Child protection and support services (CPSS) - out-of-home care NMDS pilot (2008)
Data Set Specification Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Set Specification |
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METEOR identifier: | 367283 |
Registration status: | Community Services (retired), Retired 06/02/2012 |
DSS type: | National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) |
Scope: | The Child Protection and Support Services National Minimum Data Set (CPSS NMDS) is designed to capture information on all children and young people involved in the child protection systems throughout Australia. There are three collections within the CPSS NMDS, all of which are unit record data. The first is the child protection specific data, which includes contacts, notifications, substantiations and services provided. The second is data on children who are on care and protection orders. The third is data on children in out-of-home care. Out-of-home care data collection All children or young people who were in out-of-home care at 1 July of the collection year should be included. The child's history in out-of-home care should be included, provided that there is a break of no more than 2 months between placements. All children who were placed in out-of-home care during the collection period should also be included. An episode is the period of time that a child is in an out-of-home care placement organised by the child protection authority (or their delegate) and/or where the child is being case managed by the authority, and the placement was made for child protection reasons. The child may or may not be on an order. The concept of an episode or placement is crucial to the collection of information about children in out-of-home care. It provides information about the flows into and out of out-of-home care, and it also provides for the calculation of length of time a child spends in out-of-home care. It is also essential to determine the number of different placements and carers that a child has throughout their time spent in out-of-home care. |
Collection and usage attributes | |
Statistical unit: | Unit record data. |
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Guide for use: | In this collection, only placements where the State makes a financial payment are counted. This includes placements with relatives other than parents, foster care, other home-based care, residential care and independent living. It does not include placements made in disability services, psychiatric services, juvenile justice facilities, SAAP services or overnight child care services. It includes all children in both legal and voluntary placements, i.e. children who are on a legal order and children who are not on a legal order. An episode/placement is always defined by an entry date and an exit date. Each placement the child has is counted. This includes when a child moves from one type of care to another e.g. foster care to residential care, and within types of care e.g. from one relative to another relative. |
Comments: | The implementation of the unit record data collections across all jurisdictions has not been finalised. Further results from the pilot testing and current aggregate data collections will be investigated prior to completion of a revised NMDS. |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | National Child Protection and Support Services data group. |
Steward: | National Community Services Information Management Group (NCSIMG) |
Origin: | Child protection and support services out-of-home care data dictionary. AIHW Version 1.0 Oct 2005. |
Reference documents: | Child Protection and Support Services National Minimum Data Set Data Collection manual. AIHW Sept 2005. |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes Child protection and support services (CPSS) - out-of-home care NMDS (July 2007) Community Services (retired), Superseded 01/05/2008 |