2000 SA babies each year flagged as at risk before they turn one

Thousands of babies are being born into SA homes where they’re at risk before they can even walk or talk.

One in 10 babies in South Australia, or 2000 every year, are reported to child protection authorities before their 1st birthday.

Half are born into homes where no parent has a job and in almost two-thirds of families the parents needed child protection intervention themselves as kids.

The startling figures reveal the bleak reality for too many babies born into an uphill battle “before they can walk and talk”.

The University of Adelaide’s BetterStart research team has told a royal commission into early childhood education and care in SA that reports to child protection authorities should “be considered part of an early-warning system” for children who will continue to struggle with their health and development.

“The system knows who these children and families are,” BetterStart’s Dr Rhiannon Pilkington said. “Child protection is an enormous public health issue.

University of Adelaide BetterStart postdoctoral research fellow Dr Rhiannon Pilkington.

“There is no one department that is equipped to respond to this level of demand.”

Without more funding for early intervention Dr Pilkington warned “we will continue to see the flow-on effects of child protection risk on later-life child outcomes”.

Of the one-in-10 babies reported before they turn one, 80 per cent are reported at least once more by age five, and 40 per cent are the subject of five or more reports.

The research also found:

TWO in five of the babies are born to a single parent.

ONE-quarter of parents are struggling with substance abuse, compared with just 1 per cent among families with no child protection involvement.

ONE-third of families are battling three or more disadvantages, such as addiction, poverty, domestic violence or mental illness.

Dr Pilkington said the figures even “underestimate” the problem because they represent only the most serious cases and police data could not be included in the research.

She noted the SA government spends only 10 per cent of child protection funding on family support programs, compared with 27 per cent in Victoria and a national average of 18 per cent.

“There are countless reports to child protection … but in the end there is a lack of service provision to families that actually changes their situation,” she said.

Child Protection Katrine Hildyard says the government has increased funding to help at-risk children. Picture NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier.

Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard has said her government had committed an extra $155.6m to the system since March 2022.

Much of this has been allocated to hiring staff and caring for children in state-run homes.

Child Protection Department deputy chief executive Fiona Ward said the level of disadvantage in some areas of SA meant one in three children would be reported to the department at some point before they turned 18.

The majority of those families have “multiple and complex needs with active domestic violence, unmanaged mental illness, current substance addiction and housing instability as key underlying factors driving children’s experience of abuse and neglect”, she said.

Ms Ward said the department had invested in support for pregnant mothers and high-risk infant workers in hospitals but “further investment is required” by government to offer enough support services for the thousands of families reported each year.