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30 August 2011Commissioner for Children and Young People WA Michelle Scott has released a new online resource that provides a socio-demographic profile of Western Australia’s 500,000 children and young people.

The Profile of Children and Young People in Western Australia is both a comprehensive report and a website that describe the State’s population of under 18 year-olds through current data on population distribution, diversity and family characteristics.

Developed primarily from Australian Bureau of Statistics data, the Profile provides information on topics such as birth rate, housing, gender distribution, education, religion and involvement in the criminal justice system.

It highlights key information that can be used by policy makers and planners in government and the private sector to develop better programs and services for children and young people and their families. For example:

• The number of 0 to 4 year-olds in WA has increased by 21.5% in the past 10 years.
• The number of children and young people in WA will increase by 64% in the next 45 years.
• 40.7% of the Aboriginal population is younger than 18 years.
• 63% of 2 and 3 year-olds in WA attend some type of child care.
• 64.4% of Aboriginal children and young people live outside the Perth Metropolitan area.
• 6.7% of 0 to 15 year-olds in WA are living with a disability, long-term illness or pain.
• 4 in 10 humanitarian entrants to WA are children and young people.
• About 1 in 3 families in the Kimberley are one-parent families.
• In almost 60% of couple families with children younger than 15 years, both parents are employed.

The Profile is the first phase of the Commissioner’s Wellbeing Monitoring Framework, which will measure how WA’s children and young people are faring and enable comparison with national and international data.

The second phase involves a compilation of WA’s best-practice and most promising programs and a series of measures, such as health and safety and behaviours and risks, that will create a broader picture of children and young people’s wellbeing.

When completed later this year, the Framework will enable government and the private sector to identify where resources can be directed to achieve the best results in the care of children and young people.