UniSA research reveals higher risk of early death among children involved in SA child protection system

A new report reveals the factor putting too many children at higher risk of dying before they reach their 16th birthday.

Children who have been reported to child protection authorities are four times more likely to die before they reach their 16th birthday, alarming new research warns.

And the risk is higher for boys, according to a UniSA report released today.

Lead researcher Professor Leonie Segal said it was the first time such analysis had revealed the “extreme seriousness” of child abuse and neglect.

The findings are released as Deputy Coroner Anthony Schapel opened an inquest this week into the deaths of two children killed by their mother’s boyfriend in 2016.

Amber Rose Rigney, 6, and her brother Korey Lee Mitchell, 5, were the subject of multiple reports to child protection authorities before their deaths, including concerns they were going hungry and not attending school.

The UniSA report is based on more than 600,000 South Australian children born between 1986 and 2017.

It compares death rates among those who were known to child protection authorities and those with no involvement. Children who had been removed from their parents and taken into state care, even if later returned home, were five times as likely to die before they turned 16.

Only 27 per cent of those deaths occurred during the time the child was in care.

Among children who were reported to authorities, but not removed, boys with child protection concerns were four times more likely to die before age 16 and girls 3.4 times more likely.

Even when analysis is adjusted for “adversities” like poverty or birth abnormalities the death rates were 3.4 times higher for boys and 2.5 times higher for girls.

Professor Segal said the findings should create urgency among child protection authorities, but also teachers, childcare workers, GPs and other health staff, to support families as early as possible.

“There are programs out there but they’re just not to scale,” she said. “Unless there is serious funding going into this it’s very hard to see how things can change.”

A Child Protection Department spokeswoman said the research “highlights how supporting children … exposed to trauma is a critical priority for the whole community”.

“We are committed to changing the trajectory of these outcomes for children,” she said, adding that all deaths and serious injuries of children “known to” the department are reviewed.

Professor Segal also recommended family circumstances be more clearly identified in reporting on causes of death among children: “In nearly 30 years of data and 1635 child deaths child maltreatment was coded as a contributing cause in just two children’s deaths.”