Children in contact with SA’s child protection system more likely to die young, expert says

An alarming statistic revealed about children who have had contact with SA’s system could be addressed by one critical measure.

Children who have had contact with South Australia’s child protection system are up to four times more likely to die young, an expert says.

The alarming finding has prompted calls to devote more funding to intensive family support services such as drug and alcohol services, emergency departments, mental health support as well as homelessness help.

The Advertiser revealed this week almost 60 children who were removed from unsafe parents, or reported at-risk by authorities, have died in the past four years.

Department for Child Protection (DCP) chief executive Cathy Taylor said many of the children may have died of unrelated incidents, such as motor vehicle accidents — but the exact number is not known.

But UniSA professor Leonie Segal, who has done research on funding and mortality rates in the state’s child protection system, said children known to authorities are far more likely to die young than their peers.

SA Department of Child Protection chief executive Cathy Taylor. Picture Emma Brasier

SA Minister for Child Protection Katrine Hildyard. Picture: Emma Brasier.

According to her study, which analysed data between 1990-2019, the risk of death for children with any child protection contact was 4.3 times for that of boys and 3.4 times that of girls who had never been reported.

She said the difficulty for DCP was that they receive around 80,000 concern reports every year and must identify which kids are the most vulnerable.

“They do a reasonable job,” she said.

However, Prof Segal said intensive family support services can also be crucial in reaching and helping the most valuable families.

“These services need to step-up and offer high quality, trauma-informed services,” she said.

For this reason, she said it “does not make sense” that SA spends only about $25m each year on intensive family support services to prevent children from entering the system.

In contrast, the state spends less than $10m on reunification — but more than $500m supporting children in care.

Child Protection Minister Katrine Hildyard said the government was “deeply cognisant of the need for additional preventive measures to keep children safe”.

“We are steadfastly committed to working towards tackling the deeply interconnected and complex issues that many children and their families sadly face — intergenerational trauma, domestic violence, poverty, mental ill health, substance misuse,” she said.

“We are also managing an enormous volume of notifications and need, with one in three children now reported to Child Protection at some point.”

Ms Hildyard said an extra $155m had been invested in child protection since Labor took office.