How many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children live in out-of-home care?
As of 30 June 2009, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children comprised 4.6% of all children aged 0-17 years in Australia (AIHW, 2010) yet in 2008-09 they constituted 31% of those children placed in out-of-home care. In all jurisdictions, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children on placement orders was higher than that for other children. As of June 2009, there were 10,512 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in Australia – a placement rate of 44.8 per 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0-17 years. In contrast, the rate for non-Indigenous children was 4.9 per 1,000. This indicates that the national rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care was 9.2 times the rate for other children (AIHW, 2010). There was substantial variation across the states and territories, with the placement rate of Indigenous children varying from 13.2 per 1,000 in the Northern Territory to 71.3 per 1
