A child on a protection order may be placed in out-of-home care. This can include foster-care, relative or kinship-care (often with grandparents). Older children may live independently with minimal support in subsidised accommodation. Parents can have children placed voluntarily in foster care. This is a strategy that has been used by well-informed abusive parents to avoid child protection orders being made. Police may prosecute them but the department is unlikely to seek a court order if the child is already safe. These parents then retain some control over their children’s lives.
Australian child protection data
The Commonwealth Government provides one of the world’s most comprehensive annual child protection data collections in Child Protection Australia which is available on the internet8. The report provides annual statistics relating to the number of:
child protection notifications, investigations and substantiations
children on care and protection orders
children in out-of-home care
Minimal information is collected on intensive family support services. In cases of child sexual abuse, there are no data showing the relationship of the abuser to the child although details are provided about the type of family setting (e.g. single male/female led or two parent family) in which abused children lived at the time of the report.
An Access Economics9 report (2008) estimated that 490,000 Australian children are abused each year. The projected cost to the taxpayer over the lifetime of those first abused in 2007 was $13.7 billion but could be as high as $39.7 billion if the unreported cases were taken into account. The cost of child abuse includes paying the salaries of thousands of paediatricians, nurses, police officers, social workers, judges, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, independent children’s lawyers in the Family Court, correctional services officers, court staff, prisons, hospitals and child protection departments. There is also a significant outlay in reimbursing and supporting foster carers and others who look after traumatised and vulnerable children.
Child protection notifications and substantiations
Given the different ways in which each jurisdiction handles and records child protection issues, statistical information must be treated with caution. The number of child protection notifications and substantiations recorded in Australia has increased dramatically in the last decade10. If a child was the subject of more than one type of abuse in the same report, the type recorded is the one considered by the social worker to be most harmful. Where a child was the subject of more than one substantiated case of abuse during the year, the type of abuse recorded was that associated with the first substantiation. Thus, it is difficult to measure the overall patterns of types of abuse that each child suffered.
It is important to note that about two-thirds of children in substantiated cases are under 10 years of age. This means that early childhood professionals have a particular responsibility for child protection, as they typically work with children in the 0-8 year age range. Although understated, available data show that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are over-represented in all categories of reports11.
In all jurisdictions females are more likely to be the subject of substantiated cases of sexual abuse than males and in some jurisdictions the figure has been three times greater. As later chapters will show, this does not mean that girls are more vulnerable than boys but rather that boys are less likely to make reports. Boys on the other hand are more likely than girls to be victims of physical abuse.
A comparatively high proportion of substantiated cases involve children living with lone mothers or those with partners who are not the children’s own fathers. This is especially evident when we look at non-accidental child deaths. There are several reasons for this. Lone parents are more likely to have low incomes and high stress levels12,13 and suffer from social isolation14, factors that are associated with physical abuse and neglect15,16. In addition, research has taught us that child sex offenders deliberately target the children of vulnerable single mothers.
The increase in reports is often explained as due to increased community awareness. However the United Nations confirms that child abuse, especially child sexual abuse and exploitation, is increasing world-wide, attributed largely to the promotion of paedophilia on the internet, the low value placed on children, the ease with which child sex offenders can contact each other and new avenues for locating victims through social cyber networks. The true incidence of abuse is also likely to be masked by the provision of family support services for less serious incidents. In addition, there have been occasions when genuine reports of abuse have been trivialised and not recorded by persons employed on child abuse report-lines.
So, what do we mean by substantiation?
You may have read that only about 20% of reports of child abuse are “substantiated”. In 2010 some 15,000 abuse reports were made by Queensland teachers to the Department of Child Safety, an annual increase of 40%17. Only 25% of reports were investigated and only 858 were “substantiated”. This was interpreted by media as thousands of allegations being false. “Unsubstantiated” means there was insufficient evidence of harm when the child was assessed by a department worker. It can also reflect a shortage of staff and the department’s inability to investigate all but the most serious cases. “Unsubstantiated” does not mean that the abuse did not occur; it may mean that the child did not feel sufficiently confident to disclose what happened to the assessing officer. In cases of child sexual abuse, children often remain silent because of threats that terrible things will happen if they “tell” or they may be simply too embarrassed to disclose the detail to strangers. If they were sexually abused by males, they may not be willing to talk to male police or social workers.
Unfortunately for the children in unsubstantiated cases, there is insufficient help to lessen the risk of re-abuse or stop neglect from becoming more serious18.
The need for a multi-disciplinary community approach
It is recognised that, to provide better protection for children, there has to be a multi-disciplinary community approach using early intervention programmes to strengthen families, reduce risks and the negative effects of child abuse after it has already occurred. This includes community and professional education to change damaging child-rearing attitudes and behaviours, recognise the early signs of abuse and neglect and give children sufficient knowledge and skills to recognise, escape from and report sexually inappropriate behaviour and cyber bullying. To achieve this, the capacity of the current and future workforce must be prepared across the range of child-related services, especially in education, child care, health, social work, the legal system, and psychology and counselling.
There is no instant fix for this enormous problem. Nurses and midwives are vital for preventing child abuse and neglect, given that some have contact with parents before or immediately after a child’s birth. Home visits are essential to locate vulnerable parents who lack and need support and practical assistance to develop sound parenting skills. In this way, nurses might be considered the first important professionals at the front line of child protection, followed by those involved in child care and education.
Most abused and neglected children attend school or early childhood centres. They give signs that an educated professional can identify. No other professionals spend whole days and weeks at a time with abuse victims. Carers and teachers have (or should have) a strong background in child development and as part of their professional role, they are expected to identify and respond to children’s special needs. The education sector undertakes preventive work through the implementation of child