Out-of-home care

Identifying and definitional attributes
Metadata item type:	Glossary Item
METEOR identifier:	735716
Registration status:	Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021
Definition:	Out-of-home care (OOHC) is overnight care for children aged under 18 who are unable to live with their families due to child safety concerns. This includes placements approved by the department responsible for child protection for which there is ongoing case management and financial payment (including where a financial payment has been offered but has been declined by the carer). Out-of-home care includes legal (court-ordered) and voluntary placements, as well as placements made for the purpose of providing respite for parents and/or carers. Out-of-home care excludes: placements for children on third-party parental responsibility orders placements for children on immigration orders supported placements for children aged 18 or over pre-adoptive placements and placements for children whose adoptive parents receive ongoing funding due to the support needs of the child placements to which a child enters and exits on the same day placements solely funded by disability services, psychiatric services, specialist homelessness services, juvenile justice facilities, or overnight child care services cases in which a child self-places without approval by the department.

Collection and usage attributes
Comments:	As out-of-home care requires significant intervention in a child’s life, it is used as a last resort. The current priority is to keep children safely at home with their families wherever possible. If this is not possible the preferred option is to place the child within their wider family or community. Once a child is placed in out-of-home care, efforts are focused on maintaining the stability of their placement (permanency) and/or reuniting the child with their family if appropriate (reunification). Regardless of whether a child remains in out-of-home care on a long-term basis or reunites with their family, the goal is to provide a stable, safe environment for the child to grow up in.
Source and reference attributes
Submitting organisation:	Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Steward:	Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Origin:	AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) 2020. Child protection Australia 2018-19. Child welfare series no. 72. Cat. no. CWS 74. Canberra: AIHW.
Relational attributes
Related metadata references:	Supersedes Out-of-home care Children and Families, Superseded 20/01/2021 Community Services (retired), Recorded 19/08/2011
Metadata items which use this glossary item:	Abuse in care Children and Families, Standard 03/11/2021 Abuse in care Children and Families, Superseded 03/11/2021 Approved carer Children and Families, Standard 26/05/2021 Care arrangement code N[N] Children and Families, Superseded 03/11/2021 Care arrangement code N[N] Children and Families, Standard 03/11/2021 Child—reunification type Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021 Child—reunification type, code N[N] Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021 Funded out-of-home care placement Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021 Service episode—funded out-of-home care placement Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021 Service episode—funded out-of-home care placement, number N[NN] Children and Families, Standard 20/01/2021

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