A new study of child maltreatment over the last two decades in developed countries has found no consistent decrease in rates despite a raft of policy initiatives.
The research, which analysed trends in six developed countries or states, was published today in the prestigious international journal The Lancet.
Dr Melissa O'Donnell , from Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research ,was a co-author on the research paper and contributed the Australian perspective based on her analysis of Western Australian data. This was then compared with information from Sweden, England, New Zealand, Manitoba-Canada and the USA.
The study is unique because it used three types of indicators of child maltreatment - violent deaths in children, injuries related to maltreatment, and involvement by child protection agencies, to compare trends in different countries.
Dr O'Donnell said the study found large variations between the countries and states in the frequency of involvement by child protection agencies, but much less variation in rates of maltreatment-related injury or violent death, reflecting differences in government policies.
Comparisons between WA and other countries:
- Violent deaths in the USA were more than five times higher than in in Australia, which together with Sweden had the lowest rates.
- There was little variation between countries in the rate of maltreatment related injury admissions and officially recognised physical abuse or neglect.
- New Zealand and USA has substantially higher child protection investigations.
- Placement in out of home care was ten times higher in Manitoba, Canada than in other countries, and twice as high for infants in England, New Zealand and the USA than in WA or Sweden.
In Western Australia:
For infants rates of violent deaths remained stable but injury admission due to maltreatment or assault increased significantly. Most child protection agency indicators increased significantly between 1990-2005. Rates of placement in out-of-home care increased substantially during the early 1990s and then stabilised.
In children 1 year and older, rates of violent death and maltreatment-related injury admissions were stable. There were no significant changes in the rate of officially recognised physical abuse or neglect however there was a significant increase in children placed in out of home care.
Dr O'Donnell said the research reinforced the need to improve the evidence base for child protection policies.
"If we are going to have effective policies, then we need better evidence about what are the driving factors, which professionals are seeing these children, and what really works in terms of prevention and early intervention," she said.
"We are really leading the way here in Western Australia where the Telethon Institute is working with State Government departments to analyse anonymised data from healthcare and child protection services that will give us a much more accurate picture of the effects of policy on trends in child maltreatment."
Dr O'Donnell said that since 2005 in Australia the number of children in out of home of home care has risen by 51% which affects a substantial minority of children, particularly those of Aboriginal origin.
"We do know that support of families requires more than just the action from the Department of Child Protection. For example, in Sweden there is good provision of parenting support for families such as universal access to day care as well as low levels of child poverty."
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Citation:
Ruth Gilbert, John Fluke, Melissa O'Donnell, Arturo Gonzalez-Izquierdo, Marni Brownell, Pauline Gulliver, Staffan Janson, Peter Sidebotham. Child maltreatment: variation in trends and policies in six developed countries. Published Online December 9, 2011 DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61087-8