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Living arrangements for children under care (LA) file cluster

Identifying and definitional attributes

Metadata item type:Help on this termData Set Specification
METEOR identifier:Help on this term748857
Registration status:Help on this term
  • Children and Families, Standard 03/11/2021
DSS type:Help on this termData Element Cluster
Scope:Help on this term

The Living arrangements for children under care (LA) file cluster contains information about the living arrangements recorded during the reference period for children under the care of a Department responsible for child protection (i.e. children on orders who were not in funded out-of-home care and children in funded out-of-home care placements regardless of whether they were on an order).

Collection and usage attributes

Guide for use:Help on this term

For this file a person is a child or young person aged less than 18 years. Children who turn 18 during the reference period may also be included.

Funded out-of-home care placements are defined as out-of-home overnight care for children aged less than 18 years, where the state makes a financial payment or where a financial payment has been offered but has been declined by the carer. This includes placements with relatives (other than parents) where there is ongoing case management and financial payment has been made or offered but has been declined by the carer. It should be noted that children in funded ‘out-of-home care’ include children in both legal and voluntary placements and placements made for the purpose of providing respite for parents/carers. The following are excluded from out-of-home care: children who enter and exit a funded out-of-home care placement on the same day; placements solely funded by disability services, psychiatric services, specialist homelessness services, juvenile justice facilities, or overnight child care services; children on third party parental responsibility or immigration orders; supported placements for children aged 18 years or older; pre-adoptive placements and placements for children whose adoptive parents receive ongoing funding due to the support needs of the child; or children who are self-placed without the approval of the Department.

 

Collection methods:Help on this term

Note that a client may appear more than once in this file. Each change in living arrangement a child has will be a new line in the file, delineated by a start and end date. Changes in living arrangement include: a change in the type of living arrangement (e.g. from home-based to a facility-based placement); or within living arrangement types, a change in the venue (e.g. a change from one home-based placement to a different home-based placement).

However, short breaks in out-of-home care placements (not for the purpose of respite) whereby the child is not at their usual place of residence but the intention is for the child to return to their prior living arrangement (i.e. their room and most of their substantial possessions remain in the original home environment) should not be recorded as a new living arrangement in the file. These breaks include: hospital admissions, periods of time spent in juvenile detention centres, holidays, school camps and excursions. However, any break of 60 days or more is deemed to be an exit from out-of-home care.

For family group homes, if the carers leave the home for more than 14 days at a time (e.g. annual leave), this should be recorded as a new living arrangement in the file.

Source and reference attributes

Submitting organisation:Help on this term

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Steward:Help on this termAustralian Institute of Health and Welfare
Origin:Help on this term

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) 2021. Child protection national minimum data set, data collection manual 2020-21. Canberra: AIHW.

Relational attributes

Related metadata references:Help on this term
Supersedes Living arrangements for children under care (LA) file cluster
  • Children and Families, Superseded 03/11/2021
Implementation in Data Set Specifications:Help on this term
All attributes +

Child protection NMDS 2020–21Children and Families, Standard 03/11/2021

DSS specific attributes +

Implementation start date: 01/07/2019

Implementation end date: 30/06/2021


Metadata items in this Data Set SpecificationHelp on this term

Show more detail
Seq No.Help on this termMetadata itemHelp on this termObligationHelp on this termMax occursHelp on this term
1Person—person identifier, child protection NX[X(11)]

DSS specific information:

The person identifier (ID) is the identifier for the child (the child protection client). Each ID is used by only one client and each client has only one ID.
 
The person ID in the Living arrangements file must appear in the Client file.

Mandatory1
2Service event—living arrangement start date, DDMMYYYY

DSS specific information:

This collection requires a non-standard format for this data item: DD/MM/YYYY.

Mandatory1
3Address—suburb/town/locality name, text X[X(45)]

DSS specific information:

The suburb/town/locality name of the child's living arrangement.

For children residing outside Australia record ‘Overseas’.

Mandatory1
4Address—Australian postcode, code (Postcode datafile) NNNN

DSS specific information:

The postcode of the child's living arrangement. Record code 9999 for 'Not stated/inadequately described'.

For children residing outside Australia record 9999 ‘Not stated/inadequately described’.

Mandatory1
5Address—statistical area, level 2 (SA2) code (ASGS 2016) N(9)

DSS specific information:

The Statistical area level 2 (SA2) of the child's living arrangement. Record 99 for 'not stated/inadequately described'.

Mandatory1
6Service event—financial payment indicator, living arrangement code N[N]Mandatory1
7Service event—living arrangement type, child under care code N[N]Mandatory1
8Service event—respite placement indicator, yes/no/not applicable/not stated/inadequately described code N

Conditional obligation:

Conditional on the child living in a funded out-of-home care placement provided by a funded agency.

DSS specific information:

This data collection uses an alternate code set.

Code 97 ('Not applicable') should be mapped to Code 7 ('Not applicable') in the data element.

Code 99 ('Not stated/inadequately described') should be mapped to Code 9 ('Not stated/inadequately described') in the data element.

Conditional1
9Person—relationship of carer to child, code N[N]Mandatory1
10Service event—Indigenous agency placement indicator, yes/no/not applicable/not stated/inadequately described code N

Conditional obligation:

Conditional on the child being Indigenous and living in a funded out-of-home care placement provided by a funded agency.

DSS specific information:

 This data collection uses an alternate code set.

Code 97 ('Not applicable') should be mapped to Code 7 ('Not applicable') in the data element.

Code 99 ('Not stated/inadequately described') should be mapped to Code 9 ('Not stated/inadequately described') in the data element.

Conditional1
11Carer household—caregiver type, Indigenous child caregiver code N[N]

Conditional obligation:

Conditional on the child being Indigenous and living in a funded out-of-home care placement provided by a funded agency.

DSS specific information:

For the purpose of this data element cluster, the object class of this data element is understood to include residential care and family group homes, which are not private households.

Conditional1
12Carer household—household identifier, child protection identifier NX[X(11)]

DSS specific information:

Each carer household has only one ID. Each ID is only used by one carer household.

Each carer household may include one or more authorised carers (i.e. one or more Carer (person) IDs may be recorded under each carer household ID).

Code 97 'Not applicable' should be recorded if it is not applicable to record carer household ID (i.e. if the child is not living with a carer in a funded out-of-home care placement (e.g. living with parents, independent living, other living arrangements)).

For the purpose of this data element cluster, the object class of this data element is understood to include residential care and family group homes, which are not private households. This means that the carer household ID in the Carer household authorisation file will be a subset of the carer household ID in the Living arrangements file as residential care and family group homes are not included in the scope of carers in the carer household authorisation file.

Mandatory1
13Service event—living arrangement end date, DDMMYYYY

DSS specific information:

This collection requires a non-standard format for this data item: DD/MM/YYYY.

Mandatory1
14Service episode—episode start date, DDMMYYYY

Conditional obligation:

Conditional on the child being in a funded out-of-home care placement.

DSS specific information:

This collection requires a non-standard format for this data item: DD/MM/YYYY.

Where the funded out-of-home care placement was part of a preceding continuous episode of care, this is the start date of the first placement in the episode.

Episode of care is the period of time in which a child remains in out-of-home care. During this period, a child may have one or more different out-of-home care placements, including placements lasting less than 7 days. If a child has a return home or break of less than 60 days before returning to the same or different placement they are considered to be continuously in care during this period. However, any break of 60 days or more is deemed to be an exit from out-of-home care and will break the continuity of care.

Valid date, if applicable, occurs on or before 31 August following the reference period.

The date must be preceding 'Living arrangement start date'.

Note: All funded out-of-home care placements lasting less than 7 days should be included when determining the start date of a continuous episode of care.

When an estimate is required, all known fields should be entered (e.g. if year and month are known use 01/MM/YYYY; if the exact date is unknown but the reporting period to which it relates can be determined, use 01/07/YYYY).

If the date is not known and can’t be estimated, record 01/01/1900.

If it is not applicable to record a date (i.e. the living arrangement is not a funded out-of-home care placement or was not part of a preceding continuous episode of care e.g. this is the first placement in an episode of care), please record 01/01/9999.

Conditional1
15Service episode—funded out-of-home care placement, number N[NN]

Conditional obligation:

Conditional on the child being in funded out-of-home care placements.

DSS specific information:

This item should reflect an iterative count of the number of unique placements as at each record in the episode. If this cannot be provided, the total unique placements for the episode can be recorded.

Conditional1
16Child—reunification type, code N[N]Mandatory1
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