You are here:
- Home
- Child and family
- Our performance
- Adoption
- Child and family reform
- Child and family resources
- Child Safety Practice Manual
- Foster and kinship care
- NDIS implementation
- Protecting children
- Queensland Government response to the death of Mason Jett Lee
- Queensland Government Response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
- Support for children and families
- Improved safety
- Adoptions
- Contacts
- Demographics
- Family and household characteristics
- Family Support and Child Protection System Framework
- Family Support Services
- Glossary of terms
- High quality services and improved wellbeing
- Intake phase
- Investigation and assessment phase
- Ongoing intervention phase
- Ongoing intervention phase (Permanency planning)
- Regional data
- Representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
- Resources and publications
- Summary statistics
- System and Practice Reviews - Child deaths
- Table notes
- Standard of care reviews and harm reports
Standard of care reviews and harm reports
Graphs
Number of children subject to a standards of care review, harm report and substantiated harm report, by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, Queensland, 2019-20
| Matter of concern | Indigenous | Non-Indigenous |
|---|---|---|
| CPCR | 217 | 312 |
| MOC Notification | 301 | 388 |
| MOC Substantiation | 90 | 100 |
Tables
| Description | Annual | Quarterly |
|---|---|---|
| SOC.1: Standards of care reviews and harm reports, by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, Queensland | Excel Excel | Excel Excel |
| SOC.2: Standards of care reviews and harm reports, by sex, Queensland | Excel Excel | Excel Excel |
| SOC.3: Standards of care reviews and harm reports, by age group, Queensland | Excel Excel | Excel Excel |
| HR.1: Children subject to substantiated harm reports, by most serious abuse type, Queensland | Excel Excel | Excel Excel |
| HR.2: Proportion of children in out-of-home care who were subject to a harm report substantiation, Queensland | Excel Excel | Excel Excel |
What are standards of care reviews and harm reports?
On 8 July 2013 the department replaced its policy, Assessing and responding to matters of concern with the Responding to concerns about the standards of care policy. The revised policy places a greater emphasis on developing solutions in partnership with carers and foster and kinship care services or the residential care services if concerns have been identified about the standard of care provided to a child in their care.
When a child is in the custody or guardianship of the chief executive and placed in care, the department has a responsibility to ensure they are cared for in a way that ensures their safety, belonging and wellbeing. The department works collaboratively with members of the child’s care team who share the responsibility to proactively monitor the placement and provide effective supports to the carer or care service to meet the child’s needs.
The Child Protection Act 1999, sets out the standards by which children in care are to be cared for. These standards reflect the reasonable and widely held expectations that a child in care should have their needs met in an accountable way.
The department must respond to concerns about the standard of care provided to a child. This can occur by:
- continuing to monitor the standards of care, where concerns do not meet the threshold for conducting a standards of care review or harm report (i.e. not reported on)
- conducting a standards of care review, where a child has not experienced abuse.
- recording a harm report and responding with an investigation and assessment, where a child has experienced harm or it is suspected they have experienced abuse.
A standards of care review will determine whether the standards of care have been met by the care provider.
A harm report investigation and assessment will determine if a child has been abused or is at risk of abuse, and include an assessment of whether the standards of care have been met. Depending on the outcome the department, in collaboration with the kinship and foster care service or residential service, may review the carer’s suitability, the level of support available and provided to the child and/or carer, or appropriateness of the placement to meet the child’s safety, belonging and wellbeing.
A harm report investigation must commence within 24 hours of receiving a report.
Harm report data are reported in the reference period that the abuse was reported, which is not necessarily when the abuse occurred (historical concerns).
A carer or staff member of a care service may be held responsible for abuse occurring if their actions or inactions resulted in a child being abused (that is, failure to protect).
Why this topic is important
The protection of children and young people from harm is a key priority for the department. Regular monitoring and reporting on the safety and wellbeing of children in care is critical to ensure that children remain safe and that any concerns about their care are resolved.
Trends
For the year ending 30 June 2020, the department recorded 836 standards of care reviews relating to 745 children and 373 harm reports relating to 354 children.
A total of 197 children were subject to a harm report substantiation. By abuse type, emotional abuse comprised 69.0 per cent, physical abuse comprised 13.2 per cent, sexual abuse comprised 9.1 per cent and neglect comprised 8.6 per cent.
- Last reviewed
- 14 December 2020
- Last modified
- 20 December 2020
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence