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Safety in care (SC) file cluster

Identifying and definitional attributes

Metadata item type:Help on this termData Set Specification
METEOR identifier:Help on this term748884
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 Safety in care (SC) file cluster is used to collect information about substantiations of abuse in care, during the reference period. This includes substantiations of incidents of abuse in care where the incident occurred before the reference period in which it was substantiated. This is a standalone file and contains replication of some demographic items from elsewhere in the Child Protection National Minimum Data Set.
Only substantiations for children and young people who were aged less than 18 years at the time of the abuse are included (note, the client's age at the time of the substantiation is not used to determine if they are in scope). This includes unborn children in jurisdictions where they are covered under the child protection legislation.

The file contains information on children who were the subject of a substantiated incident of abuse, where the substantiated abuse happened while the child was in out-of-home care, on a third party parental order, or in a non-out-of-home care placement, but on an order that transfers full or partial parental responsibility to an agent of the State. To be included, the person held responsible for the abuse must have been either:

  • a) the approved carer
  • b) another person living in the household or care facility, including other children
  • c) an employee of the responsible care service/agency or government department, or
  • d) a person not living in the household, where a person in (a) or (c) above failed to protect the child, or the action or inaction of a person in (a) or (c) contributed to the abuse.

Note that a client may appear more than once in this file. Each distinct substantiation recorded by the department will be a new line in the file, delineated by the substantiation date.

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. This includes unborn children in jurisdictions where they are covered under the child protection legislation.

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 Safety in care (SC) 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.

Mandatory1
2Person—letters of family name, text XXX

DSS specific information:

'Letters of name' is collected as one item in cell number 2 in the Safety in care file of the CP National minimum data set (NMDS).

The 2nd, 3rd and 5th letters of the client's family name are combined with the 2nd and 3rd letters of the client's given name to obtain the 5 digit letters of the client's name.

For children who were unborn at the time of the notification and who were subsequently born by 31 August, letters of name should reflect the name given to the child following birth.

Mandatory1
3Person—letters of given name, text XX

DSS specific information:

'Letters of name' is collected as one item in cell number 2 in the Safety in care file of the CP NMDS.

The 2nd and 3rd letters of the client's given name are combined with the  2nd, 3rd and 5th letters of the client's family name to obtain the 5 digit letters of the client's name.

For children who were unborn at the time of the notification and who were subsequently born by 31 August, letters of name should reflect the name given to the child following birth.

Mandatory1
4Person—date of birth, DDMMYYYY

DSS specific information:

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

For children who were unborn at the time of the notification, estimated age can be calculated (e.g. – 1 month if due to be born in one month) from which an estimated date of birth (DOB) can be determined.

For children who were unborn at the time of the notification and who were subsequently born by 31 August, date of birth should be updated where possible.

When an estimate is required, all known fields should be entered (e.g. if only year is known use 01/01/YYYY, if year and month are known use 01/MM/YYYY.

If the date is not known and cannot be estimated, record as 01/01/1900.

If it is not applicable to record a date (i.e. the child has not been born by 31 August), record as 01/01/9999.

Mandatory1
5Date—estimate indicator, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Safety in care (SC) file cluster this data element is recorded twice:

  1. to show whether an estimated date of birth was recorded (cell number 4);
  2. to show whether an estimated date of substantiation was recorded (cell number 9)

Code 9 'Not stated/inadequately described' in the data element is equivalent to code 99 in the Child protection NMDS collection manual.

Mandatory2
6Person—sex, code N

DSS specific information:

For unborn children whose sex is unknown, 97 'Not applicable' should be recorded.

Code 9 'Not stated/inadequately described' in the data element is equivalent to code 99 in the Child protection NMDS collection manual.

Mandatory1
7Person—Indigenous status, code N

DSS specific information:

Record 5 'Indigenous - not further specified' where no differentiation between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander is made. This code is used in the CP NMDS and is not mappable to the Indigenous status standard.

Code 9 'Not stated/inadequately described' in the data element is equivalent to code 99 in the Child protection NMDS collection manual.

Mandatory1
8Service event—living arrangement type, care arrangement code N[N]Mandatory1
9Child protection substantiation—date of substantiation, DDMMYYYY

DSS specific information:

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

Mandatory1
10Child—primary type of abuse or neglect, code N[N]Mandatory1
11Child—other type of abuse or neglect, code N[N]

Conditional obligation:

Only to be used when more than one type of abuse has been identified.

DSS specific information:

Four separate data items are used to collect the other types of abuse identified as part of the substantiation: physical abuse (cell number 11); sexual abuse (cell number 12); emotional abuse (cell number 13); and neglect (cell number 14).

Conditional3
12Child protection substantiation—sexual exploitation indicator, yes/no/not applicable/not stated/inadequately described code N

DSS specific information:

Code 7 'Not applicable' in the data element is equivalent to code 97 in the Child protection NMDS collection manual.

Code 9 'Not stated/inadequately described' in the data element is equivalent to code 99 in the Child protection NMDS collection manual.

Mandatory1
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