Population dynamics modelling of child protection populations in Australia

Abstract

Growing service demand is a perennial challenge for child protection systems in Australia, with the number of children involved in child protection (CP) investigations and admitted to out-of-home care (OOHC) increasing across Australian states and territories in the last decades. Since OOHC is costly and its effects on outcomes for children and youth are ambiguous, such a demand growth has attracted much scrutiny. While factors influencing involvement in CP and placement in OOHC have been studied extensively, a review of existing research literature shows that no study has applied mathematical formulations of population dynamics to model CP population structures and trends. This study inten..