For this study, physical and mental health, school achievement, justice involvement and child protection contact were explored for three cohorts of children born between 1 January 1990 and 30 June 1995:
- a Care group - children who had a period in care (2,003);
- a Maltreatment group - children with at least one substantiated maltreatment allegation but no time in care (2,761); and
- a Control group - children with no child protection contact, matched to the Care group on age, socioeconomic characteristics at birth, gender and Aboriginality (9,955).
Linked data was obtained to 30 June 2013 from the following sources: Midwives Notifications (births), Hospital Morbidity Data Collection (all public and private hospital separations), Death Registrations, Mental Health Information System (public and private inpatient episodes, and publiconly outpatients), Western Australian Certificate of Education (secondary school certificate and vocational education and training qualifications), Justice (community-bases sentences, juvenile detentions and adult imprisonments) and Child Protection and Family Support.
Overall, the Care group had poorer outcomes in most areas compared to the Maltreatment and Control groups. Some of the results were consistent with previous research that young people who have been in care have poorer outcomes, with the literature indicating that trauma related to past maltreatment, adverse family circumstances and disadvantage all have an effect. This study did not attempt to examine the effect of different care experiences on outcomes, and the children in this study were in care for varying lengths of time.
