
State and territory frameworks
Table 2.3 – State and territory independent bodies
Commonwealth framework
Figure 2.4 – A public health model for child protection
Table 2.4 – Out-of-home care standards and measures
Table 2.5 – Available data on measures for National Standards for out-of-home care

Reasons children enter out-of-home care
Figure 3.1 – Percentage of children who were subject to a substantiation of neglect by jurisdiction and Indigenous status
Children remaining longer in care
Figure 3.2 – Number of child protection notifications, investigations and substantiations, 2008-09 to 2012-13
Figure 3.3 – Percentage of children by length of time in continuous placement, 2009–2013.
Social disadvantage
Systemic factors

Safety and stability
Participation in decision making and planning
Access to health and education
Connection with family
Transition from care

Building safe and resilient families
Figure 5.1 – Real expenditure on child protection services, by type of service, 2013-14
Figure 5.2 – Proportion of real expenditure on child protection services by jurisdiction, 2013/14
Support for families with children in care

Types of care
Table 6.1 – Children in out-of-home care, by type of placement, states and territories, 30 June 2013
Table 6.2 – Proportion of children in main types of care, 30 June 2013
Figure 6.1 – Proportion of real expenditure on residential and non-residential care, 2013/14
Figure 6.2 – Estimated real expenditure per child for residential and non-residential out-of-home care services, 2013/14
Relative/kinship care
Table 6.3 – Ongoing training support for relative/kinship carers
Foster care
Residential care
Cross-jurisdictional issues
Table 6.4 – Relative/kinship and foster carer allowances
Table 6.5 – Role of non-government sector in delivering out-of-home care services across types of care

Permanent care options
Table 7.1 – Permanent care arrangements across selected jurisdictions
Figure 7.1 – Number of known carer adoptions across jurisdictions 1999‑2000 to 2013-14

Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families
Empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Table 8.1 – Role of Aboriginal organisations across jurisdictions

Families and children with disability and complex health issues
Children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009–2020
Support for children
Support for families
Support for carers