Child and family

• Support for children and families
  • Support for parents and families
  • Independent person
    • Information for children and young people
    • Information for families
    • Information for independent persons
• Protecting children
  • About child protection
    • Reporting and referring concerns
    • Child protection legislation
    • Mandatory reporting
    • Children and young people's rights
    • Parents' rights
    • Roles and responsibilities
    • National approach to child protection
  • What is child abuse?
  • What is child sexual abuse?
  • How to prevent abuse
    • Protecting children from harm
    • Prevention and early intervention
  • Reporting child abuse
    • If you suspect harm
    • What happens when we are contacted?
    • What happens when a report is made?
    • Reporting child abuse in other states
  • Responding to child abuse
    • Moving a child to a safe place
    • Investigation and assessment
      • Unborn children
      • Assessment orders
    • Care Agreements
    • What you can expect
  • Ongoing intervention
    • Case planning
      • Service referrals
    • Support Service case
    • Intervention with Parental Agreement
    • Child Protection Order
    • Family group meetings
    • Court processes
    • Youth justice
    • Contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Family Group Meeting (FGM) Convenor Handbook
• Foster and kinship care
  • Carer training
    • Foster carer training
      • Foreword
      • Procedures and guidelines
      • Frequently asked questions
      • Orientation
      • Learning outcomes
      • Pre-service training
      • Water safety for carers
      • Learning journal
      • Standard training
      • Caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
      • Advanced training
        • Attachment
        • Whose problem is this?
        • Foster Parent College
        • Independence and connections
        • I'm an individual...
        • Infectious diseases
        • Ready, set, fly! A parent's guide to teaching life skills
        • Loss and grief for children in care
        • Participation
        • Positive and Protective series
        • Reality fostering
        • Strategies for Managing Abuse Related Trauma (SMART)
        • Whose job is this?
      • Recognition of prior learning (RPL)
      • Acknowledgements
  • Rights and responsibilities
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
    • Child Placement Principle
  • Regulation of care
    • Responding to concerns about the quality of care received by a child in a care arrangement
    • Community Visitors and Child Advocates
  • Contacts
    • Community foster care agency contacts
      • Brisbane Region
      • Central Queensland Region
      • Far North Queensland Region
      • North Coast Region
      • North Queensland Region
      • South East Region
      • South West Region
    • Indigenous foster care agency contacts
    • Peak body and advocacy group contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Information for existing carers
    • Information for prospective carers
    • Recruitment of foster carers
    • Children and Young People's Participation Strategy
• Adoption
  • Resources and publications
• Child and family reform
  • Sharing responsibility for children's safety and wellbeing
  • Supporting families earlier
  • Working better with families in contact with the child protection system
  • Meeting the needs and requirements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, families and communities
    • Empowering Families Innovation Fund
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Service Reform Project
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Wellbeing Services
    • Family Participation Program
    • Indigenous career progression - cadetships and scholarships
    • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child protection sector and service development
  • Improving care and post-care for children and young people
  • Delivering quality services to children and families through a capable, motivated workforce and client-focused organisations
    • Quality Improvement Program
  • Building an accountable, transparent and cost-effective system
  • Child protection legislation reform
  • History of child protection legislation reforms
  • Specialist Services
  • Using technology for business transformation
• Queensland Government Response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
  • Truth, Healing and Reconciliation Taskforce
    • Taskforce members
  • National Redress Scheme in Queensland
• Queensland Government response to the death of Mason Jett Lee
• NDIS implementation
  • Information for young people with disability in care
  • Information for foster and kinship carers of children with disability
  • NDIS information for parents and families of children in care
  • NDIS information for Family Support Providers
  • NDIS information for Residential Care services
• Our performance
  • Summary statistics
    • Child protection orders
    • Protective orders
  • Family Support and Child Protection System Framework
  • Family Support Services
  • Intake phase
    • Child concern reports
    • Notifications
  • Investigation and assessment phase
    • Assessment orders
    • Investigation and assessment
    • Substantiations
  • Ongoing intervention phase
    • Intervention with parental agreement
    • Short-term child protection orders
    • Living away from home
    • Carer families
  • Ongoing intervention phase (Permanency planning)
    • Legal Permanency - Long-term child protection orders
    • Exiting out-of-home care
  • Improved safety
    • Re-entry
    • Standard of care reviews and harm reports
  • High quality services and improved wellbeing
    • Case plans
    • Child health passports
    • Physical Permanency: Stability and permanency of placements
    • Transition to adulthood
    • Relational Permanency – Placement with siblings
    • Cultural support plan
  • Representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
    • Our Way Strategy and Action Plan
    • Placement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
  • Family and household characteristics
  • Demographics
  • System and Practice Reviews - Child deaths
  • Regional data
    • Central Queensland region
    • Moreton region
    • Northern region
    • South East region
    • South West region
  • Adoptions
  • Glossary of terms
  • Table notes
  • Contacts
  • Resources and publications
    • Child protection partnerships reports
• Child Safety Practice Manual
• Child and family resources
  • Protecting children: an inquiry into abuse of children in foster care
  • Managing child safety information
  • Assessment of the OneSchool Referral Process
  • Evaluation of the Child Protection Joint Response Team Trial

You are here:

1. Home
2. Child and family
   • About us
   • Contact us
   • News
   • Our stories
   • Violence prevention
   • Women
   • Youth
3. 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
4. Ongoing intervention phase (Permanency planning)
   • 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
   • Improved safety
   • Intake phase
   • Investigation and assessment phase
   • Ongoing intervention phase
   • Regional data
   • Representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children
   • Resources and publications
   • Summary statistics
   • System and Practice Reviews - Child deaths
   • Table notes
5. Legal Permanency - Long-term child protection orders

Graphs

Number of children subject to long-term child protection orders, by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, Queensland, as at 30 June, 2016 to 2020

Rate of children subject to long-term child protection orders, per 1,000 children aged 0-17 years, by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status, Queensland, as at 30 June, 2016 to 2020

Tables

Table notes

What are long-term child protection orders?

Children who cannot be safely returned to their parents require stable, long-term care. To achieve this, the department can make a recommendation to the Director of Child Protection Litigation to apply for a child protection order granting long-term guardianship of the child to someone.

Long-term child protection orders include:

• long-term guardianship or permanent care order to a relative or another suitable person
• long-term guardianship to the chief executive (Director-General) in an approved placement.

These orders continue until the child turns 18 years.  A person who has a guardianship order has the authority for decisions about a child’s daily care and for decisions about their long-term welfare and development.

Examples of guardianship type decisions are medical procedures (such as whether to have surgery) and decisions about the child's education (such as enrolling in a new school) or participating in a work experience program.

Why this topic is important

Child protection orders granting guardianship and custody on a long term basis are an essential part of the child protection system as they enable the department to pursue long-term, stable living arrangements for children who cannot be safely reunified with their families with relational, physical and legal permanency the primary focus for children.

Trends

Of the 11,164 children subject to child protection orders as at 30 June 2020, 6,802 were subject to long-term orders. For 1,657 (or 24.4 per cent) of these children, the guardian was a relative or other suitable person.

The number of children subject to a long-term child protection order increased over the past year, from 6,403 as at 30 June 2019 to 6,802 as at 30 June 2020 (an increase of 6.2 per cent).

Over the same period the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children subject to long-term child protection orders increased by 7.1 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively.

Over the last five years, between 30 June 2016 and 30 June 2020 the number of children subject to a long-term child protection order increased by 15.0 per cent (from 5,917 to 6,802).