The Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS) is funded and managed by the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ). 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 report is one of four analyses that were undertaken to examine the outcomes of children and young people (hereafter children) who exit out-of-home care (OOHC) to guardianship orders. This series of analysis focuses on ‘transitioned guardians’, that is OOHC relative/kinship carers allocated full parental responsibility for a child who were automatically transitioned to guardianship orders when the legislative amendment was proclaimed in October 2014. Further analysis using subsequent waves of data collection will provide information on the longer term outcomes of children, and for children exiting from a variety of OOHC legal orders and placement types to guardianship orders, to inform policy and practice.