
Care and protection orders (CPOs) are legal orders or arrangements that place partial or all responsibility for a child’s welfare with child protection agencies. In Australia, state and territory governments are responsible for statutory child protection. Their respective departments work with children and families to protect them from abuse, neglect or other harm (AIHW 2022).
Between 2016–17 to 2020–21, the rate of children on care and protection orders increased – from 9.9 per 1,000 children at 30 June 2017 to 10.9 per 1,000 children at 30 June 2021 (AIHW 2022). Of the 61,700 children on care and protection orders at 30 June 2021, most were living in home-based care (67%), with relatives/kinship care (39%) and foster care (27%) being the most common living arrangements.
Some children are placed in out-of-home care while others remain living at home with support from informal support networks, child protection agencies and community-based agencies.
Pathways into homelessness for children on care and protection orders are complex. For example, children who present alone may have absconded from their home due to family violence, abuse or neglect (Noble-Carr & Trew 2018). Children may also seek support from SHS agencies with their carers.
Family and domestic violence is one of the main reasons that families at risk of homelessness seek assistance from SHS agencies. It is also one of the leading reasons for statutory intervention, and SHS agencies often work with the same families as children as child protection authorities (MICAH Projects 2016).
Linked data has been used to describe the characteristics of children and young people who received both child protection (an investigated notification, care and protection order or out-of-home care) and specialist homelessness services (SHS) (AIHW 2016). Compared with children who accessed only SHS, children who accessed both child protection and SHS were more likely to have experienced family and domestic violence (53%, compared with 44%). For more information about children on care and protection orders, see Child protection Australia 2020–21.
Reporting children on care and protection orders in the Specialist Homelessness Services Collection (SHSC)
A client is considered to be under a care and protection order (CPO) if they are under 18 and have provided any of the following information in any support period during the reporting period.
They reported that they were under a CPO and had the following care arrangements:
- family group home
- residential care
- kinship care (reimbursed)
- kinship care (not reimbursed)
- foster care
- other home-based care (reimbursed)
- independent living
- other living arrangements
- parents, or
They have reported ‘transition from foster care/child safety residential placements’ as a reason for seeking assistance or the main reason for seeking assistance.
For more information, see Technical notes.