Background

Children with disability are over-represented in out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia and internationally. Yet we know little about their circumstances, placement types, support needs, and the outcomes of their trajectories and wellbeing through care.

Objective

We examine the wellbeing and outcomes of children with and without disabilities in OOHC.

Participants and setting

We use panel data from waves 1–4 of the Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) collected between June 2011 and November 2018 by the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), Australia. The POCLS sampling framework covers all children aged 0–17 years who entered OOHC in NSW for the first time between May 2010 and October 2011 (n = 4126). A subset of these children (n = 2828) had final Children's Court orders by 30 April 2013. Among these, caregivers of 1789 children agreed to participate in the interview component of the POCLS.

Methods

We employ a random effects estimator to analyse the panel data. This is standard practice to exploit a panel database when some of the key explanatory variables are time invariant.

Results

Children with disability have poorer wellbeing than children without disability across the three domains of physical health, socio-emotional wellbeing, and cognitive ability. However, children with disability have fewer difficulties at school and better school bonding. The type of placements – namely relative/kinship care, restoration/adoption/guardianship, foster care and residential care – have little or limited association with wellbeing of children with disability.

Conclusions

Children with disability tend to have lower levels of wellbeing in OOHC than children without disability, and this is driven mainly by their disability status rather than care factors.

中文翻译：

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残疾儿童在家庭外护理的结果：来自澳大利亚护理纵向研究路径的证据

背景

在澳大利亚和国际上，接受户外护理 (OOHC) 的残疾儿童比例过高。然而，我们对他们的情况、安置类型、支持需求以及他们的发展轨迹和护理带来的福祉的结果知之甚少。

客观的

我们研究 OOHC 中残疾儿童和非残疾儿童的福祉和结果。

参加者及设置

我们使用澳大利亚新南威尔士州 (NSW) 社区和司法部 (DCJ) 于 2011 年 6 月至 2018 年 11 月期间收集的护理路径纵向研究 (POCLS) 第 1-4 波面板数据。POCLS 抽样框架涵盖了 2010 年 5 月至 2011 年 10 月期间首次进入新南威尔士州 OOHC 的所有 0-17 岁儿童（n  = 4126）。其中一部分儿童 ( n  = 2828) 于 2013 年 4 月 30 日收到了儿童法院的最终命令。其中，1789 名儿童的照顾者同意参加 POCLS 的面谈部分。

方法

我们采用随机效应估计器来分析面板数据。当一些关键解释变量不随时间变化时，这是利用面板数据库的标准做法。

结果

在身体健康、社会情感健康和认知能力三个领域，残疾儿童的福祉比非残疾儿童差。然而，残疾儿童在学校遇到的困难较少，学校关系也较好。安置类型——即亲属/亲属照顾、康复/收养/监护、寄养和寄宿照顾——与残疾儿童的福祉关系不大或有限。

结论

与非残疾儿童相比，残疾儿童在 OOHC 中的幸福感往往较低，这主要是由他们的残疾状况而非护理因素造成的。