The Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) is funded and managed by the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services (FACS). It is the first large-scale prospective longitudinal study of children and young people in out-of-home care (OOHC) in Australia. Information on safety, permanency and wellbeing is being collected from various sources. The child developmental domains of interest are physical health, socio-emotional wellbeing and cognitive/learning ability.

This paper examines the infants and toddlers in the POCLS sample who exited out-of-home care because they either went home to live with their parents (i.e. restoration), were placed with guardians, or because they were adopted.