Living arrangements for children under care (LA) DSS Pilot (2010)
Data Set Specification Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Set Specification |
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METEOR identifier: | 433761 |
Registration status: | Community Services (retired), Recorded 19/08/2011 |
DSS type: | Data Set Specification (DSS) |
Scope: | The Living arrangements for children under care (LA) Data Set Specification (DSS) contains information about the history of living arrangements for children under the care of the relevant Department (i.e. children on orders who are not in funded out-of-home care and children in funded out-of-home care placements regardless of whether they are on an order). This includes living arrangements recorded during the reference period and also those from previous years. Children on orders are those children subject to the care and protection orders/arrangements included in the scope of the ‘Care and protection orders (CPO) DSS’. Funded out-of-home care placements are defined as out-of-home overnight care for children and young people aged less than 18 years, where the state makes a financial payment or where a financial payment has been offered but has been declined by the carer. This includes placements with relatives (other than parents) where the state makes a financial payment or where a financial payment has been offered but has been declined by the carer. It should be noted that children in funded ‘out-of-home care’ include children in both legal and voluntary placements and placements made for the purpose of providing respite for parents. It does not include placements solely funded by disability services, psychiatric services, specialist homelessness services, juvenile justice facilities, or overnight child care services. Pre-approved, short breaks in living arrangements whereby the child is not at their usual place of residence but the intention is for the child to return to the original living arrangement (i.e. their room and most of their substantial possessions remain in the original home environment) should not be recorded as a new living arrangement in the file. Approved breaks include: scheduled respite, hospital admissions, periods of time spent in juvenile detention centres, holidays, school camps and excursions. Any break of 2 months or more is deemed to be an exit from out-of-home care. For family group homes, if the carers leave the home for more than 2 weeks at a time (e.g. annual leave), this should be recorded as a new living arrangement in the file. Each new living arrangement a child has will be a new line in the file, delineated by a start and end date. |
Collection and usage attributes | |
Guide for use: | A living arrangement is always defined by an entry date and an exit date. Each living arrangement of the child 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. |
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Comments: | The 2010 unit record collection is a pilot test, therefore the implementation of the unit record data collection across all jurisdictions has not been finalised. The pilot test is a non-mandatory data set specification, rather than a national minimum data set specification, and is subject to change. A final unit record child protection NMDS will be developed when the results from the pilot/dress rehearsal testing are obtained and evaluated.
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Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | Performance and Data Working Group |
Steward: | National Community Services Information Management Group (NCSIMG) |
Origin: | Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) 2010. Child protection and support services National Minimum Data Set, data collection manual for the 2010 pilot collection. AIHW: Canberra. |
Reference documents: | AIHW 2011. Child protection Australia 2009-10. Child welfare series no. 51. Cat. no. CWS 39. Canberra: AIHW. Council of Australian Governments 2009. Protecting Children is Everyone's Business. National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children 2009-2020. FACHSIA. Viewed 18 March 2011, http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/families/pubs/ |
Relational attributes | |
Implementation in Data Set Specifications: | Child protection and support services (CPSS) DSS Pilot (2010) Community Services (retired), Recorded 19/08/2011 |