Findings from a NSW Child Development Study paper that examines the associations between increasing levels of child protection contact before the ages of 10 years and self-reported mental health at age 11 years.

What did the study find?

• Children with substantiated ROSH reports and children who had been placed in OOHC were the most likely to report clinical levels of mental health difficulties.
• Children with unsubstantiated or non-ROSH reports were also at increased risk of mental health difficulties in middle childhood compared to children with no child protection contact
• Of the children with any contact with child protection services (n=5,742), 41.2% were categorised as having abnormal levels of difficulties in at least one of the mental health domains measured compared to 28.1% of children with no child protection contact.
• The largest associations between child protection contact and mental health difficulties were for conduct problems and peer-relationship problems, relative to the smaller associations with emotional symptoms, prosocial behaviours, hyperactivity-inattention, and psychotic-like experiences of hallucinations and/or delusions.
• Children with substantiated ROSH reports or in OOHC were more than three times more likely to be categorised in the ‘abnormal’ band (top 10%) on the overall (total) difficulties Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) score than children with no child protection contact.